by A. C. Bextor
Aimlessly, I shift in place, testing the degree of space allotted from whatever holds me still. It’s then I hear a voice coming from the other side of this room.
“So, here you are. We meet again.”
I freeze, the slithering tone coming from the familiar voice holding me captive. The sound of his vile tongue clicking against his rotten teeth in a hurried tsk before the man’s sadistic voice comes closer, bringing with him his putrid scent.
Thanatos.
“You disappointment me, Wrennie,” he mocks.
He gently brushes his fingertip against my bruised collarbone, forcing me to jolt in place even knowing there’s no possible escape. If I speak, my voice will break, coming to him as timid and weak, so I tighten my lips. They’re chapped, feeling like sandpaper, as they remain tightly against one another.
“I had hoped you’d fight. You didn’t.” He unbuttons one button of the silk nightshirt Georgia had gifted me.
Visions of burning the material, along with the flesh of his hand, come to mind—alive, vivid, and in color.
“Elevent told me I couldn’t touch you. Said I wasn’t allowed to come lookin’ for you,” he explains as he unbuttons another.
His rough, calloused hand slides crudely across my naked chest. I have no way to fight him off so, in effort to stay calm, I remain still and wait.
With the air around us icy, my nipple tightens once he moves the material further aside, leaving me now fully exposed. I lick my lips to stop from biting them or verbally lashing out.
The loss of his hand offers a quick lie in reprieve. The sound of a metal belt buckle being jostled come next. It’s followed by the faint whisper of a zipper being drawn down.
Oh God. No!
“Please,” I beg.
“The little bitch begs,” he hisses to himself. “Don’t fuckin’ beg. Don’t make this easy.”
My shallow breaths increase, banishing all oxygen I have left in the burlap hood now plastered against my face. My legs fight against the torment of rope at my feet as I aimlessly try bringing them together.
“Please, don’t,” I try again.
He positions his hand between my thighs. In his eager attempt to find purchase, he pushes and pulls against the material of my silk bottoms unforgivingly
“Don’t. You’re in no position to deny me anything, now are you?” He moves the scrap of material to the side, using his finger to break through my unready entrance.
My body jerks in sudden shock from his violent intrusion.
Using the heels of both feet to inch farther up the bed, I try for escape I can’t find. My arms scream out in silent protest, bearing all of my weight as they remain tied to my back.
Abruptly, Thanatos lets go before I hear a sucking sound.
“Tastes like fresh, wet pussy. I love fresh, wet pussy, Wrennie.”
Before I can catch my breath, more of it is stolen. The bed dips, signaling his ascent. Eyes shut, I can still imagine the vile man crawling toward me. I feel every inch of his hard, heated body against my legs and waist before he he positions himself so we’re chest to chest.
When he stops moving, he inhales a deep breath. After releasing it, he hisses in my ear. “If you’re a good girl, I’ll take this fuckin’ sack off your face and spread my cum on your lips so you can taste what you made me do.”
With a violent thrust, his rigid cock spears my inner thigh.
“You want to taste me, Wrennie?” he questions.
My body trembles beneath him. Nothing I have to offer could deter him from anything more than what he so obviously wants to take.
My privacy.
My dignity.
My life.
“Fuck, you’re soft,” he murmurs. “All of you…. “So fuckin’ good.”
His hands span across my ribs before he moves them up to rest against the base of both breasts. I’m bearing all this weight, suffocating under his stench. His savage teeth sink into the skin of my neck and he groans with satisfaction at my mildly restrained whimper.
I try to cry out but it’s useless; the terrifying fear has rendered me mute. His hands linger at my chest, then lower to explore the rest of my body. He’s yet to enter me entirely. Thanatos continues his thrusting without relent and his breathing becomes labored. At the smell of his abhorrent breath, I silently wretch and start to gag.
My shoulders grow tense, and he feels it.
“Fight me,” he hisses, pulling my hair at the side and again using his teeth to grind into my neck. This time he bites with such determination I feel my soft skin tear. “This won’t be as much fun for me unless you fight what you got comin’, Wrennie.”
