“Tara!” He grabs my hair and yanks my head back, the binds cutting into my wrists from the force. “Tell me you want to feel a real cock!” Slade’s caught on to my little charade, but I just stay silent, retreating into my own fear.
“Fine, you won’t scream? Then I’ll make you. I’m gonna ram my dick right up your ass. Let’s see how quiet you are then.” He grabs both of my ass cheeks and spreads them apart. I break then, giving him exactly what he wants. “I want to feel a real cock! I want to feel real cock!” I screech frantically, a complete wreck.
“Too fucking late,” he rages, and I brace myself for more unbearable pain.
There’s suddenly a loud crash from behind us. Time seems to stand still as I hear Philly’s voice.
“Get the fuck away from her!”
I can’t see what’s happening, but I can feel Slade actually chuckle. “Get lost, kid. You probably don’t even know how to use that thi—”
BANG!
I startle from the sudden gunshot, trying my hardest to turn my head to see what happened.
“Philly? Philly!”
“I’m fine. Right here.” His voice is distant and his breathing is wheezy. “Jesus, Tara. Jesus Christ!” He scrambles to untie my ankles. “We need to get the fuck out of here.” He frees one leg, and my arms bear more weight.
“There’s a knife somewhere on the floor,” I tell him desperately.
“Way ahead of you.” He frantically saws on the rope tied to my other ankle. Philly then quickly climbs onto the bed in front of me.
“Hurry!” My arms can’t take much more.” I see him thinking in the soft light, trying to figure out the best way to cut me down.
“Sorry, there’s no better way to do this.” He hacks through one of the ropes by my wrist, and I drop like the dead weight I am. Philly tries to break my fall by rapidly hooking an arm under one of mine, but as soon as he touches me, I yelp, my entire body lighting up with pain.
“Okay. It’s okay.” He cuts my other arm loose, and I collapse to the ground, crying frailly.
“Come on, come on.” He rushes me. “We need to get the fuck out of here now.” He wraps the cover from the bed around my naked body. As soon as the material touches my open wounds, I see stars.
I’m slow moving but determined to get the hell out of this house alive. I’m barely standing when the sound of a helicopter hovers overhead. It sounds so close, like it’s going to land right on the roof.
“This is the police!” A robotic voice broadcasts deafeningly. “We have the premises surrounded! Come out with your hands up!”
Philly and I both freeze, and then there’s an explosion. We hit the deck, huddling together as what sounds like World War III breaks out. There’s shooting, yelling, and crashing, and spotlights flashing through the windows.
We can barely hear anything over the helicopter blades. Then our room is raided by several men all at once. Philly raises his gun, but at the last second, I catch the features of one of the faces in the bright spotlight.
“No!” I grab Philly’s hand, and the gun goes off, chaos ensuing all at once. CJ falls to the ground clutching his chest, Kayne tackles Philly, pinning him facedown, while more armed men flood the room. I don’t know who to go to first. I don’twant Kayne to hurt Philly, but I don’t want to ignore a wounded CJ lying on the floor. I no longer know which way is up as I retreat into my head, just rocking in a ball, muttering to myself. “Make it stop. Make it all stop.”
“Tara?” Someone grabs my face. “Tara. Look at me. Medic!” The person screams as if he has split personalities. “We need a goddamn medic! Tara?” His voice becomes calm. “It’s over. Look at me.”
I draw my eyes up to Jett’s. “Can you stay with me? I need you to stay with me. CJ is bleeding.”
“CJ?” I repeat like I’m driving out of a dense fog.
“It’s just a flesh wound.” I hear CJ’s voice and nearly cry.
“That might be true, but you lost like twenty pints of blood today. It could be fatal.”
“Fatal?” I break away from Jett and crawl over to CJ a broken mess.
“Jett, that’s more blood than what’s in the human body.” He rambles.
“You know what I mean, smartass.” Jett peers over at us.
“Hey, shortcake.” CJ smiles up at me loopy. “You shot me.”
