January 12, 1967 - New York - Outside Of Janet's
It was a only a small walk from Donna's to Janet's, but I was taking my time. I knew I didn't want to show up too late, but I didn't want to rush to her house, begging for them to let me stay. Heck, if I did that, they'd think something was wrong. I turned a corner, and smiled as I saw Janet's house in the distance. So close.
As I marched up Janet's street I stopped abruptly and let out a sudden stream of curses. "No!" I stomped my foot down on sidewalk so hard my foot ached. "Janet's not even home-she left for France this afternoon! God, how could I have forgotten?" I was standing in the middle of the sidewalk with the dim streetlights not providing much light. I let out a sound that was between a growl and sigh and stomped my foot again. "I'm dead! Just dead!" I looked at the watch on my wrist and cringed at the time.
10:05.
"You got that right." I gasped at the unexpected voice, and turned around just as hand shot out and latched onto the colar of my jacket. A huge man stepped into the dim light and he shoved me against the brick building I had been standing next to. I couldn't help it, I screamed. "Shut the fuck up." The man's hand slapped over my mouth, muffling my sounds. "Walk," he hissed. He took his hand off my mouth to drag his coat open slightly so I could get a good look at the handgun he had tucked in his belt.
My eyes felt like they were going to pop out of my head. I shook my head. "I-I-I've got money, I-I'll pay you off. Money's only a-an obj-ect," I sputtered, my hand reaching for my wallet. My eyes widened futher as I stuffed my hand in my pocket and pulled out nothing. I tried my other pocket and shook my head again. No, this can't be happening!
The man smiled, as if amused by my rection. "The boss only pays in blood, girl." He chuckled, and for the second time tonight, I was disgusted by a laugh. "Now walk," the man repeated.
I gulped, and nodded. I was too stunned to speak. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening. I complied as he threw me from the wall and pushed me forward, my legs working as best as they could even though they shook like leaves in a tornado, and my body reacted to what he told me to do.
We quickly turned into an alleyway and he started down toward the slum part of town. My eyes were watering, but both my mind and body were numb as hundreds of different - horrible- thoughts flooded in my mind. We kept walking, taking the dark alleyways and the occasional street, but the streets were different than from the area I lived. Needless to say, this had to be the worst day of my life.
The streets were completely empty, with no cars and the only other people out this late were those crowded around fires in metal barrels that had the toxic waste symbols faded on them. He led me into a ratty and abandoned apartment building that was obviously anything but stable, half of it being a victim of major fire damage. He forced me into the building and up a very wobbly set of stairs and into another dark hallway where he kicked down one of doors and pushed me inside.
My lips trembled and the tears that had stung in my eyes since he showed me the gun fell down my cheeks as I began to connect the dots. This can't be happening. I frowned, a heavy weight pressing on my heart. He's not just going to murder me in cold blood. He'll do something first... I'll die like Alice, I thought.
I felt my heart rate spike as my breathing became difficult and before I knew it, I was hyperventilating. I can't die now! I have school tomorrow! I have to see Donna again! I have to, I promised, didn't I? I always keep my promises. I didn't even process that my captor had moved in front of me until the handgun was inches from my face. I choked on a breath, and inhaled the bitter scent of cold metal. Oh, I'm going to vomit.
And that's what I did.
I choked on another breath and then turned just as the contents of my stomach spilled from my mouth and onto the floor. The mess I made was small, the equivalent to how much I had eaten today. The bitter taste in my mouth and the stinging in my nose made my tears fall faster. I was already sick, and he hadn't even done anything yet. My heart clenched painfully in uncertainty.
The man made a sound of disgust and snapped, "What kind of pathetic bitch are you? You're sick and we haven't even started." The man's hard voice made my stomach twist and squeeze. I gagged, but nothing came up.
