“Aylee!” She feigns surprise, jumping to her feet to grab a blanket and covering her body. “It’s not what it looks like.” She races to the door with Tim only seconds behind her.
With blood running cold, I take off down the hallway that suddenly feels so endless. Tim’s barreling footsteps echo in my bones.
“AYLEE!”
The boom of his voice rattles my nerves and shakes my heart. Panic sets in and mingles with the pervasive storm of fear churning in my body. If I stop now, I know he’ll catch and hurt me. And suddenly the idea of suffering one more minute under his hand brings on a surge of such utter contempt that I’m bowling over by its force. I refuse to play his victim. I won’t let him hurt me. Not without a fight.
Adrenaline pumps through my veins as I hitch my skirt farther up my legs and lengthen my strides. The staircase is just a few feet away but I dash inside my room instead knowing if I can close and lock the door it’ll buy me time to escape out of my bedroom window. It’s a hasty plan, not thought out properly, but I hope it works. Scurrying to swing the door shut, I’m stunned when one hard shove of his shoulder into the door sends me flying backward.
I land on my butt, my legs in front of me, and my hands behind me break my fall. In the doorway, he stands breathing hard, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides.
“Aylee…?” My eyes shift for a millisecond to Mallory who’s standing just behind Tim’s left shoulder. “Sweetie, what are you doing here? I thought I was picking you up from Maddox’s apartment?”
My blood chills to arctic degrees and my heart sinks heavily to the floor. My eyes dart back to Tim’s face to find it contorting into a dark, sinister mask of pure fury. He only takes the time to slam close and lock my bedroom door behind him, leaving Mallory in the hall, before he trudges toward me. “Hey,” she whines, pounding on the door.
Surging to my feet, I race toward my bathroom…but I don’t make it. Crying out as he snatches me by the hair, I’m left grappling with my fear once again when he yanks me back and tosses me on my bed. I bounce, the wind knocks out of me, my scalp burning as I try to get up, try to scramble off the bed, but he leaps and lands on me like a rabid jungle cat. Mallory screams from behind the door, but he continues.
“Tell me you didn’t let that piece of shit touch you!” Spittle splashes across my face as he yanks my head off the bed, “You’re still a virgin! Tell me you’re still my little flower!” Cruelly, he twists a hand in my hair, gripping so tightly my scalp burns. “Tell me you didn’t give him what’s mine! TELL ME!” he roars, and fear like I’ve never known before suffocates every inch of me.
He looks so frightening. Imbalance, crazy, very nearly maniacal, and I know I won’t escape his clutches without permanent damage. Looking into the abyss of his dark, dark eyes, I face my mortality. He won’t let me live. And I no longer care.
“I gave him every inch of me. I let him lick and eat every part of my pussy until I came and came and came all over his tongue. And then I spread my legs and begged him to take my virginity. He fucked me hard and slow and so deep that I never wanted him to stop. And not once, not even a fucking millisecond did I think about you. You are a nonfactor. You do not exist. He erased your sickening, revolting touch from my soul and tattooed love there. You no longer matter. What you did no longer matters. I look at you and all you are is a sad, pathetic waste of humanity.”
The punch comes down like a battering ram against the side of my face. I can’t describe the stunning pain, but it pushes the air from my lungs and blinds me. But there’s only instinct, and while I fight and twist and kick to get away, his strength is so much more than mine. The weight of his fury drops down on me like a cart filled with anvils, each one of his raining punches depleting me of everything. I can’t think. I can’t cry. All that occurs is the staggering wave upon wave of brutal agony.
And then he hurts me in another way. He shoves up my skirt, rips my underwear, wrenches my thighs wide open, and rends me in two as he impales himself with one brutal thrust. He rips my shirt, yanking like a madman, rips my bra, and then attacks my chest. Squeezing my breasts painfully, sucking so hard at my nipples, and clamping his teeth down on my flesh with such cruelty that he draws blood.
Tears trickle down the sides of my beaten face from eyes that are now swollen shut as I scream until my vocal cords tear. He rots on top of me like a dying animal. His hot breath wafts across my wet face.
“That’s right, you fucking little whore, scream for me. This is me inside you now, bitch. I should’ve popped your fucking cherry years ago. I had to settle for Mallory instead. But she was hungry for it. Do you know how old she was when she gave it to me, baby girl? Hmm?” He slithers his tongue up my neck. “Ripe little thirteen. Just when you met her.” And he breathes hard in my ear. Mallory’s beating fists continue to echo in my ears, but soon her knocks disappear, and his grunts are the only sounds I hear. I turn my head away as sickness jumps to my throat. Three hard swallows sends the acid wash of bile back down. My head hangs limply as I start to die inside.
Every part of me is grateful that Maddox took my virginity. That he showed me how sweet and tender and beautiful it could be. Because what Tim is doing is beyond savage. My head jerks up and crashes back down as he flips me on my stomach, spreads my butt cheeks, and viciously tears through the tight ring of my anus. A sob escapes my lips. It’s too much. Too damn much. The excruciating torture is unbearable and yet my body won’t shut down. Make it end, God, please make it stop. My thoughts become hazy before my mind snaps. He shoves the side of my face into my pastel pink, peony blanket, and I breathe in shallow, hot air as I stare through narrowing, heavy eyes at the glinting sterling bracelet double wrapped around my wrist.
Maddox. My mind wraps his name around me like a blanket, sheltering me from my cryptic thoughts. Maddox. Max. It mewls at first. I’m not here in this bedroom. I’m on that cargo container, high in the air, in the massive parking lot, and Max is there. He’s lying next to me. Side by side, arms touching, hands interlacing between out warm bodies, and we stare up at the black sky that’s twinkling with stars. It’s a perfect, perfect moment.
“Aylee.” He comes into view, my own beautiful falling star, and sends my heart fluttering when he grins with that roguish charm. “I love you.” In my mind, he says the words he can’t say in reality, and they’re so sweet. So tender that when he kisses me, I come undone by the sheer force of his love for me. My body experiences the brutality of my present, but in my mind I’m soaking in love, and it’s where I will stay.
***
Mallory
Listening to the awful sounds of Aylee’s screams and the personal knowledge of just how violent Tim can be, I don’t realize what I’ve just done until Tim slams the door in my face. Currently shaking with absolute terror, I stand in front of my best friend’s bedroom door listening while her foster father rapes her. I’ve pushed too far. I didn’t mean to—
The shakes get worse. They intensify with each second that passes. And I don’t know if it’s the drugs or my nerves, but I need to do something. Anything. Jumping into action, I run down the stairs and nearly trip over Aylee’s backpack. Bending down and rummaging through it, I find what I’m looking for. There’s a text on the screen of her phone.
Checking to see if you’re okay.
Let me know.
The text is from a contact marked only as M. But I know who it is. I ponder simply texting him, but change my mind at the last minute.
He picks up on the first ring.
“Hey, beautiful,” he greets, like that’s her name, and sudden envy at the affection in his voice causes me to grow silent. Too silent.
“Aylee?” he questions. And I snap out of it.
“Maddox.”