CHERISH (54 page)

After Jeremy’s visit, I stared at the ceiling of my bedroom until three in the morning. But, I’m up and out the door with purple circles under my eyes and lead in my feet. I slog through the day and regret that I’ve obligated myself to the reading gig again. By 3:15 I’ve thought of every excuse I can to call and cancel, but I don’t seem to be able to make the call.

I stretch, and I step off bus number 23 that brought me from Windfield to the closest stop near Beckett’s loft. It’s only four o’clock, and it’s getting dark already. March is a strange month.

One day the sun is shining, and you think the daffodils are about to poke their heads through the dirt, then the next day, clouds have blocked out the sun, and you feel like it’s the start of the apocalypse. You just never know where you stand with March.

There is a thin layer of ice that crunches under every step as I make my way down the sidewalk. The heat in the bus wasn’t working. I would question whether or not I have toes if it weren’t for the stabbing pain in each step.

I didn’t think when I left the apartment for Windfield at 6 AM that what was a sunny morning could turn to an ice storm by two o’clock. The flat bottoms of my worn, leather ankle boots are worse than wearing ice skates.

I steady myself with one hand along the rough bricks of the empty buildings as I walk, or I’ll be on my butt in two seconds. I’m using the majority of my brain power concentrating on each tentative step. I’m trying to remember if I put rocks in my backpack as I lean forward a few inches to compensate for the ballast.

I let out a deep breath of relief as Beckett’s building comes into view. I set my eyes back down on the sidewalk. I’m rounding the corner and run smack into a wall of man with a filthy, blue blanket draped over his shoulders.

“Oh, damn it!” My feet slip around in figure eights under me, and my heart jumps into my throat.

It’s all flailing arms and adrenaline as I lose the battle with gravity, and my head is the last thing to hit the sidewalk with a “thud.”

Everything goes
blinkity-blinkity
starry white for a minute and the pain from the back of my head bolts down my neck as I lay flat out, staring up at the haze of mist and ice coming out of a nearly black sky.

“
Owwww
,” I whine and bring my arm over my face, accepting my prone position for the moment.

“Wow, you okay?” It must be the blue-blanket guy talking, but I have my eyes squeezed shut, trying to process the pain without crying.

“Yup.” I snip.

I’m lying. I’m not okay. I now understand what they mean when they say blinding pain.

I am also not sure if I’m happy someone else is here with me or not because I can’t see him right now. But, I can smell him.

It’s not a good smell. Sour, sweet and sweaty. Whoever this is has not seen a shower in a while.

“She okay?” A different voice. A man, he sounds like Carl Maulden with marbles in his mouth. I hear crunchy, heavy footsteps near my ear, and I squint open my good eye to see both men leaning over me, inspecting me like I’m mana from heaven.

“She’s pretty,” Stinky, the blue-blanket guy, says.

I open both eyes because I don’t like the way that sounds. When I can focus, I see the bloated face of guy number two swivel around, looking down the sidewalk one way, then the other and back again.

“Grab her hands.” His voice is garbled, I barely make out the words, but when hands grip my wrists, it comes together.

“Hey. I’m okay. Don’t—” I pull back on my hands that are now in his grasp.

“
Legs,
you get her legs.” Stinky blue blanket says to the mountain of man at my feet.

My eyes are wide open now.
This isn’t happening.

I can see the second guy is
enormous.
Like 5X enormous and professional basketball player tall. He’s grimacing, and there are only two teeth in the top of his palate, and both look like swamp water.

He’s wearing a worn, filthy parka and the pockets are bulging. His hair is hanging down around his face beyond his neck in greasy, brown tendrils. As he sucks in a breath, I see him draw in a length of his hair between his lips, and he does nothing to try to spit it back out.

“
Stop it! Let go
—” I’m screaming. The kind of scream that scrapes like barbed wire on your vocal cords.

Blue-blanket has my wrists in a grip tighter than I would expect. He looks sick—yellow eyes and brown teeth and gray skin.

I try to jerk free but the weight of my body is straining my shoulder sockets, and I get no leverage. I kick at the wall of man clutching my ankles. The two have me dangling like a hammock between them, and I now see where they’re headed. They are taking me up a stairway into an abandoned building kitty corner from Beckett’s place.