“Please,” I say as a prayer, but not to him. To anyone other than him.
In the tight space between us, his hand trails down my stomach, leaving a sickening film of slime along its way. Once he reaches his desired destination, his hand covers my sex entirely, maliciously scraping his fingernail along my clit. A shooting pain tears through the area and my thighs widen further.
Using his thumb to circle my entrance once, he brings up any moisture he can muster.
My eyes roll to the back of my head as he asks, “Do you know how I got my name?”
I don’t answer. I don’t want to know. My eyes close tightly, making it so I no longer see as much as his shadow above me.
“It’s Greek, Wrennie. My name means ‘death.’ Unfortunately, I can’t kill you yet. Elevent would have my head if I did, but I got time to make you wish you were dead before he finds me.”
God, just kill me. Please.
He adjusts his body lower and shifts in place in order to discard my shorts, giving me the slightest opportunity for my knee to land a strong hit to his sac. The soft flesh gives way, smashing against the thin material of my silk bottoms. I cringe upon contact as a violent roar scales from his chest, stinging my ears.
I’ve never physically meant to harm another living soul. However, there’s no evidence Thanatos has one to harm.
“You’re a dead fucking cunt,” he wheezes.
He wraps his hands around my throat, encircling the area of already exposed and raw skin from where the rope and his bite had torn it. My head lifts, aimlessly searching for his but colliding with only his jaw. A sharp tug at my scalp poisons my hope in fighting him off.
“You’re a dead bitch,” he seethes, fisting my hair and then yanking my head back, forcing it into an awkward position.
His closed-fist punch pounds against my jaw, rocking me in place. The second assault, straight to the eye, surrounds my vision in a burst of silver light. The third is to my cheek, where so much pain had already been, I don’t know the new from the old.
Just when I hope he’s finished delving punishment, if only because I can’t take any more, a sharp, gouging, and unrelenting pain fires through my left thigh. It’s a piercing pain unlike I’ve ever felt, and one I never imagined could exist. My stomach tosses and turns, the agony so severe I fight the urge to double over and be sick.
He’s going to kill me.
Above me, still gasping for air, he says nothing as another pain close to the one just delivered spears through me again—this time sharper and with added resolve.
I can’t breathe.
My head gets light and the blackness inside the hood starts to spin. The pain, so severe, gives way to the loss of my balance.
My lungs freeze; I can’t fill them with enough air.
Please, someone help.
“You fucking cunt,” he hisses. “Fucking fucking fucking cunt.”
A gale of pressure is pushed against the same thigh that’s been left screaming in pain. Sticky and warm, I feel his fingers spreading what must be my own blood against the material of silk which is now clinging to my skin.
I’m going to die here.
I’m going to die and there’s nothing I can do to stop it.
Visions of my mother, building me a grown-up tent while I was so sick as a child in bed. Her hands, so soft and ge
ntle, coaxing me awake for another dose of medicine.
Her long dark hair, spilling from her winter stocking hat as she watched me sled in our yard from the front door of my childhood home.
All of it, each peaceful memory I’ve ever kept safe from the world, plays out on an endless reel, summoning me to another time and space. A place where I was safe and happy, sheltered against men such as this one who’s so determined to end what’s now an empty existence.
Please, someone help.
“Thanatos!” another voice shouts from inside the room. “Step the fuck back!”
Thanatos tenses as he rocks in place. When he moves to get off me, he balances all his weight on the hand directly on top of my throbbing thigh. Not a single scream of pain or fear leaves my mouth. All my energy has been spent. I’m close to passing out, my mother’s face only a breath away.
“She’ll live. It’s a fuckin’ paper cut,” Thanatos lies, pulling me from my peaceful memory as his voice carries him a safe distance away.
I hear the same zipper and belt sounds as I had a few minutes ago. This time, the threat is gone.
My chest heaves up and down as I gasp for air. I shiver uncontrollably from the sudden loss of adrenaline.
