911: The Complete Series

by Grace Hamilton

  She knew Colson was the shot caller because the others seemed to defer to him, but he was apparently letting Washington, the biggest of the convicts, rape her first. She assumed that had to be a sort of scumbag badge of authority.

  The redheaded man she’d heard called Oliver came out of an office buckling his belt and, grinning, held open the door.

  “My man,” Washington laughed. “You keeping a shortie in there?”

  “The good times were never so good,” Oliver smirked. “These government assholes had quite the nice crib built up in this mall.” He grinned, revealing a mouth full of steel fillings and a dead front tooth. “I just ate Mexican; found her hiding in the JC Penny’s when we did that sweep. I love getting spicy spic on me!” His laughter, perhaps foreseeable, sounded like the bark of a bull seal.

  Washington looked down at Oliver. “I’m fucking half-Mexican, fucker.”

  Oliver looked panicked. “Aw, shit, Washington, I didn’t mean nothing— ”

  Laughing, Washington cut him off. “Just fucking with you, man.”

  Oliver gave a nervous little chuckle and quickly walked off.

  “Ginger, peckerwood motherfucker,” Washington muttered to the man’s back.

  Turning, he then pushed Finn through the doorway. Inside the room, she stopped, disbelieving. Five or six candles burned on a desk next to a half empty bottle of whiskey, a sofa bed sitting beside the set-up. With numbed disassociation, she realized she recognized the scented candles. She’d seen them on sale last week in this mall, at the Hallmark Store. The room was a big office, belonging to the property manager or building administrator, someone of status in the building. A window, tightly shuttered, sat behind the desk.

  With all this space, Finn thought, someone is doing all right for themselves. Or was, she corrected. She doubted anyone was doing very well for themselves tonight.

  The soft light revealed a wisp of a girl, raven hair hanging down to her waist, body marred by bruises and teeth marks, cowering in the room, and Finn gasped upon seeing her. The convict had done a brutal number on her.

  Washington pushed in hard behind her, shoving her towards the big, high bed. He slammed the door behind them. She felt like crying all over again as she heard the lock turn over. Apparently, Washington didn’t intend to be disturbed. Numb with fear at the rapidity with which her life had taken such a turn for the worst, she let herself be shoved across the office. She noticed russet smears of dried blood on the sheet and her mouth went dry.

  Washington staggered, caught himself, and picked up the bottle of Jack Daniels. Then he clumsily undid his pants. His erection stuck out, veins prominent. For a moment, Finn was startled into motionless. She’d never seen a penis before, not in real life.

  And she hadn’t ever wanted to. Though she’d never been able to tell Ava how she felt about her, it hadn’t stopped her from coming out to her friend, or dating other girls occasionally. Now, she shuddered in disgust.

  Washington staggered towards her.

  “Stay the fuck away from me!” she shouted.

  Washington laughed.

  On the floor, the girl whimpered.

  The sickness of the situation left greasy stains in Finn’s stomach as adrenaline bled into her already ramped up system. She narrowed her focus down to Washington as he came forward, his erection leading the way. The man’s eyes were bloody red from snorting the heroin they’d found and washing it down with booze. The escaped convict could barely stand.

  Finn made her decision. In that moment, something inside her started shifting over. She was a survivor, a fighter. She wasn’t giving in this easily.

  “I said, stay the fuck away from me!” she screamed. She shoved him back.

  Washington snarled in surprise and slapped her. Inside of her, deep down where her soul was, Finn felt something snap, a switch clicked over. Her fear completely gave way to rage.

  Washington was on her. Despite his heavy intoxication, his erection was a horrible club between them. The light from the candles reflected off the skin of his scalp beneath his close-cropped hair.

  Her leg lashed out once, quickly, like a snake striking.

  The ball of her foot caught the inebriated rapist in the side of his knee and he folded like a card table. He stumbled and fell forward as Finn pistoned her hips up, long coltish legs snapping open and then closing around his head.

  Moving fast, she jerked her body to the side, across the top of the desk, and swept him off of his feet as she instinctively cinched in the figure-four leg-lock, shutting off the flow of blood to the stoned man’s already foggy brain. On the floor, the other girl watched, motionless.