I should have protested as he shook the gun in my face, and demanded I take my clothes off. I shouldn't have done what the man said. I should have stood my ground, but the gun in his hand took away all sense of fighting back. From what skin was exposed, I could tell he was white, with a masculine square jaw, and quite scrawny, even with his broad shoulders and tremendous height. He was easily 6 feet tall, and had shaggy gold hair that was sprinkled with dirt and smeared with oil. The room was too dark to come up with an eye color. His clammy hands grabbed my bare shoulders and spun me around. Then he held the tip of the gun to my back, just below my bra.
He wanted me to keep my underwear on, that much registered.
"Walk," he hissed, and I did. I walked until he gripped my arm and pulled me into an apartment bedroom, slamming the door closed behind us. He then pushed me onto the dust covered, ratty mattress in the middle of the room. It was tainted in blood stains and a heavy, disgusting scent. I gagged again and let out a yelp when the man flopped on me, his lips and tongue all over my neck. I cried out in disgust and squirmed under him.
No! NO! I'd rather die! I cried mentally, knowing no one could hear me, but wishing someone could read my mind, hear my silent screams for help.
The man slid a short blade out of his back jean pocket and pressed it on my cheek bone, under my left eye. He dug it slightly into my skin, making a pinprick of blood bubble up. "Stop," he growled.
I went still under him. I stopped pushing him. I stopped making sound. If I could, I'd also have stopped my heart's beating.
He smiled at my frozen state and went back to molesting me. His ugly, disgusting hands where suddenly on my shoulders, pushing my bra straps down. I let out a gasping weep, but stayed as silent and still as I could.
"Take off your bra," he said. His voice was surprisingly gentle, but demanding. I gave the man a confused look, the fear and intimidation not leaving me, but the question of his sudden gentlness startled me. "Take off your bra!" he shouted, slamming his hand into the mattress right next to my head. I jumped at his sudden viciousness and my hands were behind me, working. I fumbled over the clamps, but then stopped moving.
I'd rather die than do this. Death would be better. I'd rather die, I thought. I looked at the man with watery eyes. Not like Alice... With unexplainable boldness, I hissed, "I'd rather die."
My attacker's face twisted into a scowl, and I saw a flash of silver, and then there was a sharp pain on my neck. I gasped and felt confused, but I also knew what happened. The man on top of me grabbed a handful of my hair and yanked at it before slamming my head down into mattress. I screamed, again, but I didn't fight his hands. I was too busy applying pressure to my neck.
I was bleeding!
He cut me. He cut my neck! I'm dying, I thought. My life's over, just like this. I let out a scream, unable to stop the wave of dread that overcame me. "Noooo!" I yelled. The man held the blade to my mouth, but I turned my face to the side and screamed again, in pain and in sadness and in furry. "Help," I wailed. "Help me, please! Someone!" The man's blade scraped along the sides of my face in small cuts, nothing deep enough to scar like what he had done under my cheek, but deep enough to bleed as I moved my head side to side, trying to wiggle out of his grasp.
It wasn't working. It was hopeless.
"Noo!" I sobbed, wishing I had just let Donna's father drive me home. Hell - even letting my parents pick me up would have been better than this.
"Shut up you bitch," the man hissed, dragging the blade down the side of my arm as he sat up on my waist. His hand rose, but never came down.
Just as he was about to stab me the already broken window burst into thousands of pieces. I let out a shocked scream and I slammed my eyes shut, but I heard the thick thud of a human body landing. The man on top of me started to curse, but stopped mid sentence because he was ripped off of me and into the wall where he and the window man began to punch and slash at each other. I heard a large crash, and the sicken sound of a bone snapping, but I ignored it. I sobbed harder and turned away from the violence, until a voice of reason told me that this was my chance to get away.
Listening to the voice, I tried to crawl away - towards the door - but a hand suddenly wrapped around my ankle, and yanked me off the bed onto the floor. I fell on my stomach with a breathless scream, and tried to get up, but the man straddled my back.
"Now, where were we?" he said, unclasping my bra.
My eyes widened in fear as the only thing keeping my dignity was then ripped off of me with a strangled tearing sound.
