He stood in front of her, his hands on his hips and grinned, his eyes never meeting hers.
He looks at me like I’m a thing to be devoured, Sarah thought, with rising panic. She slipped off the bed and stood in front of him, not sure why she moved, but not able to help herself. She wasn’t trying to escape, exactly, but it didn’t matter. The grin disappeared from the man’s face and his lips curled back to reveal yellow and chipped teeth. He slapped Sarah hard, knocking her down against the bed.
“Bitch! Who told ya you could move?”
Sarah’s mouth filled with the taste of her own blood. She scrambled across the bed and turned to watch him as he moved around the foot of the bed to cut off her escape. She had meant to give in. She’d told herself she would do what she had to do to survive. She didn’t know why she couldn’t stop herself from moving away from him.
He cracked his knuckles and advanced on her, his eyes again on her breasts. “Denny said you’re too old for him so you’re all mine, sis. I wouldn’t think of yelling or anything coz I pretty much got the green light to do whatever I want, and it’s up to you whether there’s anything left of ya afterwards to go on to Maggie’s or I haul your arse back to the factory. Ya understand me, bitch?”
Sarah stared at him and felt the helplessness sift through her. She couldn’t do it. She could not allow him to climb on top of her. Her mind was a whirl of motion and a thousand different thoughts and images. Would she ever be the same again if she let him touch her? Would she be anything worth having back as a mother?
Her eyes narrowed as she watched Gil undo his belt and drop his pants on the floor. He still had his socks and boots on and Sarah thought she saw something flash from the top of his sock. He was wearing a shoulder holster but she couldn’t see if there was anything in it. Whatever she did, she needed to do it now. She looked frantically at the nightstand by the bed but there was nothing there, not even a book or a paperweight.
“Denny said we can’t use the bed so move over here by the couch. If I have to come get you, I’ll make sure it hurts bad.”
She watched him waiting for her, his stiff member holding his shirtfront up like a sagging tent pole. She nodded and moved toward the couch. She had only one trick in her bag and if she screwed it up he’d kill her. But if she didn’t at least try, she would surely die a slower, different way.
As she passed him, she turned to him and said, “I was hoping it would be you ever since we first met this morning.”
He grunted in surprise. She saw his eyes were not on her face. She counted on it. She pushed her chest out higher and placed her hands on his arms. “I want you to do me,” she said plainly. He hesitated just long enough, his eyes mesmerized by the swaying of her full naked breasts so close they were nearly touching his arm.
She brought her knee up sharp and hard between his legs.
He emitted a strangled breath and she pushed him off balance. He fell onto his back against the wall and folded up with a long, wailing groan. She didn’t waste the moment. Using her fear and revulsion to push her to take the next step, she knelt over him and grabbed the blade she’d seen in his boot.
Don’t think! Just do it!
“I’ll kill you for this you bitch…” he groaned.
Sarah drew the blade across his throat and watched his eyes spring open wide as she did. A gasp of air hit her knuckles from his exposed windpipe. She knew it was enough and she couldn’t wait any longer. Before she was even standing, she shed the negligee on the floor. She grabbed the gun from his harness, then ran to the dresser and jerked open the second drawer for the jeans.
She turned and listened to sounds from the hallway. She heard laughing and women’s voices. Over her shoulder, she could hear that the wheezing had stopped. She pulled on a pair of jeans and grabbed a t-shirt from the top drawer.
She checked that the gun was loaded then tucked it into the back waist of her jeans. The knife was sticky with blood but she held it in her hand in case she met anyone on her way out. She glanced out the window and sent a silent prayer of thanks that it was already dark. She would have to leave through the window, across the roof. She was barefoot but it couldn’t be helped. She didn’t know how long she had before Correy reclaimed his bedroom, but she knew she needed to be long gone by then.
With the knife still in her hand, she pulled the window open and crawled out onto the sill. Correy’s bedroom faced the back garden, not the front, and she counted that as a major stroke of luck. As she negotiated a five-foot drop from the window ledge, she glanced back in the bedroom to confirm what she already knew. Her would-be rapist lay propped up against the wall, his hands still cupping his naked crotch, eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling. She could see the line of red across his throat even from eight feet away.
She dropped onto the second roof below the bedroom window and crouched on all fours to inch her way to the roof edge. There was a first story roof eave over the back door entrance. Once she made it that far, she could drop the rest of the way into the bushes. She might come away with some bad scratches, but at least she wouldn’t break anything. She could see the dark lawn stretching all the way to fence perimeter about one hundred meters away. Once she was down, she should be able to make it to the back fence at a dead run in seconds. The woods on the other side looked dense and thick, but that was to her benefit.
While she didn’t worry about the fence being electrified, as she released her hold on the roof edge and dropped into a hedge of hazel shrubs by the back door it did occur to her that Correy might have security or dogs. She landed painfully in the center of the bush with branches lashing her face and neck and immediately fought to free herself. She took a quick inventory as she ran for the back fence. Her feet had taken the worst of it, but still only stings at this point. Figuring she’d stand a greater chance of running into sentries at the fence, she ran straight across the lawn. If a dog caught her, she’d kill it with her knife.
If she ran into a man, same thing.
The grass was cold and smooth under her feet. She felt the gun pinching into her back as she ran, but also felt an exhilaration as the evening air pushed against her and she saw the fence come nearer and nearer.
Nine days of abuse and imprisonment, threats and beatings. Nine days of crying silently for her losses, of praying and hoping for rescue, of waiting for something to happen.
And now she was running free. Running directly back to her boy.
And she’d be damned if anyone would stop her.