I’m jerking my head and my body as hard as I can until I see white stars in my eyes from the strain. I haven’t stopped the ragged screams. My voice is raw. I’m not screaming words anymore, just sounds.

I scan the street, desperate for another sign of life.

Desperate for Beckett.

“
Stop! Please! Please . . .”

I catch a glimpse of Beckett’s building, and I don’t see lights in Mr. Fitzgerald’s apartment. Even in my terror, I notice the glass is broken in the bottom of the windows.

I’m screaming words again. No, not words, one word.

“Beckett!! Beckett!!”
My voice cracks as tears stream out of the corners of my eyes, into my hair.

“Shut her up!” The linebacker at my feet growls.

“How can I shut her up
and
carry her?”

There is a sledgehammer pounding in my head, and I’m beginning to spin, about to vomit. The smell from the first guy gagging me and the second one isn’t much better.

“Drop her hands and shut her up! I’ll drag her.”

“
Help
!” The jabs of pain in my throat scream with me as I know this is the last scream I may get out before I’m inside that building. The scream is barely out of me before my head clunks like a brick on the cement steps. More stars dance in my eyes and pain bolts down my spine. Two more steps and I will be inside that door, and beyond that, I see a stairway going somewhere I do not want to go.

Pain shoots behind my eyes and bounces around inside my head. I know if they get me in there, I might not come out. Or, I won’t want to come out.

Blue-blanket is trying to cover my mouth with a hand so dirty, I can’t imagine where it’s been. His fingernails are grown out and encrusted with filth.

I grab at everything. I smack my frozen knuckles into the jagged, rusty door frame, and another wave of intense pain covers me, but I grab on with all my strength.

My fingers are slippery, and my grip is gone. Tears sting my cheeks, and I take one more look at the two men smiling down at me.

My eyeballs bulge with my effort. I wrap both hands just above the ankle of the disgusting man holding his hand over my mouth. I dig my fingernails in with all my might, twisting them and pulling at his leg, hoping he is still on the icy steps. I’m kicking and jerking my body furiously.

“
Owww.
Bitch!” I make one more desperate effort pulling with all my might and digging my fingernails into his leg, but it’s no use. Blue-blanket is inside the doorway, kicking at my hands, breaking my grip.

“This is going to be good.” The huge man tugs my ankles one more time, and I’m through the door, my head sliding across the floor. My hair picks up food wrappers, crumbling cement and broken glass along the way.

“I like when they fight.” The one at my ankles says to the one at my head. Then he looks down at me. “
I like
when you fight.” He smiles, and his hair is still stuck in his mouth. His face is covered in a matted, uneven beard, and all I can think of is please God, don’t let him kiss me.

My muffled sobs are quiet under the hand over my mouth, and my backpack is sliding up under my neck as I use what power I have left to kick, but the hands are like shackles. The massive monster at my feet outweighs me four times over. I can’t believe this is happening.

“I want to be first. I found her.” The skinnier guy’s voice goes up, and I can hear his excitement. Like I’m a ride at the amusement park.

“You get the first on the pussy. I get the first on her ass.”

God, please. Oh, my god.

They both drop me at once. Then it’s all hands. They are on my pants, tugging. I hear laughter and excitement. Fingers drag at the collar of my shirt and then it’s open.

Please, I want to die. Not this, please God. Just let me die.

I close my eyes and stop crying. I think of the night Steven pulled my pants down the same way. I remember he laughed, too.

Everything is muffled. I am no longer here. I’ve given myself away to darkness. Nothing matters anymore.

I wonder quickly what it would have been like with Beckett. How he would have made love to me. I know now that will never happen. Ever.

My pants are open; fingers are pinching at the outside of my bra. I choke on the vomit coming up in my mouth as a rough hand starts down inside my panties.

There is a loud bang, a crunch of metal on metal, and footsteps, loud and fast, and then the hand is off my mouth, and I hear the boom of something hitting the rusted, open, metal door and then lots of yelling. The voices layer on top of one another, I can’t decipher how many there are. I’m terrified in a way that feels it can never be completely undone.

