I gagged. My eyes watered and I squeezed them shut, praying to God that they didn’t swell. I slammed my heelsagainst the floor as I tried to gain purchase to move away or buck Kush from my body. “That’s it, güerita, give me a reason to mutilate his corpse while I cum down your throat.”
Fuck!I stopped struggling and I tried to focus on something,anything else,but I couldn’t. Someone’s hand, I didn’t know whose, was raising my shirt and I heard the fabric of my sports bra being torn open to reveal my chest. The sound of something clattering beside me made me open my eyes. In my peripheral, I could just make out the hilt of a pocketknife.
Peter pulled back just enough to allow me to breathe, only to choke me with warm liquid that was forcing its way down my throat. I quickly turned my head to the side where my brother wasn’t lying and gagged. The pocketknife was just inches away from my head.
“Pinche puta, you’re supposed to swallow!” Peter yelled, spitting straight across my face.
Kush began thrusting so forcefully into me that Peter had to remove his knees from my hands to hold my shoulders to keep my body from sliding between his spread legs. I didn’t let the pain distract me and grabbed the knife. Without hesitation, I thrust it into the nearest body part.
Kush gasped, his eyes shooting open as he looked down at the knife sticking out of his body. He gingerly gripped the knife and fell onto his forearm, rolling his upper half onto the floor while crushing my legs. Kush was shouting but I didn’t process what as I shoved out from underneath his body, my hands slipping on the sticky blood.
I was turning to run to my room when my hair was grabbed so harshly that it snapped my neck and body backward and I landed on my butt. Before I could stop him, Peter’s boot landed on the side of my face. My ears were pounding with my erratic pulse and a high-pitched ringing as I tried to curl up into a ball to defend myself.
The kicking suddenly stopped, and I scrambled back to my feet, locking myself in my bedroom. I shuddered, gagging at the sight of my body covered in blood.
“Carlos is going to letmedo the torturing when he finds out what you’ve done,” Peter shouted from the other side of my door. “Pinche perra loca!”
I didn’t have time to think. I wiped my hands haphazardly on my sheets before I grabbed my backpack, which had been emptied in the process of him destroying my room. I shoved a handful of clothes inside. The adrenaline was the only thing that kept me moving as I threw my math textbook at my window. It took several attempts before it shattered, and I pushed the remaining glass pieces out to climb through the hole.
I could hear Peter shouting my name from the front door, slinging more threats towards my life as I crossed the street. I didn’t need to question whether or not they were real. Los Sietewouldfind me, and theywouldkill me. Just as Javi had warned. It wasn’t a scare tactic, and I was very much afraid.
I didn’t look back as my feet pounded the pavement, and I didn’t stop running until the adrenaline began to wear off and the pain settled inside me. I could no longer breathe, my ribs aching, and I stopped, clutching my side as I tried to take some breaths to prevent myself from passing out.
Flashes of my brother’s dead body filled my vision, and I quickly blinked them away. I needed to focus.
“Fight like hell.”
No, focus, Shiloh.
“Te quie—”
I slammed the heel of my hands over my eyes painfully, trying to wipe the images away. My eyes were prickling as tears threatened to form, but I quickly pulled my hands away with a shriek when I realized they were still covered in blood.
Fuck, I can’t afford to cry. I can’t afford to deal with my ridiculous allergy to my own goddamn tears. I need to fucking focus and stop being so goddamn weak. Stop being fucking weak!
I dropped my hands by my sides and shifted the weight of my backpack on my shoulder, looking around me. I was standing in the middle of an empty parking lot of a small strip mall.
Focus. What do you need to do right now?
I forced myself to drag my feet forward, pretending that Javier was walking there beside me, telling me to fucking buck up and endure the pain like he usually did when he was testing me.
I didn’t even know what time it was, but I had finally calmed my brain down enough to realize that I needed to get somewhere to assess the damage. Somewhere with a lock.
I walked until I reached a gas station convenience store that was open. I staggered inside, my body now shaking from a combination of being cold and the after-effects of the adrenaline that had been keeping me going until now. The sound of an electronic doorbell rang above my head as I entered, alerting the clerk to my presence. I was sure I didn’t look pretty, and I technically just stabbed someone who could very well be dead right now.
Fuck, was I a murderer? What if I actually killed Kush? I was never going to get out of this alive.
I slowly made my way to the counter where a middle-aged Latino man glared down at me.
“Bathroom,” I managed to say through chattering teeth.
He eyed me skeptically before sliding a key attached to a long piece of plastic through the hole in the glass barrier between us.
“You want me to call the cops?”
My heart hammered in my chest as I shook my head frantically. I’d learned my lesson. No cops.Ever. The man held up his hand, releasing his hold on the key.
I managed to make it to the bathroom without passing out and I locked the door behind me. It was dirty and smelled like a sewer, but I couldn’t really breathe through my nose anyway since it felt like it was swollen shut. When I reached the cracked mirror, I stared at my reflection and almost fell over at the hideous sight.