  At first, Washington seemed confused by her actions, unable to shift gears mentally quick enough to react, and she used it to her advantage. Snarling, she cranked her hips to the side. Washington gasped at the pain as his head jerked around to an unnatural angle. Gradually, he seemed to realize he was suffocating.

  He was a big, strong man, and tried fighting back, but Finn twisted her body around, all sinew and hate, until she pushed him down on the surprisingly thick carpet, where in his intoxicated state he couldn’t gain any purchase.

  She didn’t know what she was doing, not really. She knew she was no match for him physically, but she wasn’t going to quit, and she’d figured putting the strength of her legs against his throat was as close as she would come to getting any sort of physical advantage.

  She sat above him, pushing down, squeezing hard. His chin was tucked, blocking part of the effects of the sloppy leg-hold. She wound her fingers through the greasy black hair on the top of his head and yanked it back, exposing more of his throat.

  Settling her hips down lower, she sunk the leg-lock as deep as it could get. Immediately, the convict’s face turned purple. Finn balanced over his thrashing body like a rodeo rider. She looked to the girl. It finally seemed to be sinking in to her that there was a fight going on.

  The man went limp underneath Finn. She didn’t stop squeezing.

  The girl’s mouth fell open, and Finn realized with a sort of confused, horrified shock that the girl was going to scream.

  “No!” Finn whispered in a harsh voice. “I can help you! We can get out of here!”

  The girl paused, her mouth slowly closing. She cocked her head in confusion.

  “Do you understand me? We can escape!”

  But the girl started screaming in earnest, going off like an air raid siren. The shrill shriek raked Finn’s eardrums until she was sure they were going to bleed. There was no way anyone would confuse those yells for sounds of sex, but she was betting Colson’s men were long indifferent to hearing the sound of a woman’s screams.

  The girl sprang to her feet and began shrieking a string of wild, inarticulately frantic words, and Finn realized she had no choice. She looked down at Washington. He seemed out. She knew that only the fact that he’d been so messed up had allowed her to survive. Against the others, in numbers, even with them being fucked up, she had no chance whatsoever.

  The girl was on her feet now, stumbling towards the door. Finn had to make a decision and make it fast. Cursing, she released her hold on Washington and lunged after the girl. The man’s head thumped off the carpet like a bag of apples.

  The girl was still screaming, heading for the door on shaky legs. Finn would never make it in time. She snatched up an overturned office chair and hurtled it sidearm towards the girl. The heavy apparatus crashed into her legs. One of the looted Hallmark Store candles fell to the carpet.

  The girl grunted at the impact, her feet tangling up. She’d gone down hard, her legs tangling up in those of the chair. The candle, smoking furiously and spilling hot wax, landed in the thick carpet. Finn was on her belly after the throw and scissor-kicked herself to her hands and knees.

  From her knees, she came up to one foot as the girl tried to stand. Finn drove hard and sprang, acrobat-like after her. She collided with her, driving into the slighter female, knocking her down before she could re
ach the door.

  “Stop!” Finn pleaded.

  The abused girl turned, a hissing Hispanic hellcat. Finn snapped her head back to avoid raking nails and the girl’s hand caught the front of her t-shirt, ripping it along the collar.

  “Bitch!” she bellowed at a confused Finn. “Don’t touch me! No one touches me!”

  The girl began screaming again, calling for help, inadvertently shrieking a warning to the cons. Finn yanked the girl’s head closer to her by her long hair and slammed her fist into the girl’s exposed face. Some small part of her mind was shocked at the desperate fury of her actions, but she was almost entirely on autopilot now.

  The girl’s nose broke open like an over-ripe piece of fruit and spread across her face. Hot blood pumped scarlet and splashed Finn’s skin, warm as bath water. Some goddamned rescue, she thought, and then punched the girl in the face a second time as she tried clawing her eyes again.

  “What is your problem?” Finn shouted.

  Behind her, the carpet began smoldering.

