Collateral Damage (2 page)

I can't leave them. I can't fight him.

So I screamed.

Pain imploded from my jaw and flared up into my skull. My side hit the asphalt.

I tasted a mouthful of pennies. My vision flickered. Red, white, red, white.

"Do that again, and I'll make you eat your friend's guts." Clawed fingers raked my scalp and twisted in my hair. The man dragged me on my knees towards Amanda's body.

Her still body. Done twitching. Done doing anything.

"You hear me?"

"Yes." The word gurgled from my mouth along with acidic vomit. Frothy, yellow drops fell on Amanda's chin. The rain washed it all away, leaving her face clean except for a ring of mascara, leaking in to gaping eyes, streaking cruddy black over the whites.

I sobbed and pressed my hands on the wet pavement.
Gone, gone, gone. No helping her.
I sucked in saliva and swallowed. "I hear you. Take me. Leave the boy."

He laughed. "Aren't you sweet."

He hauled me up against him, over Amanda, and then waved to the boy. "Get in the front seat with Vince. He'll have food for you."

"Yes, Darryl." The boy scurried around us to a van that pulled up at the end of the alley.

The van's back doors swung open, and three men climbed out. Darryl handed me over to the smallest. Spiny fingers clamped around my nape. Splintered nails scratched me. Greasy hair framed a narrow face taken over by black, rat eyes and lashes long as spider legs. A bony arm circled my waist.

Cold flooded my brain. Veins swelled as my pulse sped up. I watched him through the wet hair veiling my face, the strands darkened to the color of dried veins, and saw my opportunity to escape.

Small guy, not much bigger than me. Him I can fight!

I jammed my hand over his face and gorged his eye with my thumb. A squishy pop, like a soft-boiled egg oozing warm yolk. The man screamed. I bolted towards the front of the van. Something solid struck the back of my thighs and lifted me. I flew, up, up. Swung sideways. My head
thunked
against the van. Scalding agony filled my skull, boiling my brain. My limbs hung, boneless, useless.

A small, helpless animal sound passed my lips.

"You struggled. You fought." Darryl's grinning face wobbled in and out of my vision like a reflection in an oily puddle. "Good. I was hoping we could have some fun."

The world fuzzed in and out. I was carried. Floating. Falling.

Rip! Slam!

My arms stretched over my head. Something sticky wound around them, from wrists to elbows. The ground—no, the floor of the van—jerked beneath me. Darkness eased away, revealing Darryl and two men with shaggy hair and pasty faces. All three massive.

I twisted my neck to see who held my wrists. The scrawny guy. He leered at me and let me see the leaky hole in his face. I panted over another wave of nausea.

"Hold her legs." Darryl shifted above me in a way that made me stiffen. Then thrash. The men seized my ankles, and Darryl grinned at me. "I caught her. I'm first."

First? Oh, God! God, please! Please help me!

"No!" My lips were slimy with all kinds of fluids, the same fluids that clotted on my tongue, in my throat. As Darryl leaned down, I slurped it all into a wad and spat it in his face. When he reared back, I screamed. "Let me—"

He slapped me. The pain flared up; then my cheek went numb. His lips jammed down on mine, grating them against my teeth. The men at my feet pried my legs apart.

I choked as Darryl held his dagger over my face. Held my breath as he pushed up one-handed and brought the knife down between us.

"Even a little wiggle, and this will hurt." He slit my skirt, and then slid the blade under the crotch of my panties. Metal skimmed my folds as he cut the cotton. My eyes fluttered shut.

A gritty invasion. Stinging, burning. My vision glazed. Thumping flesh came from somewhere far away. I stared at him. Saw nothing but multifaceted, black movement. Felt warmth and twitching within. Dragging outward.

Then one of the other men said, "My turn."

I never blinked. The part of me who was
me
checked out. Hid in a locked room with thick, glass walls. Surrounded by crayon sunshine.

Chapter Two

The van rocked, tilted like it was going uphill. Darryl propped me up beside him on a long, metal bench built into the van's steel interior shell. Then he pierced the tape between my wrists with a hook sticking out halfway up the wall, restraining my arms over my head.