“
Fuck
!” It is blue-blanket screaming. Then, more screaming.

I dare open my eyes to see that blue-blanket is no longer near me, and I quickly shut my eyes again when I hear the thump, thump of something heavy hitting the steps somewhere behind my head.

I twist and pull and kick and scream as mountain man picks up my feet again. I don’t bother looking at the guy at my ankles. All I can think of is fight and fight and even as my voice completely fails me, I get one foot free, then the other.

The muscles in my legs are burning, my head feels like someone is banging at my temples with a hammer, and both my boots are off. I connect my heel with something and hear a man yell. I’m hoping it’s that asshole’s balls.

I’m silently screaming, and my nose is running. I flip myself over onto my stomach. I press my hands down onto the floor, and something jagged pierces my palm. I push up, trying to get onto my knees when someone jumps over me. I quickly lace my fingers behind my head and pull myself into a ball.

I can hear a struggle going on, the sound of someone hitting someone, men yelling, swearing, but I’m too scared to look.

More profanity and grunts.

I curl and uncurl my body, trying to propel myself like an inchworm out the door without having to stand.

“
Fucker.
” It’s the first word I can make out between the grunts and smacking sounds. There is a
thud
and a
bang
and then the sound of something very large falling down close to me.

Space inside the door is tight, and I can feel the pressure from what has to be the hulk of disgusting humanity that had earlier gripped my ankles, now laying near my feet.

I’m terrified to open my eyes, and I’m still just inside the door. I open my eyes just a slit. My head is exploding, and I look down at the soaking red covering my right hand. I push up and manage to get onto my knees, crawling out the door, screaming, but the only thing that comes out is a croaking sound and a jabbing pain in my throat.

Someone is touching me. I start kicking, pushing myself away when another set of hands is on my back, then under my arms, and before I can stop him, I’m upright.

I’m all flailing arms and kicks and anger that just won’t stop. Why doesn’t it ever stop?

“Hey,
you’re okay
! Promise!
Stop
!” It’s Beckett.

Sobbing. I’m liquid again.

The sound of Beckett’s voice hits me like a drenching bucket of cold water. The pain in every part of my body lights up, and I hold up my hands to him. Blood is coursing down my wrist, and I look for the blue-green glow.

I need his eyes. The eyes that made me feel safe. I need to feel safe.

Finally, I focus. I see them. They are narrow. He’s bending down, so his nose is right in front of mine. I feel the warmth of his breath, so clean and fresh, and I throw my arms around his shoulders, holding my hands high, trying not to get the red mess all over his light colored denim shirt.

“
Shhhhh
, you’re okay. It’s okay.” He’s wiping his fingers gently over my cheeks. His shirt isn’t snapped. It’s freezing outside, and it’s blowing wide open while I’m shivering and can’t stop crying.

My legs are useless, and just as gravity starts to take over, I’m against him, scooped up like a child, and we’re in the middle of the street. I can see his head flying back and forth, looking in every direction at once as if to say, “Stay the fuck away.”

I glance over his shoulder and see blue-blanket in a heap at the bottom of the steps. There is a deep burgundy pool of blood growing in a slow circle under his head. Then, I see movement inside the door as the linebacker groans and sits up, staring straight at me.

“
He’s getting up
—” My voice is a shaking whisper, and I tighten myself into Beckett.

He turns to granite under my arms. I hear a primal growl come from his chest, and he spins on his heel. I swear his chest and shoulders grow a few inches broader. He steps back toward the open door, and I attach myself to him like a barnacle.

“You better stay down, motherfucker,” he yells. “When we’re gone, you better be gone, because I’m fucking coming back, and I will fucking end you. I will
end
you.” Beckett takes three, long strides straight back toward the door, holding me like I’m weightless. I feel the fury coming out of him, and I press my face harder into his neck until it feels like my nose is going to break.

I know this is Beckett. It looks like him. It smells like him.

But, it’s someone else. Someone I should fear.

The smiling, joking, gorgeous man that I kissed yesterday is not this man.

This man is removed from law and rules.