Those Girls (11 page)

It was hard to keep dancing. Dani and Courtney faltered and I stumbled, which earned me a slap on the butt from Brian. “Wake up!”

The boys tired of the game and started taunting us, picking on Courtney and me. “What’s your real names?”

“I’m Sara—she’s Melissa.” Courtney pointed at me.

“You’re lying,” Gavin said. “You were lying as soon as we saw you in that busted-down truck.”

Brian started laughing. “Almost got it fixed up.” Dani looked at him. “Think I might just keep it. Take the plates off, throw a slap of paint on it. Make for a real nice souvenir.”

Souvenir.

I wondered how much longer they planned on keeping us alive.

Brian circled closer to me. “Your sister said you just turned fifteen.”

I tried to think which one had told him.

Brian was still talking. “But I think they’re lying about that too. That’s no fifteen-year-old’s body.”

He stood behind me, his breath on my neck. He lifted my hair, nuzzled my neck, grabbed me, and pulled me back. I cried out.

My sisters came toward me. Gavin stepped in with a gun. “Stay back.”

“Leave her alone,” Dani said.

“She’s just a kid,” Courtney said. “You can do whatever you want to me again—whatever you want. Just let her go.”

He reached around, cupped one of my breasts, gripping it hard. I elbowed him in the stomach, kicked back with my foot.

“You little brat!” He grabbed me around the waist and started to drag me out of the room.

Dani and Courtney were screaming, “No! Leave her alone!”

Then I heard the sickening smack of metal hitting flesh.

“I’ll shoot your sister, bitch!” Gavin’s voice.

I looked back over my shoulder, frantic. Gavin had the gun pointed at Courtney. Dani was on the floor, holding the side of her face.

Brian had me out the door. I fought hard, pushing back with all my strength, but his arm was wrapped tight around my body. Was he going to kill me? Crazed with fear, I didn’t care. I didn’t want to find out what he was going to do. I remembered the sounds from Dani and Courtney as they tried to clean themselves, their moans at night when they tried to sleep, their crying in the dark.

Brian hauled me down a short hallway, then through an open door. He had the rifle tucked under his other armpit, his hand gripping the lantern, which was swinging and casting strange shadows. I looked around, searching for an escape, something to save me. We were in a warehouse, looked like the roof was a few feet higher than our room, with exposed rafters and aluminum sheeting. Clear plastic poly covered the triangle at the top of the walls at both ends of the building. Wooden crates were stacked all over in haphazard towers, a conveyor belt came out of the side of the building. The air smelled of rotting fruit. A rat scurried away from us. Brian startled, then muttered, “Fucking thing.”

He took me to a room that broke off from the main one. An old cash register sat on a wooden counter, empty shelves lining the wall. A mattress lay in the center, a faded blue blanket tossed over it. I could see spots of reddish brown.

My sisters’ blood.

“Please, please don’t,” I begged.

“Shut up and get on the mattress.”

I sat down.

He set the lantern in the corner, stroked the gun barrel as he stared at me. Would it be better to fight or just go along? Talking, that’s what Dani would do, she’d try to talk to him
.

“Please, I’m just a kid—you heard my sisters. We just want to go home. We won’t tell anyone. I thought you were a nice guy.”

Brian rocked back on his feet, giving me a calculating look. “You think I’m not smart enough to figure out that you’re playing me?”

It wasn’t working. I thought desperately, remembered the way the girls had looked at him down by the river, how angry he’d been.

“If you let me go, I could be your girlfriend.”

“You don’t think I can get a girlfriend?” He stiffened, his face flushed.

“I think you’d be a good boyfriend.”

“Yeah?” He smiled. He rested the rifle against the wall, still within his reach but just outside of mine, then sat on the mattress. He put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me toward him. “Then act like my girlfriend.”

“That’s not how it works. You treat me like a
real
girlfriend, then we do that—like how it’s supposed to be.” I brushed his arm away.

His face was angry now. “You want to be my girlfriend, then fucking act like one.” He stood, stared down at me. “Take off your clothes.”

“Please … I’m a virgin.”

He smiled. “That’s why I wanted you.” The smile disappeared. He lowered his head, looked directly into my eyes. “Take your fucking clothes off.”

My fingers shaking, I took off the dress, sat there in my underwear.

