Page 174 of What We Burn

The walk takes less than a minute. The motel is the kind of place that doesn’t ask questions—single-story, exterior doors, a parking lot shared with the bar so nobody has to drive. He keeps his hand on the small of my back the whole way. Guiding. Proprietary. Room 9. He inserts the key and holds the door open for me like a man with manners.

I stumble inside.

The room isn’t anything special. Stained carpet, polyester bedspread, a TV bolted to the dresser. It smells like industrial cleaner and cigarettes and something stale underneath that no amount of disinfectant will ever reach.

I let my body go heavy as I sit on the edge of the bed, then tip sideways onto the mattress like the last of my coordination has given out. One arm draped across my stomach. The other hanging off the side, close to my boot. I let my eyes flutter closed. Let my breathing slow. Let myself become what he thinks I am—a girl who drank the drink he spiked and is now passed out.

He locks the door. The deadbolt clicks.

I hear him move. The creak of the floor. The rustle of his belt. The bedsprings dipping as he sits beside me. His hand on my knee, testing. When I don’t react, it slides higher.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “Just rest. I’ll take good care of you.”

His weight shifts. He leans over me, one hand braced on the mattress beside my head, the other pushing my shirt up. His breathing is heavier now. That wet, excited panting of a man who thinks the world has handed him another gift. His fingers hook into the waistband of my jeans.

I open my eyes.

For one perfect second, I see it—the flash of confusion, his brain trying to reconcile the unconscious girl with the wide-awake woman staring up at him. His mouth opens.

I pull the knife from my boot and drive it straight into his left eye.

The sound is wet. Specific.

“You bitch!”

He reels back, screaming. A raw, animal shriek that fills the room and bounces off the thin walls. His hands fly to his face, but I rip the blade free before he can take it with him.

I don’t freeze. I don’t hesitate.

I’m off the bed before he finds his balance, driving the knife into his shoulder, his chest, his gut. Blood pours through his fingers and splashes across my hands. My shirt. My face.

I laugh.

It comes out bright and wild and nothing like the sound a person is supposed to make in this moment.

“You fucking psycho! What the fuck is wrong with you?” he howls.

“What’s wrong with me?” I laugh again. “You’re the rapist, motherfucker. And you finally targeted the wrong girl.”

I lift the knife and he swings blind. His fist catches the side of my head and the world tilts, stars bursting behind my eyes. Then he comes forward—all panic, rage, and weight—catching me around the middle and driving me backward.

My back hits the floor and the air leaves my lungs. The knife is gone from my hand—there, on the carpet, two feet away, matte black blade slick red.

He’s on top of me before I can reach it. All that trucker weight, knees pinning my thighs, one big hand closing around both my wrists and shoving them above my head. Blood pours from his ruined eye onto my face. Warm. His other hand claws at my jeans, popping the button, dragging at the zipper.

“No—get OFF me⁠—”

“You’re gonna wish you’d never—” He’s panting, half-blind, fingers digging into my waistband. “Gonna take my time with you, you crazy little bitch⁠—”

I buck. Kick. My boots find no purchase on the carpet, heels skidding. He’s too heavy, built like the front end of his Peterbilt, and the hand around my wrists is a shackle. Not again. Not again.

Never again!

The anger comes back like a wave. White. Roaring.

I stop fighting the hand holding my wrists and let him think he’s won that war. He leans into it, shifting his weight forward to yank my jeans down—and I twist, wrench one hand free, and my fingers close around the knife’s grip like it was made to be there.

I scream.