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11
River
There aresix men standing in front of me, their faces twisted into grim masks of amusement and sadistic delight. Sometimes, when I try to focus on one or the other, the shapes and angles of the faces blur, making it hard to tell which one is which. They’re just men, just tall and cruel, so much bigger and more powerful than I am.
I’m held in a room, my arms chained to the wall, my legs spread wide. I can feel my heart racing in my chest, beating so fast and so hard that it feels like it might explode. It’s fear, and I can taste that in the back of my throat, but there’s anger there, too. And disgust.
My sister is nearby, quiet tears running down her face where she’s chained up next to me. Her face blurs and twists when I try to look at her, wanting to make sure she’s okay. I can’t tell. She won’t say anything.
Beyond the men is a room, but I can’t make out anything in it. That part is weird and nebulous, as if the details of it are shifting while I’m hunting for them. There should be a window just to the left, the curtains drawn over it, the latch fastened tight.
There’s another window somewhere in the room off to the right, but that one is boarded up, and no amount of scrabbling at the wood with blunt nails will pry the boards loose.
The men laugh, telling private jokes to each other, talking about us—how we look, how we smell. Laughing at our fear and distress. We’re just playthings for them. Captured and tormented to punish our father for the transgressions he committed against them. Even though we had nothing to do with it. Even though we’re innocent in all of this.
We’re paying for a man’s sins, used as tools, which is apparently a woman’s place in this world.
All I can think is that I have to protect Hannah. Whatever they do to me, I have to keep her safe. I can endure it. I can handle the pain.
The scene changes, reality shifting like sand around me. In this memory, they hit me with a flogger, the ends knotted into thick lumps that lash against my skin, leaving behind bruises and welts that will make it impossible to sleep later. The back of my shirt is torn open, and the front of it is barely hanging on, giving the illusion of modesty, even though there’s nothing I can do if they decide to rip the whole thing away.
My back is just an aching mass of flesh, and they don’t stop.
The flogger is just a warm up, an appetizer. I bite the inside of my cheek, trying to keep from crying out and letting them know how much it hurts.
Whenever one of them looks at Hannah, I snarl, lashing out.
“Coward! Asshole!” I spit. “Pick on someone your own size!”
And their egos make them fall for it. They can’t allow me, a teenage kid, to make them feel small.
My sister stays quiet, the way I told her to.
Just let me handle it, Hannah. Let me do this for you.
Her eyes are closed, as if she doesn’t want to see it. Like she’d rather be anywhere but here.
The torments feel so stark in this dream. Like I’m really there again, chained up in that dark room, heavy with the stench of sweat and fear and depravity.
I feel like I’m going to break as they put me through these horrible things, hurting me, touching me. Trying to break me. Every noise I make is a triumph for them. Every time a tear rolls down my face, they laugh. One of them licks the salty drops away.
I can’t see which one does it. All of their faces are interchangeable, shifting and swapping like a fucked up game of musical chairs.
But it could have been any of them. Any one of them would have done it. Has done it.
It’s a dream, but it feels so real. I feel that trapped, suffocating feeling that I remember so well. The one that makes me wake up in the middle of the night even now, thrashing under the covers in a desperate attempt to get free from anything holding me down.
I can feel the scream building in my throat, and I fight so hard to hold it back, biting my lip until it bleeds. I feel like I’m going to break, like each lash, each cut, each touch is driving me closer to the edge, and I’m just going to shatter into a million fucked up pieces.
Then the dream shifts again. The room clears, and I’m not chained up or being flogged anymore. I’m standing in the middle of the room, taller, stronger. More powerful. I’m the woman I am now, tattoos and silver hair, a gun in one hand and a knife in the other.
I can feel the difference, and the fear and desperation that were clinging to me before are now determination and righteous fury. With savage delight, I murder each of the men. I take pleasure in it. It’s not quick and painless either. I shoot out their kneecaps, driving them down to the scuffed wooden floor. It’s already stained with blood, and there’s satisfaction in that.
Here in this place where they made me bleed and hurt and wish I was dead, I’m going to do the same to them.
I take my time, drawing out the torment, sending each one screaming to their deaths.
It’s different from what they did to me. Hannah and I paid for the sins of someone else, but these six? The punishment they get is for their own crimes. Their own sins. The things they did with their own hands.
