Never the Victim
Chapter 1
The night was hand-numbingly cold as James stepped out of his warm block of flats. He shoved his thin hands deep into the pockets of his coat and then took them out again to pull the collar further up his neck. He set off briskly and his footsteps echoed in the silence of the night. There were only a few things which would motivate him to take a late-night stroll at sub-zero temperatures and unfortunately running out of cigarettes was one of them.
The CO-OP on the next street better have a good selection. His ears felt like blocks of ice at the side of his head. Why was it so damn cold?
Screaming. A woman was screaming. Alarm bells rang loudly in his head.
James stopped walking and looked around desperately in the dark. Nearby streetlamps cast a yellowed light onto the footpath and road, but he couldn't see a distressed woman. He spun again on the spot and registered that the noise was coming from a side-alley. Shadowed and only about eight-foot wide, James chargeD into it yelling "Hang on! I'm coming to help!"
He entered to alley and instantly could see nothing as any light from the streetlamp was lost. The screaming stopped and when he was grabbed from behind, he knew he'd been had. Somebody's nails were digging into his scalp as they pulled his head backwards and he could feel someone was knelt painfully on the back of his legs, forcing him onto his knees.
They pulled his head further backwards until his neck protested. He still couldn't see a thing, but he could smell beery breath close to his face and state cigarette smoke, which wasn't his own. Inside, he was trembling. Somebody yanked his head even further backwards.
He howled. "You're making a mistake." He said loudly, addressing his attackers.
Somebody was riffling through his pockets. The feel of someone pawing through his clothes would have been horribly intimate, but he was more concerned about how much further his neck would bend before it snapped.
His warrant-card was in his secret internal pocket. As was his mobile phone. He doubted that these baboons would find either.
They pulled the ten pound note, which he'd brought to buy cigarettes, out of his pocket. A man's voice grumbled something about him having no wallet. No mobile phone.
Great, now they were angry…
They threw him on the ground and their riffling hands turned to fists. Their feet kicked him in the gut, in the face, in the side. The feel of helplessness and the force of the blows. The coldness. Gravel pressed into his face and there dust in his eyes. Hot blood rushed from his nose as one of them hit it. The smell of blood and gravel and pain were familiar, but he didn't remember that. He felt another foot come into contact with the mobile in the upper pocket and it shattered there.
James refused to make a sound. He was only a victim if he let them make him one. He would not cry out. He would not beg for mercy.
Amusement over, they left, ten pounds richer. There was pain. The battered nose stung and the suspicious metallic taste of blood in his mouth was making him nauseous. He ran his tongue over his lips slowly. The split lip could have caused it. His hands ghosted over his face, which felt battered and was damp with blood. His eye seemed to be swelling.
His neck was sore. His sides ached from the blows. He suspected he'd damaged his wrist.
He picked himself up and then proceeded to throw up over himself. Acid replaced the taste of blood and stung at the back of his throat. Just when he thought he could fall no lower.
James limped home, and only when he got there did he take the fragments of his smart phone out of his pocket. He tidied himself up and sat a cold flannel on his battered face. His nose was swelling. His cheeks were swelling. His left eye began to swell more into a black eye. He forced it open with the same brutal effectiveness he used on the guilty, to remove the contact-lens.
The following morning, he rang in sick. A sense of shame consumed him when he saw his battered face, purple. He'd claimed to have a stomach virus, but Robbie hadn't exactly sounded convinced. James couldn't bring himself to care.
He wasn't going to reveal his bruised face to the world.
There was no way he was going to be the victim (again).