Copyright © 2015 by Sarah Sorana
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may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
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I was caught. I was trapped below this boy, this… this asshole.
The bile rose in my throat and I could not seem to say anything or do anything.
I could feel myself retreat into my own mind.
If I pretended it wasn’t happening, maybe I could go deep enough into my head that I could just accept this.
I could just accept William’s hand on my breast. His body between my legs.
Or… fuck that.
No.
I was sick of being tossed around, of being used and discarded. I was sick of being told I had no choice, no voice.
Not again.
I knew I couldn’t push William off of me. He was a monster, I could see that now.
His eyes were as cold and as dead as el Jefe’s.
Chad, though… Chad was looking a little uncomfortable.
This may have gone further than Chad expected, or been different from how he pictured it.
He probably figured that I’d just give in and suck their cocks.
Asshole teenage boy bravado.
Not the cold ruthlessness of William.
I could work with that.
Looking over William’s shoulder, I met Chad’s eyes.
“Chad,” I asked, “Are you going to let him rape me?”
He blinked, once, and looked away.
“Chad,” I said, using his name again. “Chad Russell. You smeared dirt on my dress when we were seven. You thought I’d tell the teacher and you cried because you didn’t want to get in trouble.”
He flushed.
I couldn’t tell if it was out of anger or shame.
I had to keep pressing, before William did something to make me stop.
(His hands, his hands were on my thighs, he was being so slow, taking his time, enjoying his power over me.)
“I didn’t tell the teacher, did I?”
I kept my voice low, calm.
The boy nodded, still not meeting my eyes.
“Chad… I’m gonna tell the fucking teacher. I’m going to tell everybody. I’m going to tell them you raped me. I’m going to tell the police and I’m going to tell the biker gang and I’m going to tell your girlfriend,” I said.
William put his hand over my mouth, then.
I bit it.
That earned me a slap, but I didn’t care. I could feel the sting of his hand against my cheek, but I was looking at Chad Russell, the kid I lived three blocks down from.
Everything hurt. My head hurt where I’d fallen and struck it. It hurt more that William was grinding it into the floor, pressing my mouth down hard with one hand, leaning over me and raising his other arm to slap me again if I kept challenging him.
“Get off her,” Chad said.
William turned to look over his shoulder.
“Are you fucking serious, man? You’re letting her get to you?” he asked.
Chad wouldn’t look at either of us.
“She’ll do it. She’ll tell everyone, and we’ll get in deep shit, okay? If my parents hear that there was even a rumor… it’d fuck everything up, okay?”
William snorted.
“Get out of here, I’ll do it myself,” he said.
He was still not looking at me.
If I could get him distracted for just another minute… If I could get his attention completely on Chad…
I held still. I held my breath.
“No, man,” Chad said. “If you keep going, she’ll tell everyone I was in it. Shit, if she’s really with a biker gang now, they’ll fuck us up.”
“You’re a little coward,” William sneered. “I’m not gonna stop my fun because you’re a pussy. Get the fuck out of here.”
As he turned his attention back to me, I struck.
I kicked up with both of my legs, driving my knees into his crotch as hard as I possibly could.
It was his turn for the breath to get knocked out of him, like he’d done to me. Twice.
He clutched his balls and went over sideways.
I scrambled away like a crab before he or Chad could grab me, getting my back to the wall by the door.
“Bitch, bitch, fucking cunt,” William was hissing, grabbing himself and groaning. “I think she kicked my nut up inside me.”
Chad was backing away, staring between us with a look on his face that was half relief and half fear.
Asshole was always a follower. Probably went along with William to seem cool, never thought I’d be there, or that if I was that I’d turn them down. He only ruined my dress when we were kids because he wanted to impress his big sister’s friends.
William was right. He was a pussy.
Nothing but a stupid kid who kept getting mixed up with the wrong people.
If he didn’t stop, he’d wind up in jail instead of college.
I thought that dispassionately. Chad and his problems didn’t really matter me any more, although if I’d realized that a few months ago, I’d have felt sad about losing a childhood friend to bad choices.
They were his choices. I couldn’t bring myself to regret someone else’s actions.
I didn’t fear him. I didn’t fear for him. I didn’t even care about him.
William, though…
William would be trouble if I didn’t do something. Maybe even if I did.
I walked over to him, careful to stay outside of grabbing range.
“Listen to me,” I said, carefully. “If you ever so much as breath too close to me again, I’ll skip the principal and the police. I’ll go straight to the bikers.”
He stared at me, unblinking, hate in his eyes.
“You believe me,” I said. It wasn’t a question. I saw no doubt in those cold eyes.
“Don’t try to get revenge, okay? You tried to hurt me, I tried to hurt you. We’re square. If you start shit, I’ll come down on you with the fury of a thousand suns. I’ll fucking kill you, you son of a bitch.”
I turned and walked out.
Neither of them moved or spoke as I moved the bin blocking the door and left.
If they’d tried to stop me I swear I would have killed them right there. Fuck the consequences.
I made it out of school without talking to anyone else, and I was halfway home on my quiet path when the rage died down enough for the fear to hit.
They’d almost succeeded.
They’d almost raped me while I was powerless and trapped and locked in.
I was stupid enough to think that bad people listened to signs on doors like ‘Girls Only.’
How fucking naive was that?
It was like I thought the locker room was my own private clubhouse in my own private tree. No Bo
yz Allowed.
It was like I thought I was safe.
A while ago, I think I would have been. I wouldn’t have been at school so late, and even if I had been…
It would have been different.
I would have been like the other girls at school, untouchable. Not worth messing with.
Someone like William would have known it would be my word over his, and he would have left me alone… Well, okay, someone like William wouldn’t have left me alone, but he wouldn’t have gone looking for me either.