"No," I screamed, my arms suddenly pinned above me with him pressing his chest against my back and reaching under my body to start and molest my chest. "Kill me! Kill me!" I sobbed, willing my heart to stop so the feeling of the man's hands that kept roughly playing with my body would stop. Any thoughts of the window man were gone as I was flipped over on my back, exposing my breasts to the world. He lifted me up slightly and for a second I thought he was going to move me back to the bed, but then he slammed me back down, my head blasting the floor, sending my world into a spinning murk of muffled sound and blurred vision with stars and a never ending spin on the world.
I ceased in my struggling and furrowed my eyebrows, a numbness echoing in my body.
"Begging for death-" the man's cocky voice was cut off just as the man was tackled off of me, jerking me out of my clouded stupor and back into the ugly reality. My stinging, wet eyes crinkled in despair.
"I wasn't done," a voice rasped, the voice sounded cold and bitter, more like a growl than actual speech. But there was an obviously masculinity about it that sent me into panic while also making hope swell in my chest.
I'm not going to die.
The simple thought empowered me. I took my chance at getting away. I didn't even glance at the men brawling on the floor, instead throwing a hand over my exposed chest and tried to stand. Sadly, my body was in too much shock to be able to work properly and the blow to my head hadn't helped the nervous system function either, so I was back on the ground before I knew I had even fallen and gasping for anything as the world around me was again sent into a whirling mass of blurry colors and muffled sounds. I tried to blink away the stars and calm my body down so that I could focus on seeing correctly again, but to no avail.
I coughed and lifted my head to see the blurry outline of what might have been a shirt and grabbed it. I yanked the foul smelling shirt on and was about to make another try and that damned door when a pained shriek came from across the room. My head turned just in time to see the man who was going to rape me fall down, gasping like a fish out of water as his own knife stuck out of the middle of his hairy chest, just under his rib cage. I froze at the scene, shocked as the details of it slowly sunk in my mind as my vision cleared.
I felt tears bubble in my eyes and my gaping mouth trembled at the sight of the dying man. Even if it was a terrible sight, I felt no sympathy, just hatred. I squeezed my eyes shut, wanting nothing more than the feeling of the man's hands to leave my body. That man had touched me. He had been so close to tainting me... I felt more tears stream down my already wet face and made to wipe them away as I remembered that the knife didn't just lodge itself into the man's chest by itself, there was someone else in the room. But I was beat to it as gentle, gloved hands softly wiped the tears off my eyes.
I gasped, and backed away from the man. He didn't follow, and instead watched as I crawled away from him. "Don't," I wept, "don't..." I looked at the man's...face? I was caught off guard slightly as I watched the patterns shift and morph, then sucked in a quick breath. "You." I shook my head, clearing my head. "N-no, not you..." This night continued to get worse. I felt so humiliated.
This man was my hero. Here I was, bloody and weak in front of him.
I'm so pathetic.
I can't even stand up. I hung my head, the feeling of being naked slamming into me full force as a breeze seeped into the room and floated through my shirt. I shivered, and attempted to climb to my feet, but I couldn't do it. I tried as hard as I could and even looked around the room for something to help me stand, but everything in the room looked dirty, and a part of me wanted to throw up just at the thought of touching something else my attacker had touched.
I noticed my hero stayed crouched, watching me with a slightly tilted head. He didn't make a move to come closer, he just watched me, not saying a word.
With a shaky breath, and stability that only being watched by a Watchmen gave me, I climbed to my feet on my own. I took a deep breath, and stood still for a moment, slightly swaying, until I gained the confidence to move. I tried to swallow the large lump in my throat, but I couldn't, and decided it would be best if I just moved. I stumbled forward but let out a groan as my legs gave out and I tumbled downward. My arms weren't quick enough to catch me and I crashed into the disgusting floor. I let out another groan, the pain in my head becoming unbearable. My sight faded in and out as I started to loose consciousness. The last thing I saw before it all went black was the masked man's feet walking toward me, and then his knee as he kneeled down next to my head.