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Shit.
Thinking that I’d take that time he asked for to research what to do in the event of a natural death, I drove back to Taos’ place, my head in a fog.
Though I’d only spent one day with the woman, I knew that I would grieve harder for her than I would for my own grandmother that I’d known for my entire life.
My head was so focused on how bad my heart hurt, that I didn’t notice the signs.
I walked into the house, not thinking about serial killers and my name being out there, but about how sad Taos had looked when he’d walked through that door. The same door that, only hours ago, he’d walked out of with a huge smile on his face.
The first thing I noticed when I got into the living room was the entry table being a couple of inches away from the wall where it usually sat.
I frowned hard at it, dropped my keys onto the table, and then looked at the window where it’d been in front of.
I had just swung the door closed, reached for the lights, and then felt something wrap around my neck.
My automatic response was to struggle, and struggle I did.
I fought, kicked, screamed, and bit as I tried in vain to get away.
The man that had a hold of me, that had something wrapped around my neck, was so strong that I had no hope in getting him to let me go based on my strength alone.
By the time that he had me subdued, his big body lying on top of mine, pinning me to the ground, I had nothing left.
He was too big. Too strong. Too determined.
And my puny strength put against his was laughable.
“All done?” He laughed in my ear.
I closed my eyes as silent tears started to track down my cheeks.
“I don’t like it when they cry. I like it when they scream, punch and hit. It…” He dug his erection into my back, and my mind just… blanked.
I went to a place that was light. That there was no scary man holding me down, in the dark, and pressing things against me that no woman would ever want pressed against her.
Fight, girl.
Fight.
I heard the voice in my ear and knew without a shadow of a doubt that it hadn’t come from the man that it sounded like. It was part of my dissociative event. Something my therapist said that I did when I was coping in unhealthy ways.
After the first time that I was targeted by a serial killer, I’d met with a therapist who helped me get back on the road to being healthy, as well as a contributing member of society.
She’d told me that when I disconnected from my thoughts, feelings, and surroundings, I was escaping reality in an unhealthy way to try to cope with what had happened to me.
And I might have been.
Since I hadn’t experienced one of those events in a long time—at least since before I’d started CrossFit—until right then.
Right there.
But my irrational brain, and my rational brain, were warring.
Stay here where it’s okay.
Fight. Don’t just give up.
There were two very different thoughts.
Fight.
Fight.
Fight.
I came to again with the taste of blood in my mouth, the man laughing in my ear, and an understanding that if I didn’t fight right now, I would be getting something that I didn’t want. That I didn’t think that I could recover from.
Fight.
The man was busy trying to pull down his pants, but he was holding on to me as if he expected me to fight.
And about two seconds ago, it would’ve been something I had no intention of doing. I just couldn’t deal anymore. At least, that was then. This was now.
And I wouldn’t allow myself to go down like this without giving everything that I had to give. Because this was Taos’ house. He’d just suffered one of the hugest blows a man could suffer—losing his only other living relative. I wouldn’t make him come home to me dead, too.
So I had to fight.
When he shifted off of me to get to his pants, taking my complacency as me giving up, he shifted almost completely, leaving me the only opening I had a feeling I would get.
I bolted, scrambling on my hands and knees while he was struggling to get his dick out of his pants.
He looked up and laughed, happy that I once again had some fight in me.
I wasn’t sure what to think about it.
But what I thought and what I felt were two different things.
My usual MO was to overthink everything, to second-guess, and then triple-guess. How I felt was enraged.
So fucking pissed that I wanted to fight this motherfucker.
I ran, and ran hard, for the kitchen, knowing without a doubt that I wouldn’t be making it to the bedroom, or even out the door.