If he’d have found me alone, sure, if he’d stumbled across the opportunity, he would have hurt me if he thought he could get away with it, but…
He wouldn’t have gone looking. He wouldn’t have made his own opportunity.
I was different now.
There was doubt.
If something bad happened to me, if William and Chad raped me… not everyone would have believed me.
Even some of the teachers would have taken their side.
It was hard to believe that anyone but Coach B would believe those weasels, but…
Shit.
My head was going round and round. I felt like I’d ridden the Tilt-A-Whirl after eating too much cotton candy.
I wanted to throw up.
I wanted to scrub everywhere William had touched me.
I wanted Merle.
I kept walking, letting my body take me home, taking deep breaths.
By the time I got to my apartment I felt like everyone walking past me on the street was a threat.
I almost jumped out of my skin when a kid tossed an empty can into a trash can, making a ringing noise of metal on metal.
I was totally fucking losing it.
When I got into my apartment, I shut and locked the door and leaned against it with my eyes shut for a moment, breathing hard.
My eyes snapped open.
I thought I’d been safe living with my parents, but people took me from my own fucking bed.
I thought I was safe at school and guys I’d known for years tried to rape me on a cold institutional floor.
How the hell was I safe here?
I searched the apartment.
It was a studio, so it didn’t exactly take very long, but I was really fucking thorough. Forget anywhere a man could hide, I checked any space, any crevice or drawer large enough for a grapefruit.
I didn’t find anything I hadn’t put there with my own two hands.
I dragged my bed in front of the only door into the place and sat on it.
It wasn’t enough.
I tried to shower. All I wanted was to scrub the feel of William’s hands off of my body.
That was what I really wanted out of life right now.
Fuck me, though, I couldn’t do it.
I couldn’t bear to shut the door and be in a closed space. The medicine cabinet started to look like a locker, and the bile rose in my throat.
Instead of getting clean, I ended up bent over the toilet, throwing up everything I’d ever eaten.
I was a total fucking mess.
All I needed was enough time to pull myself together, and I could call Merle.
Merle would know what to do. He always did. He always helped me.
I could pull myself together.
I took a deep breath, resting my forehead on the cool edge of the tub.
“I can do this,” I said out loud.
Saying it helped.
Hearing how quavery my voice was didn’t.
I said it again.
“I. Can. Do. This.”
This time, my voice was stronger. It filled the room.
I went into the main room, my eyes only darting around a little. I found my phone.
I texted Merle - “I need you. Really bad day. Dinner?”
Nothing.
I played a few rounds of a silly game, waiting and waiting for him to reply. He usually did right away.
Maybe something happened to him.
Maybe he was dead somewhere, or in prison.
Maybe he’d gotten in a fight with some asshole like Bill again and was in a ditch, or a hospital.
Maybe he’d crashed his bike.
Fuck, why did I have to date someone like Merle? There were way too many bad things that could have happened to him.
“Come on,” I groaned, shaking my phone, as if that would magically make a text appear.
One finally did, but only after twenty minutes.
“Sorry. Talk 2mr.”
What the fuck? He never used shortcuts in his texting, he was super proud about writing properly even though, in his words, “he wasn’t educated worth a tinker’s damn.”
More than that, he never put me off.
This was…
Was he mad at me? Was there someone else?
I pictured a beautiful blonde girl, tough and busty and everything I wasn’t, grabbing his phone from him as they kissed.
“Who’s that?” she’d ask, holding it up and showing him my text.
“No one, baby,” he’d say. “No one as special as you.”
He’d laugh as she sent back “Sorry. Talk 2mr.”
“Now, where were we?” she’d ask him, and they’d laugh and laugh and go back to what they were doing. In his bed.
Okay, I was just being ridiculous.
I had no reason to think that Merle was cheating on me.
I mean, he had been a little distracted lately.
He’d not talked about what he was doing outside of hanging out with me.
He hadn’t really tried to kiss me.
Oh my God, there was someone else.
He was sick of me and he felt too bad for me to tell me, so the asshole was just stringing me along.
I couldn’t believe it.
Merle had never been anything but kind and wonderful to me until this week. What had I done to make him hate me?
No, he didn’t hate me. Okay.
He was bored with me, though. I was a silly little girl who wouldn’t have sex, who caused him nothing but trouble.
He wanted someone who could take care of themselves. Someone who could have escaped from el Jefe on her own.
Someone who wouldn’t have let William get her on the floor.
Someone who wouldn’t be so fucking stupid and keep getting fucking trapped and locked in.
I mean, I didn’t have any patience for myself. How could he have patience with me?
I’d ruined everything.
I didn’t know how I was ever going to go back to school.
How could I even stay in my apartment?
My job was through Merle. Hell, my apartment was through Merle.
Even if he let me keep them… it would be pity.
That’s not a real relationship.
It dawned on me then.
Even if this was some sort of misunderstanding…
I couldn’t go on being dependant on the Night Horses.
It was just not right.
I had to stand on my own two feet.
I was still anxious, my eyes still flicking around the room. I still jumped half out of my skin when I heard a loud noise outside…
But I had a sense of purpose.
I needed to support myself.
I didn’t have a shift at the laundrymat that night.
I did, however, live walking distance from a library.
The next day I skipped school.
Partly, it was to work on my project.
Partly, it was because I couldn’t face the thought of seeing their stupid faces. I couldn’t bear the idea of looking at Chad and William, being in the same classroom as either of them without fucking punching them in the throat.
Or bursting into tears.
You know, whichever. Maybe both.
I didn’t text Merle.
Greatest Height (New Adult Biker Gang Romance) (Night Horses MC Book 6) Page 1
