Page 105 of Requiem

“We both know you’re better than that, Jeremy. Rape is a little … common for you, isn’t it?”

The question is a crapshoot. I’m hoping, once again, to appeal to his ego.

“And what makes you so sure that you know me so well, Jules? Hmm?”

“I loved you. I shared a bed with you. As you’ve just pointed out, I had a child with you. Yeah, I think I do know you.”

He shakes his head at me in disbelief.

“And to think we used to call you The Mouse.”

Before I can reply, he lurches forward, grabbing me by the shoulders and slamming me hard against the wall behind me. I gasp, trying to reclaim some of the breath that’s been knocked out of me, but then, his big hands are around my neck as he leans in close to my ear to speak.

“Oh, Jules, always so naive. You have not even begun to scratch the surface of what I’m capable of. But David, he’s going to know. He’s going to get a real good idea of the kind of pain I can inflict.”

“No,” I am shaking my head and gasping. “No!”

He smiles and nods. “I’m afraid so, Jules. Your boy will grow up without a mother,” he murmurs in faux pity. “But you know what? At least he has a father. And I don’t mean Matthew. I mean his real father, his biological father. Me.”

“What are you talking about?” I manage to huff out.

“I mean, a simple DNA test will prove he’s mine, and with you dead, well, Matthew won’t have a legal leg to stand on.”

“You don’t want him!” I croak.

“You’re right, I don’t. But I don’t want Matthew to have anything. Not you. Not that sea monkey you’re carrying and not sweet little David. No, I’m going to take him away from the only father he’s ever known, from the only home he’s ever known.”

“You can’t!” I object. But it even sounds pathetic to my own ears.

“I can. And then you know what I’m going to do, Jules? I’m going to throw your son away like a piece of trash. I’m going to sell him to the most deviant fuck I can find. A pedophile with a sadistic streak who will keep little David alive as a toy to be shared with all his friends. To take pictures of. To torture. And I will make sure that whoever gets him tells David every single day of his life that his mother hated him. That she abandoned him. That he was never loved.

“He will live in a hell on earth, Jules. Your sweet little redheaded cherub will suffer every single day of his short life. Because, believe me, it will be short. Guys like that aren’t interested in their toys once they get too big. And with no one to report him missing … well, even if his body is found, no one will ever know who he is or where he came from.”

My blood has turned to ice in my veins and I feel as if I’m going to pass out. I know this man well enough to know that he is not exaggerating. He’s thought this out carefully. He probably already has a plan in place, someone in mind to take my baby.

“This, Jules, is your torture. Your punishment for everything you’ve done to me, you bitch. You’re going to die knowing that you cannot save either of your children. Your last thoughts will be of your son’s pain and Matthew’s grief.”

My breath is coming in quick pants now. There’s nothing I can do. Or can I? I read once about a woman who lifted a car off of her child, trapped underneath it. She just grabbed it by the bumper and lifted it up. One woman, so fueled by love and fear and the protective instinct, that she was able to transcend the bonds of human limitations. Jeremy is the twisted wreckage of that car, bearing down on me and my family. I feel the danger to my child as surely as if he were pinned under ten tons of steel.

He’s loosened his grip on my throat, allowing my feet to slip back to the floor as he chatters on about what he’s going to do to my baby after he kills me. It’s now or never, and I have nothing left to lose. I put my hands together, just like the teacher in my self-defense class taught us, finger to finger as if I’m in prayer.

“Do you really think God is going to help you, Julia?” Jeremy mocks me.

Even as he says it, I thrust my arms upward, using the connected hands as leverage. I’m just strong enough, and he’s just surprised enough, that it breaks his hold around my neck. I only have a matter of seconds before he regains the power position. I reach up and grasp either side of his head with my hands, using the thumbs to dig straight into his eyes. He howls in pain as I push forward, away from the wall. Still with his head in my hands, I close my own eyes against the blow that I know is coming, and then I yank his head forward into my mine. Hard. Once, twice, three times. When I finally open my eyes, I see blood running down his face. I don’t allow myself the luxury of feeling the pain myself, I just let go of my grip on his head and he falls backward onto the ground. I skirt around him and run out to the hallway and toward the back door.

“You fucking bitch!” he bellows from behind me. “I’m going to fucking kill you!”

As I fly down the hall and back through the kitchen, I topple chairs and stools in his path, praying that they will buy me just a few more seconds. When I get to the sliding glass door that opens onto the backyard, I unlock the handle and pull, but it doesn’t give.

Shit!

I look down and see the broom handle that Matthew put inside the track for added security. I reach down, grab it, and drop it again. I finally get the thing out of the way and I try the handle again. This time the door gives. But, this time, I can see Jeremy’s reflection in the glass. He’s right behind me. I drop to the floor and fumble around for the wooden handle. At least it’s some kind of a weapon. But I’m not fast enough, or lucky enough.

Jeremy grabs my arm and yanks me to my feet, dragging me away from the back door. I thrash and scream and try to break things as we go. Finally, tired of fighting me, he simply picks me up and throws me over his shoulder, so that I’m hanging upside down against his back. I pound on him with my fists, screaming and clawing, but it doesn’t seem to faze him as he carries me through the kitchen, the living room and then up the stairs to my bedroom.

When we get inside, he slams the door shut behind us with his foot, stomps over to the king-sized bed, and tosses me down onto it so hard that I bounce a full foot off of the innersprings. The fury is coming off of him in waves. I make one last attempt to get off the bed, but he drags me back by my hair.

“Don’t you move!” he spits at me. “Don’t you fucking move, Julia!”