Evelynn
Present
Waking up in the trunk of a car bound and gagged isn't the way I thought I'd be spending my Thursday night. I wanted to curl up on my sofa in a pair of fuzzy socks to read a smutty book, but even in death, that fucker just won't leave me alone.
I had only just tossed my keys into the bowl beside my door after locking my apartment up and shrugged off my jacket when two of Chad's friends popped out of the kitchen, chased me down, and then knocked me out. Ugh, Chad. Even his name was a red flag that I was too enamored by solid muscles and dick to see. Fucking asshole.
The car turned sharply onto what must be a gravel road, slamming my head against the side wall of the trunk, making me dizzy-headed for a moment as I groaned and then kicked out at where I was sure the tail light would be. I'd always been told that the tail lights of a car were the weakest point in the trunk. If I could kick it out, I could stick my hand through the hole, and maybe someone would see me, but I knew it was fruitless at this point. We were miles from the city on some back road at night. It was pitch black outside and no one would see me, even if they did happen to pull behind this piece of shit as they drove.
The trunk smelled like cleaning chemicals and stale garbage as If this car's sole purpose was to haul trash to the landfill and not even the recent carpet shampooing had helped the odor left behind. I was in complete blackness as I scooted around on my side, feeling along the floor for something, anything, to help me, but there was nothing here but me.
Eventually, the car skids to a stop, throwing me into the wall once again and I hear doors open and then slam shut before there's a pounding above me on the trunk lid making me jump slightly.
"Rise and shine, sweetheart!" A muffled voice calls from outside before the trunk opens making me squint when the overhead light turns on to illuminate my bound and gagged body to the two men. Each one grabs an arm and hauls me out of the trunk setting me on my feet between them before slamming the trunk lid. My feet are also bound in duct tape making me wobble before I'm hefted over a shoulder and carried as I wiggle and scream profanity at the two men the moment the gag is pulled out of my mouth and left to fall around my neck.
"Fuck you! Put me down!"
"Nah, sweetheart, you did a very bad thing, now ya gotta pay the price. Hope it was worth it." Jed glares at me, speaking as if I were a naughty child when I push my palms against Gage's back to raise myself up, meeting Jed's glare with a vicious snarl.
"That bastard fucking deserved it. No, actually, he deserved worse." I'm outraged that these men were siding with their dead friend. They weren't just siding with him but hellbent on punishing a girl for carrying out her own justice after the system she was taught to trust, failed her. They had seemed like pretty nice guys when I'd been around them with Chad. They'd been polite. Perfect gentlemen.
Now, they could suck my dick. Fuck them. Both of them were just as big of monsters as Chad had been.
"Six shots," Gage spoke, his voice was deceptively calm. "One to each kneecap, one to each thigh, one in the head."
"I also put a bullet in his dick too, right before I shot him in the head." I finished when Gage didn't say the last place I'd shot their ring leader. "Because he was a dick." Maybe I had a death wish because I justcouldn't keep my mouth shut.
"Shut the fuck up." Jed surges forward, grabbing a fist full of my hair to yank my head back as Gage stops walking, gripping my thighs painfully tight in his fingers. "Or I'll cut your fucking tongue out. Nobody wants to hear your whore lies."
Despite myself, I feel tears prickle the backs of my eyes as I glare at Jed. "That man was a god damned monster and I wished I would have drawn it out even longer." My voice is low and surprisingly steady as we stare each other down for a moment before his palm cracks across my cheek leaving a burning sting.
"Fucking bitch." Jed growled before releasing my hair and stalking past Gage into a wooden cabin. I didn't realize it was there until Gage kicked the door shut. Jed hit the locks as soon as the door latched shut.
I could feel a frantic fluttering in my chest as I tried to look at my surroundings. I was trapped in a cabin alone with very muscular, very pissed-off men. What were they planning to do with me? It couldn't really be worse than what Chad did, but the thought still made me nervous. My hands still bound behind me, shook with rage and fear but I balled them into fists to hide it the best I could.
The walls were made of dark wood with rustic bear and eagle decor and the ugliest red plaid curtains I'd ever seen. There was a massive flat screen T.V. On one wall with a brown couch and an oval coffee table and against the wall behind the sofa was a small, narrow console table with an empty clear glass vase.
I yelped when I was suddenly thrown onto the brown leather couch, landing awkwardly on my right arm, making pain shoot through my shoulder. I pressed my lips together to glare up at Gage who crossed his arms as he stared down at me, a scowl on his face.
"If you move a fucking inch from this couch, I will put a bullet in that pretty little face of yours," Gage growled. "I wanted to just outright kill you and be done with it. An eye for an eye."
"But I figured we'd get more money for ya alive." Jed sneered as he stepped around Gage to stand beside him, mirroring his larger friend and crossing his arms over his chest. Jed was a little thinner than Gage, short and wiry, whereas Gage had a lot of bulk muscle and was tall. Both men had tattoos, but there was one that was the same between the two at the bases of their necks, their gang affiliations branded right onto their tanned skin.
