Shiver on the Sky
Page 37
Chapter Twenty-Three
(Wednesday Morning—Katie)
Katie was glad to get back to the warehouse.
She hated what Crazy Man did to her when they were alone. And she didn’t like all the clothes he bought for her. When he made her undress and model them it was somehow worse than when he actually touched her. She also didn’t like being tied up or locked in a closet when nobody was around.
She’d jumped at the opportunity to leave the warehouse with him, because she might get a chance to escape. But after what had happened in the van, she hoped he would never take her with him again.
Crazy Man had hurt that woman. Once she was unconscious and inside the van, he had beaten her horribly with a sawed-off baseball bat. And then he’d taken off her pants, and hurt her down there too. He’d been looking right at Katie when he did it, and he hadn’t taken off his clothes, but she could still see how excited he got.
Katie was pretty sure he’d killed the woman. And from the look of his face as he’d done it, she thought she would probably be next. She just hoped he got caught, or she got a chance to run, before it went that far.
At least he never touched her when the other men were around. They gave her funny looks too, but she thought at least one of them might protect her if Crazy Man got worse. She knew the other man wasn’t a nice guy either, probably just as bad as Crazy Man actually, because for one thing he had helped Crazy Man with the woman, but she thought he liked her a little.
Anyway, no matter how bad it got, there were a few rules Crazy Man had followed so far. He hadn’t hurt her at all. Yet.
She looked around her room in the warehouse, with the books and flowers he’d bought for her. The flowers were kind of creepy, and she hadn’t wanted to read as much lately. She’d quit wondering what Hermione would do. Hermione and Harry Potter had it easy, as far as she was concerned. So much for books. Or at least those books.
Maybe it wouldn’t get much worse. Crazy Man actually looked kind of silly when they were alone and he took his clothes off. Even if he finally decided to stick it in her she wasn’t too afraid. He wouldn’t be the first, anyway. Josh Hernandez from school, two years older but he’d flunked a couple of times (she was supposed to say he’d been held back), had been much bigger down there, and after the first time it hadn’t hurt at all. Though she’d dumped him after he’d started drooling over her friend Liz. Anyway she wasn’t going to let anything simple like sex upset her too much. After all, she was twelve. It was just that Crazy Man was old, and the idea was icky.
As long as he didn’t start to hurt her it might be okay.
Because when he’d been hurting that woman he’d looked really happy, and if he started in on Katie she didn’t think he would stop.
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