Across from us, the three other men sat and drank beer they'd fished out of a cooler now serving as a footrest. The man whose eye I'd taken watched me with the whole one as he sipped his beer. Tougher than he looked—the wound didn't seem to faze him. Unless he was in shock.

I knew I was. Because the mess I'd made of his face didn't seem so bad anymore.

No blood. No more leaking—

That's not helping.
I forced myself to stop staring at him and glanced at the other men. They seemed to have forgotten about me. They were chatting about sports—just a couple of normal guys chilling out after a hard day's work, the same kind of guys Amanda and I would have met at the club if we'd ever made it there. Or maybe we
had
met them at the club. Maybe that's why they'd come after us. Maybe we'd let them buy us a few drinks the last time we went out and then brushed them off at the end of the night. We did that a lot.

In my opinion, women who got raped never "asked" for it. Not by how they dressed or how they acted. But with me . . . well, it was different. Things like this didn't just happen to me. I brought them on myself. I could practically hear my mother telling me so, like she had last time. When I hadn't been careful enough. Hadn't used the brains she'd given me. A girl with my education, leaving her drink unattended. But I'd been lucky. All the tests came back clean. A pill, some therapy, and I was all better.

I wondered what she'd say this time. Would she find words other than "dirty"

and "pathetic?" My nails dug into my palms.
Won't matter if they kill me, will it? Then she
can ream my corpse 'til I fucking rot.

Bitterness distracted me from the condition of my body. The cold metal beneath me gave my raw flesh some relief. I bowed my head and tipped my hips, pressing my swollen folds down, not too concerned with how unsanitary it was.

Darryl's hand settled on my knee. Slid up. Before my thighs could clamp together, he shoved his hand between them. A single digit prodded and then curved inside. "And here I thought you'd given up." He unbuttoned his pants one-handed, withdrew his finger, and dropped to his knees in front of me. Then he jerked me to the edge of the seat and pushed my thighs apart. "If you knew how hard resistance gets me

. . . ." His dick snapped against my belly, fully erect. But not hot. He felt cold as the metal ledge denting my bare butt. Like a solid, iron rod. "Look at that red cunt. You might want to stop tempting us before we tear that pretty pussy. As it is, you'll be sore for a while."

I couldn't push him off. Couldn't even regain enough balance to wiggle away.

His firm grip on my thighs kept me from kicking him. All I could do was brace my head against the wall of the van and watch the three round lights overhead flicker as he slowly worked himself into swollen flesh. Tiny whimpers irritated my throat, scored by raspy screams. I hurt, inside and out. Dried blood cracked on my face, on my legs, and everywhere else his lips and fingers touched.

Tears stung my eyes, but didn't fall. Maybe I had none left. My body seemed to have dried to an empty husk. A thing. I was just a thing for them to use.

No quick end for me. Amanda was lucky . . . .

I stuffed that thought away like dirty laundry into an overflowing hamper.

Amanda was dead. The brutal way she'd died—I didn't want that. Even to end all this.

I'd survive this. Survive and find a way to escape.

Bullshit. You've given up. You might as well be lying in that alleyway with her.

The lights stopped flickering as the van's jarring motions eased up and then ceased. The thick head of Darryl's dick lodged inside and wouldn't go further no matter how hard he tried. He forced a little more, cursed, drew out, and then spit on his palm.

"Let's slick you up a bit—"

The van's back doors clicked and then opened.

A face of tanned stone emerged through sheets of rain, all smooth planes and sharp angles. Big like the others. Big enough to take everyone if he was there to save me. He brought to mind an ancient island I'd seen on a cruise during the wanderlust of my early twenties. Jagged rocks rising high above the sea. Not the strength of crashing waves, but the strength to stand against them.

But a savior would look shocked. Outraged.

His emotionless riverbed-brown eyes flicked from one man to the next. And settled on Darryl.

"You drive," he said, his voice a deep, thunder growl.

"I'm busy, Vince." Darryl smeared his saliva down his erection and aimed it between my spread thighs. "Get one of the other men to drive. You can play with her when I'm done."

Face impassive, Vince waited.

Darryl bared his teeth in a sneer—directed at me, not Vince—then stuffed himself back in his pants. "You're gonna wish it was me fucking you, slut." His tone dropped to a sly whisper. "Vince is one sick son-of-a-bitch."