I hadn't known that Chad was mixed up in gang bullshit until Jed and Gage had started coming around months after Chad and I got serious. I'd had talks with Chad that keeping company like this was bad fucking news but I hadn't realized that he was just as bad. Not until he did something that absolutely broke me, and left me feeling dirty and dead inside to the point that I almost ended it all. I'd stood at the edge of the roof of my apartment building and stared down at the pavement as I wondered how the fuck he got to get away with this while I had to live as half a person. I'd cried and begged and pounded my fists on the concrete wall that reached my hips but no higher, just like I'd done to Chad. I'd even screamed. Nobody believed me despite the rape kit that mysteriously went missing despite going through the additional horror and trauma of the exam. It had pissed me off that after going through that destruction, I had to endure what felt like torture to get that kit done. At least the doctor who had done it had been kind and as gentle as possible but by that point, I was just ready to die. When I'd been told that the kit had gone missing, I'd cried for a whole day.
The day after the trial, I had contemplated jumping. I think it was that moment that clarity hit me right in the face, or maybe it was more of a psychological break but my emotions took a full 180 from broken sobbing to rage. How could he do this? How could everyone side with that loser? There was evidence of what he did to me! Fuck him and his friends and that goddamned judge. I was my father's daughter. I had my daddy's old Smith and Wesson sitting in the top of my closet with three boxes of bullets, so I loaded my pistol with six bullets, safetied it, then shoved it into my waistband before trotting my ass to his apartment. I shot him the day after he was released from jail. Six times. I emptied the gun of every bullet in the magazine, one by one and he was alive until I pressed the gun to his head and fired the last bullet into his forehead.
I shifted my gaze to Jed as his words really sunk in. Sex trafficking. My blood ran cold as I stared up, my mind seeming to blank out, going hazy with panic as I froze. My hands and feet felt numb and my body felt like it was both too hot and too cold at the same time.
"Yeah." Jed sneered. "I'm going to sell you to the highest bidder. A pretty little thing like you will bring a pretty penny. Too bad you're not a virgin, sweet cheeks."
Red-hot anger replaced the fear and boiled in my veins, melting the ice that had frozen my limbs as I shot up. "You son of a bitch! I swear to god, I'll fucking kill you!"
Jed surged forward, his large body moving to straddle my hips as he wrapped a hand around my throat and squeezed until I couldn't breathe. I couldn't even fight back. "Remember what I said about cutting out your tongue? The offer still stands. Or maybe I'll sample the merchandise. No one can be mad as long as I don't rough you up too bad, right? Nothing permanent..."
I felt so powerless as I thrashed but with his hand crushing my throat, there wasn't much I could do but buck my hips. He was so much bigger than I was, heavier and stronger. I didn't stand a chance. My vision blurred with unshed tears and blackened around the edges as he leaned in closer. He looked like he was going to kill me, definitely on his way to that already as static filled my head.
"I'm gonna fuck you up, sweetheart."
Those were the last words I remember before my world went dark.
I spent the next two days in and out of consciousness after Gage forced a mysterious white pill down my throat, following it with another as soon as my head began to clear enough to spew insults. I don't remember much beyond bits and pieces of muttered conversations between the two men and being given a few sips of water here and there but no food which I didn't really have the chance to feel under the effects of whatever they had given me.
I had no clue if Jed did anything to me in the times I'd been passed out but I still wore the same clothes I'd been wearing when they kidnapped me and tossed me into the trunk of their car and my leggings weren't askew but my body was too numb to really feel anything if he had. Gage looked like he'd rather slit his own throat than touch me, so I wasn't worried about him. Well, maybe that wasn't entirely true. I was in fact mildly concerned that he would slit my throat while I slept, or even while I was awake between doses.
The door to the bedroom I'd been stowed away in opened and Jed walked in putting his hands in his pockets. "Rise and shine, sweetheart." His voice was mocking and arrogant as he gazed down his nose at me.
God, I wanted to puke every time he called me that. Well, that and punch him in his smug face. It was already ugly, the skin pock-marked with acne scars along with a raised white scar on his left cheek. What was a little more damage? I half wondered who had broken his nose and what it would feel like to re-break it.
"Fuck you." I grate out as I narrow my eyes, finally lucid enough to be mouthy again.
"You fucking wish." He chuckled darkly as he approached the bed.
I didn't feel like dealing with him while my head was spinning and my stomach churning. I wanted to hurl all over his cheap sneakers but there was nothing to throw up.
He reached down and slid his arms under my back and knees to pick me up with little preamble, holding me against his chest where I squirmed to get away. "Let me go!"
"Nah. It's time to take a little ride." Jed carried me out of the bedroom before joining Gage in the living room. They walked out the door stuffing me back into the truck of their car and closing the lid as I spouted profanity once again, kicking the wall with as much force as my drugged-up body could muster, which wasn't much. Once again I was in the blackness of a car trunk, but this time I was too tired to make much of a fuss.