Author's comments: Look away. Please. I am evil, really I am. You don't want to be exposed to this darkness. And if you do, I'm sorry that you share my affliction. I'm serious, it'll probably be the most horrifying thing you'll ever read.

And so, like a bad car crash, you keep looking. I pity your ability to sleep tonight.

Twenty-four

Chapter Four

Hours Twenty-One through Nineteen

Part 1.

She didn't care anymore what happened next. She felt numb from the neck down—her body ravaged and her lover and friend dead. What could be worse? More pain? It was just more pain. But she could never bring Brian back.

But she misjudged her capacity for pain. He was halfway through his cigarette when he jabbed it into the flesh on her belly. "Mmmgggh," she said, trying to avoid making too much noise for fear he might take away her last freedom.

He waited several minutes and then found a spot on her neck and stuck the lit end into it. She closed her eyes and bit her lip so hard that she tasted blood. He repeated the action several times—waiting minutes so she could anticipate the pain, and then shoving the lit butt into another tender spot. Shaking, she tried to block out the worst of it and savor the gaps in between.

He got bored with the cigarettes and the belt-whippings pretty quickly, and moved on to raping her in other areas. He inserted himself into her mouth, and then got on top of her again. She was sore, but she braced herself and shut her eyes. And then she arched her back as he found a different orifice than before.

She was experienced sexually, but she had never had any desire for this kind of sex, and she was a virgin when it came to anal. He wasn't exactly using kid-gloves, and she flailed her feet to push away from him. It took every ounce of energy she had to stay quiet. He rocked her body as he shoved himself into her to a beat of his own making, and she grunted through clenched teeth. She balled her hands into fists as she waited—prayed, even though she was not a religious person—for it to stop.

Part 2.

Exhausted, she tried to dissociate, sending her soul up to the ceiling like she had heard other survivors testify they had done. But she kept coming back to her body, every time the pain became too unbearable to ignore.

Over the next couple of hours, Lewis didn't say much. He took his time, took lots of breaks, and came back with new ways to hurt her. And then, like the scumbag he was, got off on the pain he caused her.

Knowing all the things he had done to other victims was the worst. She knew she had already been through a lot, but there would be worse things to come, and she knew everything he was capable of.

She panted when he went into the other room and came back with a fireplace poker she had forgotten she had, red hot from being heated on the stove. He would brand her with it, no telling where. She would prepare herself, but ultimately, there would be no way to dampen the anguish. She reminded her trembling body that this too would pass.

He brought the poker down to her legs, and she broke her silence in a last-ditch effort to escape what she knew would be an experience that would change her forever. "Wait, wait," she said. She sounded pathetic, but she would do anything right now to stop this.

"What?" he said, cocking his head to the side, gloating over the chance to hear her try to talk her way out of assuredly brutal acts.

"If you stop, I can get you off," she gasped, her voice a tremor. "You know I can. I can have them drop the charges. You won't go to prison for raping Alice, and you won't do any time for what you did to me so far. You'll go free." She whispered desperately, "I promise."

He sat silently for a moment, and looked like he was considering what she had proposed. He scratched his head. And then he picked up her underwear off the floor and shoved them in her mouth. "Mmpphh . . ." she mumbled questioningly.

"I know I said I wouldn't gag you, but you're not going to be able to stop yourself from screaming this time." His eyes met hers. "I'm going to make it so you will never have sex again."

He looked down at the hot poker. "Not because no man would ever want you, but because you won't ever want anyone to touch you again."

With that, he lowered the poker, and a hot searing pain shot through her abdomen as he penetrated her with it.