“Take it
all
off,” he said.

I pulled the rest off, trying to make myself small on the mattress. I wondered how much it was going to hurt. He was taking off his own clothes now. I squeezed my eyes shut, heard his belt buckle hit the floor.

“Get on your back,” he said.

I lay down, my arm still across my chest and my other hand over my crotch. My body had started shaking violently.

He climbed on top of me, his hands rough as they mauled my breasts, pinching. Tears dripped down the sides of my face. I cried out.

“I thought you wanted to be my girlfriend,” he said.

I shook my head back and forth. “No,
please
.”

He pushed my legs apart with his knees.

“You’re going to like this,” he said.

*   *   *

He had to help me walk back to the main room. I was dizzy, the pain between my legs agonizing. I tried to close my eyes to the memory of what had just happened, but I couldn’t stop seeing him grunting, the glazed look in his eyes.

He brought me back to Dani—Courtney and Gavin were gone.

Dani’s eyes roamed my face, her expression anxious. I wanted to cry, but I held my face still, didn’t want her to see how scared I was, how much it hurt. Brian pushed me down beside her.

“Little sister was telling me how she wants to be my girlfriend.” Dani’s face didn’t change but her gaze flicked to me again, just for a second.

He knelt close to me, grabbed my face, and shoved his tongue in my mouth, grinding my lip against my teeth.

“Don’t worry, baby. I’ll let you be my girlfriend.”

He rolled a joint, finished off a beer. Down the hall we heard Courtney shriek. The sound echoed through the building. Dani stood up and I let out a sob.

“Sit the fuck back down,” Brian said. Dani hesitated, staring at the door and then at him, like she was wondering if she could get through it in time.

He casually picked up the gun beside him, pointed it at her with one arm, then swung his arm around until it pointed to me.

Dani sat back down.

He took a long inhale of the joint, let it out with a coughing laugh. The room filled with the skunky smell of marijuana.

“Gavin’s a freak—he likes it rough.” He gave Dani a look. “Guess you’re getting off easy tonight, sweetheart. We’ll make it up to you tomorrow.”

“When are you going to let us go?” she said.

He shrugged. “This weekend? Tomorrow? Never? Maybe we’ll just keep you around for a while.”

“We’ll starve to death,” I said. “We can’t live on one sandwich a day.”

He nodded, thinking. “You did good tonight. Maybe we’ll bring you some more food tomorrow.”

Another scream down the hall, the sound digging into my bones.

“Please stop him.
Please
,” I said. “He’s hurting her.” She’d never screamed that loud before. The thought of what he might be doing terrified me.

“Sorry, can’t do that. Gavin, once he sets his mind on something, he’s like a bulldog. And he does like that girl a whole lot.”

“If he kills her, you’ll go to prison,” Dani said. “You’ll be murderers.”

“Maybe we’ll kill all of you,” he said with a cold smile. “That’ll make things real simple. Hitchhikers are always coming through. We didn’t see the possibilities before, but now?” He laughed. “Our eyes are wide open.”

“It would be easier to keep us than start over with anyone else,” Dani said.

“You don’t think we can do this again?” The look he gave her made it clear she was treading on thin ground.

“Why go through the effort when you already have us?” Dani said. “That’s all I’m saying. But you need to keep us healthy.”

Brian’s face was thoughtful. He took another drag, walked over and offered the joint to Dani. She took a long inhale. When he offered me a hit I glanced at her. She nodded, telling me to play along. I took a drag.

He sat back down. “So you think we should keep you?”

It seemed like Gavin had been gone with Courtney for a really long time. There’d been no more screams, which was almost worse. I tried not to think about what was happening to her, just about buying us time.

“Why not?” I said. “You’ve got nothing to lose.”

“It ain’t easy coming here every day,” he said.

“You don’t have to come every day,” I said. It would be a relief if they didn’t. “You could just leave us food and water and come when you want.”

“Like you’re our pets,” he said, his voice high-pitched from the weed. Then he laughed. I hated his laugh. Hated Gavin’s even more.

“Yeah, like we’re your pets,” Dani said. I could hear the undercurrent of anger in her voice, knew she was close to snapping.

Keep it together, Dani.

He leaned closer. “We’ve already got everything we want out of you.” He sat back with a lazy smile. “I’ll think about it.”

