It would soon be over. That was the thought sustaining her now. She had no idea how long they’d been at it. It had felt like hours. But they had finally stopped.
She had made it.
Now she just had to get to a hospital as quickly as possible.
If she could walk. It didn’t feel like it.
They hadn’t spared a single part of her body.
All the years of violence and degradation had been compressed into one single night that had almost cost her life.
She realised she would have scars. She would never be as beautiful again.
But she would be away from this.
From male strangers who got to do what they wanted with her.
She had her whole life to heal. She was going to have a proper family, or at least have children, she’d decided. That was the thought that had kept her going and had saved her from the hell of that night. And she was going to shield her children from this world. She would teach her sons what a real man should be like. No, no sons actually. Not after this. But she would warn her daughters and teach them to defend themselves.
They would move far into the countryside and keep out of the way. They would grow their own food and enjoy the tranquillity. Preferably by a lake or with a small river passing the house. Fruit and vegetables from their own garden, home-grown potatoes and freshly baked bread. They would pick flowers from their own flowerbeds and make beautiful bouquets to put on the kitchen table. She and her daughters.
She looked at the dark windows enclosing the room. Almost all of them had their blinds raised. That meant there were men sitting behind them watching, men who had paid to see her raped and assaulted, who had wanted to see her hurt, who had heard her screams and seen her bleed.
What kind of people were they?
Did they have their own daughters? Wives, sisters, mothers?
If she ever got rich or acquired any power, she would find out who the people who paid for things like this were and expose them all so that everyone knew.
‘Look at what your husband is up to.’ ‘You didn’t know that about your son.’
She would get her revenge. Her redress.
A red light came on by one of the windows.
One of the armed guards went over and listened to the small speaker beside it. He nodded and then he came back to the masked, naked men standing around Jenna. Men whose bodies were completely covered in blood and who still had erections thanks to the Viagra.
‘A little change,’ said the guard. ‘Number 8 pay for snuff.’
The blinds were lowered over the other windows. Only the window with the illuminated red light remained uncovered.
Snuff, Jenna thought. What was that? Wasn’t it . . . ?
The guard pulled a big roll of duct tape from his jacket pocket, pulled a few inches out, bit it off and covered Jenna’s mouth with it.
Then the guard went to the table by the wall and picked up three long knives that he brought over to the naked men.
The armed men, still sporting erections, approached her slowly.
Jenna screamed behind the tape. She screamed and screamed and screamed.