  Washington, choked unconscious, stoned and utterly sedated, showed little sign of rousing. Finn shifted her hold and tried climbing on top of the writhing girl, their bodies now slick with their sweat. She needed to pin her down and cut off her cries—at least long enough for her to make good on her own escape.

  The wiry little Hispanic proved surprisingly strong, though, and Finn miscalculated in her attempt to straddle the girl. Both the girl’s legs came up and then shot out towards her, and Finn grunted as the girl’s heels slammed into the side of her head.

  “Ouch!” she grunted.

  She saw spinning galaxies of stars as she was thrown back. She sprawled across the carpet and only the massive amounts of adrenaline coursing through her body kept her conscious. The carpet burst into flames behind her. Burning with surprising speed, the fire quickly reached the French Heritage settee seated against one wall.

  The girl was at the door as Finn came to her feet. Behind them, Washington groaned once. She turned and kicked him hard along the jaw, and then saw the divan burst into flame and spun after the girl. Things had gone to hell damn quickly. They’d obviously been bad, but for a moment when she’d discovered just how messed up Washington was, she’d let herself hope.

  The girl couldn’t get the handle on the door to work, and Finn clearly recalled Washington locking it. From outside the door, she suddenly heard voices responding to the girl’s cries. Behind her, the window blinds began burning and heat was growing into a tangible force at her back. Smoke began filling the room.

  Things were indeed starting to look bad.

  Parker, where the hell are you? she wondered desperately. She missed the big asshole.

  The sound of shouting men poured in through the door as the girl frantically rattled the handle, shrieking. Smoke hung in the room, now thick as London fog in only a moment, and Finn began coughing as her eyes watered.

  “We’ve got to get out of here,” Finn warned her. The girl ignored her.

  The one she’d heard called Oliver shouted from outside the door. The sound of the voices seemed to drive the girl further into her psychotic break. She threw herself forward, uninhibited by her nakedness, and again tried clawing furiously for Finn’s eyes, one slender, nut-brown hand snagging up in the hair of Finn’s bob haircut.

  Knotting her hand into a fist, the girl snapped Finn’s head back and forth as her nails raked the Korean girl’s arm, leaving four red claw marks in her soft flesh.

  “Bitch!” Finn repeated. It seemed appropriate, if redundant.

  The pain galvanized Finn, and she unloaded in an adrenaline-fueled attack. She reached back and drove her fist into the girl’s chin. The girl stumbled back against the door hard enough to rattle it in the frame.

  The lock rattled.

  Leaping inside like a clinch-style boxer, Finn followed her upper cut with a hook to the stomach. These were wild, desperate blows, not coming from any sort of training or skill—just violent, panicked haymakers. The girl gasped harshly as the breath drove out from her lungs under the force of them. Finally, the slighter woman sagged at the waist under the impact.

  The doorknob turned futilely.

  Moving like a matador, Finn spun around the girl’s body until she was standing beside her, right behind her shoulder. As the girl, still bent over, gasped and sputtered for her breath, reaching out for the lock, Finn drew her left arm up and axe-chopped the knife edge of her palm straight into the back of the girl’s neck where spine met skull, in a vicious rabbit punch like she’d seen The Undertaker do on cable television.

  The girl shivered under the impact, hand on the lock. She turned it. Finn struck her again. The now unconscious girl fell to the floor. The door swung open and Oliver’s ugly face appeared at the jamb. Finn threw her shoulder hard against the structure and slammed it closed. The man yelped in pain and she fervently hoped she’d broken out every tooth in his goddamn mouth.

  Working quickly, she snapped the door’s lock closed again. She couldn’t see five feet into the room now from all the smoke. Yellow flames ate along the walls and ceiling, the heat blazing blast-furnace hot, leaving her bathed in copious streaks of sweat.

  Chest heaving, she reached for the office chair again. She was going out the window. If she had to cut herself on broken glass or drop twenty feet onto asphalt, she didn’t care. She found the chair and swung, knocking the burning blinds to one side. She swung again and busted out the window.

  Mistake.