A few minutes later, Gavin finally brought Courtney back. She could barely walk, and I saw bite marks on her collarbone. There was no expression on her face, just tears and snot leaking down, mixed with dust and blood. Gavin pushed her to the floor. She moaned, brought her knees up to her body.

He grabbed a beer, opened it, and took a long slug. He wiped his sweaty face on his arms as he looked over at us. He lingered on me for a while.

“I’ll try you out tomorrow.” He gave Courtney a look. “Bitch is starting to bore me.” He spit on her. She didn’t even flinch as it ran down her face.

Brian laughed. “You messed her up good.” He walked over and offered her a hit from the joint.

She wouldn’t look at him. He gave her a kick with his boot. “Take it.” She turned to face him and he held the joint to her lips, looking at her almost tenderly as he said, “There you go.” He gave her a few more tokes, then stood up, turned to Gavin. “Let’s go.”

*   *   *

We crawled over to Courtney, leaned against her thin frame. I could hear her breath, the sound comforting.
She’s alive. We’re all still alive
. I tried not to think about the pain between my legs, Gavin saying he wanted me next. I wished we had turned ourselves in. Jail would have been better than this.

“Are you okay?” Courtney whispered after a few minutes.

“I’m all right. Are you?”

“I can’t do it again. I can’t.” She started crying hard.

“You won’t have to,” I said fiercely. “If they untie us again, we rush them and try to grab the guns and … and—”

“They’re too strong,” Dani said.

“So what are we going to do?” I said.

“They only … they only untie us when they’re raping us,” Courtney said, the words hiccupping out of her. “Gavin, he likes … he likes to make you do stuff, but he still holds a knife. Brian, sometimes he sets the gun down.”

“Gavin’s taking me next time.” I couldn’t breathe, struggled to push the words past the lump in my throat.

“I can try to get the gun from Brian,” Dani said. “Shoot him, then go after Gavin. If Brian takes you, Courtney, you have to try for the gun.”

“Okay.” Her tears had calmed. Her body shuddered as she took a few ragged breaths.

“What if Brian takes me?” I said. “I don’t know where Gavin’s room is.”

“It’s another storage room, like this one, but it’s at the front of the warehouse. Shoot him right away.”

“What if Gavin hears the shot?”

“Even if we only kill one of them, I’ll be happy,” Dani said.

We didn’t talk about what might happen if our plan failed.

CHAPTER TEN

They’d brought Kentucky Fried Chicken and fries and coleslaw, untied our wrists so we could eat. We tore into the chicken, gnawing off greasy bite after bite, almost gagging, our mouths were so full, but none of us were able to slow down or stop our moans of relief. I hadn’t eaten meat in years but I didn’t even think about that now, didn’t care. We sucked back the coleslaw, eating it straight from the container, shoved french fries in our mouths.

Brian was leaning against the wall, tapping his gun barrel against his cowboy boots, smiling at me. “Think I’ll take my girlfriend again tonight.” I was shocked—I thought for sure I was going with Gavin.

“Screw you—it’s my turn,” Gavin said.

Brian’s face was cold. “You can have her when I say you can have her.” He pointed the gun at Dani and Courtney. “Take one of them.”

“Fine.” Gavin jerked Courtney up from the floor and dragged her away.

Brian took a step toward me.

“Please,” Dani said. “She’s really sore. I’ll do whatever you want.”

He smiled. “So will she.”

He grabbed me and pulled me up. I didn’t look at Dani, scared I’d reveal something and Brian would sense we had a plan, but I could feel her panic.

In the other room, he started to turn me around. If I was facedown I wouldn’t be able to reach the gun, and my hands were still tied. I thought quickly.

“What if … what if I give you a blow job instead?”

I was terrified, my throat tight. I tried not to think about it, tried to just focus on the plan.

He was quiet for a second. I braced for his rage.

“Yeah, all right.” He spun me around and pushed me down on my knees in front of him, started to unbuckle his pants with one hand.

“Can you sit on the bed?” I said. “I can reach easier. And I need my hands.” I was sick at the thought of touching him, touching
it.

“Whatever makes it better for you, sweetheart.” He united my hands, stood to unzip his pants, then sat on the edge of the bed, propping himself up on his elbows and closing his eyes.