I listen closely as footsteps draw near. A gentler touch reaches beneath my head, then lifts it from the bed. The rope from my neck is loosened and the room spins again as my eyes not-so-quickly adjust once the black hood has been removed.
Once I come around, my stomach gives in to all my body has endured and I lean over, losing everything I had in my stomach.
“Fuckin’ hell,” the man helping me seethes. “Son of a bitch.”
Tears swell in my eyes, making my vision blurry. With my hands still tied behind my back, my body hangs off the bed as I finish expelling all I can.
The man’s hand comes to my head, grabbing my hair and holding it at the nape of my neck. His touch isn’t violent in nature, or malicious with its intent.
Almost gently, he comments, “See a lot of women get sick, but never heard one of ’em sound like a lion in the wild when they did. Jesus Christ, dogs in the neighborhood probably heard that.”
Sitting up, I adjust my shaky gaze to the man standing above me. He’s not anyone I recognize.
This man is tall, built, and tattooed. His eyes are peaceful, quiet, and tame. His light brown hair is clipped short against the scalp, and it’s clean. There’s a tattoo around his neck, but in my sick-filled state, I can’t get a closer look. His face hasn’t seen a razor in a few days, I’d guess.
Thanatos stands in silence, still loitering near the door. He’s focused on my gushing thigh while he holds a small bladed knife decorated in what must be my blood. He smiles, his teeth stained and rotted, and his tongue darts out to lick the end of the weapon.
After sucking back the remnants of my pain, Thanatos lifts the knife to his throat and slowly runs the blade across it as though threatening me to stay quiet.
The man helping remove my binds can’t see the vile act taking place behind him. I’m not sure what consequence it would bring by saying anything, so I don’t.
If only for my own sanity, I refuse to look in Thanatos’s direction again.
Instead, I sit up as far as I can to aid in setting me free.
“Don’t move,” my savior quietly insists. “I’ll keep all this off, but don’t make a move to run or I’ll put them all back on.”
Nodding, wondering how it’d be possible for me to run after what Thanatos has done, I obey and do as ordered.
Once my arms are free, I gather my shirt to ensure I’m covered, then rub each wrist in turn to improve circulation. My feet are numb from the binds and chilled from the draft. Looking down, I note they’re bright red.
Without making eye contact, the man helping me turns in place and speaks to Thanatos. “You’ll pay for this, you fuck. As soon as Elevent finds you, you’re dead.”
“Fuck the whore. Elevent’s only being paid to hold her. That don’t make her his.”
“It doesn’t matter what Elevent wants with her. She’s not your bitch to fuck.”
Thanatos sneers but holds his reply as he turns around and walks away.
With his absence, the last of the breath I was holding releases in a rush.
“You’re okay,” the man known as Gypsy, based on the patch on his vest, tells me. “He’s an asshole, but he won’t be back. Elevent gets word of what he’s done here, he won’t be goin’ anywhere for a while. If ever again.”
Gypsy finishes unbinding my ankles. The sweep of rope being freed from my skin burns to the touch, but once it’s gone, immediate relief is granted.
“I don’t know why I’m here,” I start, then muster the courage to ask, “Do you know why they took me?”
“Yes,” he admits, but offers nothing more before bringing his eyes to mine. They’re vibrant and beautiful, a shimmering green. Filled with a softness I can’t explain or explore.
Once he’s finished twining the ropes together, he stands. I swallow hard, not forgetting my place. Taken against my will, I’m a prisoner.
When he reaches down to get closer, I back away as far as the wall behind me will allow. He stops, assessing my reaction, and sighs.
After I’ve calmed, he pushes my hair away from my eyes before he places it gently behind my ear. The sudden swelling of my cheek aches as he runs the back of his fingers over it gently. After being jolted out of bed, dragged through my house, thrown into a van, knocked out cold, and the last actions of Thanatos, it’s good I can’t see my own reflection. It would only serve to shred whatever little bravery I have left. Still, I can’t help but cower to this man’s touch.