As Darryl exited the van, Vince moved to stand in front of me. Water droplets fell from his short, brown hair onto my bare legs and feet. His eyes rested on my fat lip, and then drifted down to my thighs. His brow furrowed a little, and he frowned.

Pity? Or my imagination?

He moved to the other side of the van and took a seat.

"You mind if we . . . ?" The smallest man—his gouged eye swollen shut and already scabbed over—came towards me, but he didn't touch me until Vince nodded.

Then he flicked a button on my blouse with a broken nail and pulled a small, folding blade from his pocket. "Stand her up, and get her off the hook."

The two big men went to either side of me. They hefted me up, holding me when my knees gave. My arms flopped over my chest, completely numb. As I hung between them, their half-blind friend cut through my white blouse, my bra, and what remained of my skirt and panties. The blood- and rain-soaked fabric slopped on the floor, and the small man kicked it aside. He handed the knife to the man on my left.

"Get rid of the tape."

The tape was sliced and peeled away so fast I was sure a layer of skin had gone with it. Pinpricks covered my flesh as circulation returned.

This man must want revenge for what I'd done to him. Rape obviously wasn't enough. I whimpered as his hand came towards my face.

He simply reached around to tug the elastic from my hair. "Red. Aren't you into redheads, Vince?"

Vince's jaw muscles ticked, but he didn't answer.

The one eyed man brought a strand up to his face and brushed it over his lips.

Then he let it fall on my shoulder, touched my cheek, the bridge of my nose, my mouth, my chin. "Very pretty."

He took the knife back and tapped his bottom lip with the blade. Probably deciding which part of my
pretty
face to slice off in return for his eye. His free hand curved under my jaw. His finger and thumb dug into the muscle at either side until the pain forced me to open my mouth.

"I think I want a taste of this." He jammed his fingers into my mouth. His brittle nails scraped my tongue as he tried to catch it. A hand on the back of my head kept me from turning away. Bloody dirt joined the flavor of vomit, and my throat worked as I resisted the urge to throw up on him. "A little taste. Maybe just the tip."

The floor vibrated as the van started up again. Then it jerked and swayed like the driver wasn't quite in control.

The boy! Probably trying to fight Darryl while I—
Fuck this
.

I swung my arms up and swept the dagger away from my face. Throwing myself at the door, I caught the handle before someone caught my ankle. The door flew from my hand when I tugged, and the van sped up, almost tossing me out into the street.

Which was suddenly exactly what I wanted. At this speed, my neck would snap on impact, and I'd be torn to pieces. Perfect. No passing car could avoid my scattered remains, and these men wouldn't get far before—

My head jerked back as someone used my hair as a lever to heft me up. I drove my elbow back and connected with something solid. A shock of pain nailed the bone of my forearm, subduing me just long enough for whoever held me to shove me deeper into the van. On my hands and knees, I watched the muscles of a broad back bunch as one of the men latched onto the doorjamb and leaned out to grab the swinging door.

I surged forward, aiming for the back of his legs. The door slammed, and a big hand covered my face. I found myself flat on the floor with Vince straddling me.

He dropped his hands to either side of my head, using my hair and his weight on my hips to pin me. "Enough."

The van seemed to skid sideways. I closed my eyes and whispered. "Stop him.

Whatever Darryl is doing to the boy—"

"Quiet." He shook his head and seemed to look at me a little closer, as though trying to figure out exactly what I was. "You don't care about him. You tried to save yourself."

"The fall would have killed me."

"Then why—?"

"Breadcrumbs." His confused expression made me laugh. A little hysterically. My mind was going to snap, and all my glass walls would shatter. "Breadcrumbs of body parts for the cops to follow. So they could stop you."

"No one will stop us. They never do." He extended his arm and snapped his fingers. A moment later, he had a blanket. He covered me before he pulled me to my feet. "Darryl won't hurt the boy. And you can help him by living."

"How?" I clung to the rough fabric, wrapped around me like a wool cocoon. "Tell me how."

"Come." He led me to the end of the van, where he pressed down on my shoulders until I knelt in front of him. He sat and pressed my head against his thigh.