AllFreeNovel
Share Us
prologue
. . .
Angelia
Six Years Earlier
I can hear him breathing. I’m face down on my living room floor. My wrists are raw from pulling on the zip ties the man secured them with. My shoulders and forearms are filled with pain because they are twisted unnaturally. My legs are starting to go numb. I’m so dizzy. At first, I can’t figure out why, then I realize he must have kept beating me even after the attack. My face is swollen, and I can’t focus, my vision is very blurry and dimmed—almost like a gray haze.
Pain is shooting through me. Each of my hands are somehow tied to one of my ankles which has forced my legs to bend at the knee, making my thighs cramp. My lower extremities are securely tied, too. I’m not sure what with. The texture feels like a rough rope, but I can’t be sure. I just know that I can’t move. It’s impossible.
I’ve been in this position for hours. It feels like years, but I know it’s not. Still, after the man beat me and I blacked out, time stopped having meaning. I came home from the gym, only to have someone hit me from behind at the base of my skull. Idon’t know what with, but I do know it was something extremely heavy. Whoever did it had been waiting for me just inside my front door. I tried to turn and see who hit me, but I went down almost immediately, losing consciousness. I did see a figure standing over me. He said something, but I couldn’t make it out. As the darkness closed in, I couldn’t find the strength to raise my head. All I could see were his shoes, black shiny, dress shoes. I succumbed to the pain and let the darkness claim me.
When I woke up, I was in this position. I began screaming only to have the man grip my hair, forcing my head back. I couldn’t see his face, just a distorted mishmash of images as his hot, putrid breath fanned against my face. My ears were ringing so loudly that I couldn’t hear his words. Then, all at once it broke through and I was terrified. His rough, hoarse voice purred. “If you want to scream, I’ll give you something to scream about.” With that, the blade of his knife roughly cut through my cheek in a sawing action. The weapon was so dull that it made each cut even more painful.
Blood oozes from my face and the pain is debilitatingly intense. I wonder for a second if I might black out again and I kind wanted to. I’m afraid of what might come next. Until this moment, I was sure my mother was the queen of evil.I clearly had no idea just how dark this world truly was.
The man hasn’t raped me, but he did touch me in ways that makes fear constantly course through my body. He shoves a gag into my mouth and I’m pretty sure it’s a pair of my underwear—which means the man has been going through my stuff. That would normally terrify me, but I’m more worried about what he’s going to do to me.
I’ve gone from praying for someone to rescue me, to praying for death. I’m helpless. I can’t scream for help. I can’t even see who is doing this to me. I can’t do anything but wait for everything to end.Wait for my end.
He had left me completely alone for at least a couple of hours. I don’t have a clock in front of me, but I’ve been counting in my mind and the numbers add up to around two or two and a half hours. I’ve discovered that counting somehow puts my brain on autopilot, making me numb to what is around me. It doesn’t completely save me, but it has kept me from getting completely lost in my terror.
I think I’m just waiting for him to kill me. He’s standing over me, doing nothing, but the sound of his breathing is really beginning to get to me. I’ve tried not to show him that I can hear him. I don’t want to give him the satisfaction of seeing all of the effects of the horror he’s inflicting on me.
“When are we killing her?” I hear another male voice question.
I can’t breathe. It hits me all at once.I’m going to die.My surprise makes me mad. I’m being weak. I was just praying for death. Why do I give my captor—or captors—the satisfaction of seeing how it affects me now? No matter how much I try to rein myself in, I can’t. The devastation I feel is too indescribable. My eyes sting with the force of my tears. It’s painful because my eyes are so swollen. There’s also pain as they run down my face and into the jagged knife cuts. The salty evidence of my pain burns, amplifying the pain I’m already feeling.
Maybe if I didn’t have the gag in my mouth, I would become even more pathetic and beg for my life. I can’t do that, however. I can do nothing but wait. If there is a second man, he doesn’t respond. Hell, maybe it is just one person and he’s talking to himself. That’s possible. It’s clear he’s insane.
I hear chairs shuffling around. Again, it could be either one or two people. The sad truth of it is that the room could have a hundred people in it, and I wouldn’t even know. Some part of me tells me that I should listen. Yet, another—larger—part says it doesn’t matter anymore.Nothing does.I think I hear talkingagain. It’s out in the hall. I give up trying to figure out what they’re saying. It’s too exhausting. Besides, I realize that I’ve already given up. I let go of everything. It’s not like there’s much to live for anyway. For the first time since I woke up in hell, I am at peace.
It's almost over.
I hear the back door open and close, and then there is silence.
Did they leave?Relief floods through me for a second and then I hear the sound of shoes against my tiled floor.
“It’s been great, bitch,” the dark voice says. “But before I kill you, I’m going to have my fun. I have a message to send.”
His words make no sense, but I give up thinking about them when his knife slides down my back, the tip grazing my skin as he cuts my clothes from my body. I try to fight him, but it just makes his cuts go deeper. I literally can’t move. I can’t do anything. There’s no way I can stop this.
I’m helpless.
As I feel his cruel hands move over my ass, I cry harder. I may have thought I was in hell before, but clearly, I was just fooling myself.
My hell has just begun.
angelina
. . .
“That’s it for today, Angelina, and I need you to keep practicing those positive mantras. You need to truly believe them.”
I smile up at Deanna. She’s been a lifesaver. I didn’t want to go to therapy. It made me feel even weaker than I already felt. I did it anyway, and it turned out to be one of the smartest things I’ve ever done. Okay, itisthe smartest thing I’ve ever done. I doubt I’d still be here if I hadn’t found her.
“I’ll try,” I promise, knowing that I will. Still, no matter how much I tell myself that I am worthy and that I’m more than just a reflection in the mirror, I can’t seem to make myself believe it. It doesn’t matter how often Victor tries to convince me that it is the truth, I know I’ll never truly believe it. The thought of him, however, makes me smile—it always does.