“Your boyfriend is a fuckup, Miss Adler,” Gypsy explains. “He owes Elevent a fuckload of money. You’re lucky. Elevent plays by rules that others don’t. He’ll do what he can to get what’s owed from that man of yours first.”
“First?” I weakly question.
“Yes, first. Time is running out.”
“I’m not with Chase anymore.” I hate the sound of his name from my mouth. “And I don’t know where he is.”
“You still mean something to him, though. That’s the point. Word on the street gets out we have you, Chase will come or he won’t. If he does, Elevent will ensure you’re free to go.”
I swallow hard, putting the rest of the puzzle together and wishing like hell there wasn’t a need for me here. But to these men, it’s clear there is.
“And if Chase doesn’t come?”
Inhaling a substantial breath, he looks to his boots and then back to me. His regret hangs between us. “Then you’ll have to do as payment.”
My eyes close in final defeat.
“It won’t matter if Chase finds out I’m here or not.”
Various scenarios of openly pleading for freedom escape me. It doesn’t matter if Chase knows I’m here or not, because he won’t come. Not if it means saving himself.
“Let’s hope you matter to him enough, then,” Gypsy states with a small amount of compassion. “Okay?”
“Sure,” I hopelessly reply.
“I’ll be back with some shit to fix your leg as best I can.”
“Okay.”
“And I’ll have someone come in, see you to the bathroom and get you whatever else you need.”
Lying back on what I now can visibly see is a dirty cot in a filthy room located God knows where, I answer with a shrug of exhaustion and a halfhearted “Okay.”
Pulling up to Wren’s trailer, I shut off the car and take a closer look. From here, the boarded front window makes her home appear abandoned.
Her last text is from two nights ago: I’ll let you make this up to me. See you soon. xx
An older model, rusted black Honda donning a shattered windshield sits next to where I’ve parked. The snow and ice from the last two days blankets its aging frame. An empty garbage bin that I assume belongs to Wren sits near the street, though no other neighboring trailers have the same. And hers
is full. The contents are hidden beneath the snow, but inside looks to be miscellaneous bits of wooden furniture’s odds and ends.
What the fuck?
“Excuse me?” A woman wearing padded gray gloves, a dirty brown fleece jacket, and torn scarf traipses to the side of my car. She’s standing at my window with furrowed brows as the mist from her breath continues to billow above her mouth and nose.
Rather than roll down my window, I step out of the car. She backs away, giving me space.
“Can I help you?”
“You can if you’ve got twenty dollars,” she sneers. “Or if you can find and tell Chase Avery that Mrs. Evers has been looking all over hell for him.” She straightens and continues her rant without giving me a chance to interject. “That little son of a bitch still owes me the twenty dollars he borrowed two weeks ago, and I haven’t seen his punk ass since.” She takes in a breath when I lift my hand to stop her, but then adds, “He said that money was for Wren. Yeah, right. I’m so sure. I got grandkids, you know?”
“You know Wren Adler?” I finally get her to stop ranting once stating my question with urgency. “Have you seen her? Is she here?”
The impressively angry woman shakes her head. Her long, curly dark hair, spills from her brown stocking cap and flies around her face. It doesn’t hide her expression.
Moments pass before her ire ebbs, falling prey to worry. “I haven’t. I haven’t seen the girl in days. Mr. Evers and I have been so worried. Sweet girl, Wren is. No idea what she sees in that man of hers, though. Just no. One of my grandbabies comes home with someone the likes of him and Mr. Evers gets his shotgun cocked and ready.”
Anger inciting and patience waning, I push, “Do you have any idea where Wren could be?”
She thinks, then answers, “No, I don’t. The little thing always seems to be working. The last I saw her she was being helped into a big black van. She didn’t look so good. She was wearing a big black hat, too. I couldn’t see her face.”
Too many scenarios pass through my mind, none of which are good.
“When did you see this van?”
Looking up, she narrows her eyes and furrows her eyebrows in thought. “Yesterday, maybe? It’s winter. The days and nights are running together.”