  The pressure funnel of the now open window drew the smoke to it in a column so thick that she was effectively blind. Her lungs spasmed and she dry heaved. As bad as the smoke was, the fire was worse. The backdraft breathed intensity into the flames and they flared.

  Dropping down below the smoke, she looked down at the girl. Unconscious, she looked peaceful, and very young.

  “Don’t do this,” Finn whispered to herself. She immediately ignored her own advice.

  Stooping low, she scooped the unconscious girl over her shoulder. She wasn’t a big person herself, but the girl was positively anorexic. She couldn’t leave the girl to burn. The door began splintering around the lock. Half-blind, Finn orientated herself towards the broken window. The skin that was along her legs, through the rips in her jeans, and that on her arms, had reddened and tightened under the searing heat.

  Digging her heels into the burning carpet, she sprinted forward, charging towards the open window with almost suicidal intensity. Behind her, the door popped open under a series of heavy kicks.

  Hearing screaming, Finn came through the smoke and saw Washington scrapping the burning Venetian blinds from his face. Behind her, the door burst open and Oliver, followed by the one called Colson, raced in. Colson carried a squat black machine pistol in his fist. She had to make the leap to the burning desk.

  Again, physics shifted the setting. The sudden channeling of air from the broken window to the open door created an instantaneous funnel of savage heat that began swirling under pressure of both oxygen streams. The men cursed in surprise, so that Colson and Oliver stopped and threw their arms up to protect themselves. Finn leaped up on the desk, crying out as her foot was seared by active flame.

  Washington lurched up and snatched her by her ankle. Grossly over-extended from her jump, Finn went down hard. She screamed as the girl bounced clear. With brutal strength, Washington snatched her off the desk by one leg.

  She tried sitting up and attacking him, but he struck her a vicious backhand that sent her already oxygen-starved brain spinning. Rough hands grabbed her as more of the men rushed into the office.

  “Go! Go!” she heard Colson yell. “Get the fire extinguisher from the hall, the one you used to bash the janitor with when we broke in!”

  Again she tried fighting, but the next punch she took from the furious Washington knocked her cold.

  15

  Finn was in trouble.

  She lifted her head, her body aching. Icy shots of adrenaline spit into her
stomach in cold splashes, fear making her heart pound as waves of revulsion racked her with every moment of increasing clarity.

  The cloth gag was tight across her face, forcing her lips open so that rivers of drool ran down her chin. She had been bent over some kind of desk, rope binding her ankles and wrists to the furniture’s legs, leaving her rear end stuck up, utterly vulnerable.

  Chills crept across her flesh in goosebumps thick as berries on a bush. She realized she was entirely naked. This is bad, she thought, so bad. She heard low, sinister laughter and the answering snide chorus of brutal chuckles. It sounded like she was surrounded. She lifted her head.

  She could see, she realized. There was a light source above her. She strained to look around, but couldn’t turn her head far enough to get a look at her surroundings.

  Washington stood before her, his clothes rumpled and stained with splattered blood and soot. His face was bruised and a gauze bandage covered a patch of his face where the burning blinds had to have melted his face like candle wax. His laughter wasn’t reaching the hollow pits of his eyes. He stank like smoke. Frightened, she turned away.

  Next time, she’d crush his skull when he was unconscious, she promised herself. Then… There isn’t going to be any ‘next time,’ she thought. I’m going to die.

  Slowly, Finn turned her head. Washington stood still as a statue, a long, thin plastic rod that would normally be used with blinds in his hands. Her heart sprinted wildly when she saw it, and she closed her eyes against the horror of this fresh reality.

  She hoped Parker was okay. She didn’t think he was; she’d seen the dark river water swallow him as bullet after bullet smashed the surface. But she hoped he was okay, and that he’d at least be able to save her friend. I’m sorry, Ava, she thought. I’m sorry I let you down.

  She tried to ignore the other two men standing nearby, but she felt them staring at her naked buttocks and exposed sex as if their eyes gave off heat like the fire she now so desperately wished had burned them all alive. She tried pushing back the fear—to take in details, catalog facts, formulate a plan like she thought Parker would have. Anything that could stave off admitting what was about to happen.