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He made a sound like a balloon letting the air out, and crumpled.
“Quick, baby, quick, before somebody comes!”
It took a couple of hard hefts to get him and the old, reliable armchair in the back of the van. Ella-Loo scrambled in after, happily giving the groaning man another good whack before yanking the duct tape around his wrists.
“Let’s go, baby! We got him good. I can’t wait! I’m already wet. I’m already hot.”
“Save it for me,” Darryl called, zipping out to drive the short two blocks back home.
13
Jayla knew struggling only caused more pain, but she went into a frenzy of it when she heard them leave. She screamed against the gag until her throat felt burned and bloody, twisted her body, strained up with her arms with everything she had left in her.
It wasn’t enough.
Fresh wounds opened on her wrists, her ankles so the thick tape binding them rubbed raw and wet. Her fight cracked the NuSkin they’d slapped on some of her wounds, so they seeped again. She tasted her own tears and hysteria until, exhausted, she went still.
Remember, she ordered herself. Remember everything in case, just in case she lived through this.
They had her strapped on some sort of board, tied and taped down. Rope around her waist, her belly. Sometimes they choked her with another until she passed out.
Plastic – she thought – under the makeshift table. She could hear it swish and crinkle under their feet when they hurt her.
A window. She could just see a window, barred, and a big brown couch where they sometimes had sex. And a screen – they watched porn and game shows on it.
An apartment. Maybe street-level, she thought because she could hear traffic when they went out or came in through the door.
A white ceiling – dingy white, be specific, Jayla – dingy white ceiling with those round lights inside it.
They never turned the lights off.
They brought in takeaway food – never deliveries, at least not when she’d been conscious. A lot of beer and jug wine. And once, at least once, she’d smelled Zoner.
She could describe them perfectly.
All she had to do was get away, and she could describe them both perfectly right down to the matching tattoos.
Little hearts with D and E inside, etched in blue and red over their own hearts.
People would be looking for her, she could comfort herself with that. She had people who cared about her, and would be looking for her.
But how would they find her?
Why hadn’t she called a cab? Why hadn’t she used her head and called a cab when she’d walked out of that stupid party? Why had she gone in the first place? Why hadn’t she stayed home and watched vids with Kari?
She began to weep again, struggled again. And slid into shivering sleep.
The noise woke her. For a moment she was back in her college dorm with Kari, trying to sleep while a party went on in the next room. She tried to roll over – and the grinding pain brought her back.
They had music on – shit-kicking country music with some woman yodeling about how she was gonna hunt down her man. They sang along, top of their lungs, while they set up some sort of folding table.
The woman danced around it, rubbed her ass into the man’s crotch, danced away again on a giggle.
Jayla could see the plastic on the floor now.
And the body sprawled facedown on it.
Her first reaction was a kind of crazed jubilation. She wouldn’t be alone. They’d have someone else, might forget to hurt her, even for a little while.
