It doesn’t feel real.
None of this feels real, and I just keep thinking it must be a bad dream. I will wake up and realize this is all some fucked up part of my imagination that conjured up this scenario. It’s the only logic I can find in a situation where nothing else makes sense.
My father loved Javi. He treated him as his own son. And I can’t imagine why he would ever want to hurt me.
Fighting him off is a fruitless endeavor. The man is a brick wall. More terrifying than I ever could have imagined. And the fact that he has something to hide beneath that hood only adds to the escalating fear in my mind.
He secures the band around my head and forces my mouth open to lodge the ball between my teeth. Once it is secure, he taps me on the lips.
“This will stay in place until I have a use for your mouth.”
His words send another shot of adrenaline through my body, and it is pure instinct that has me trying to fight him off again. To flee.
I kick him in the stomach, and pain radiates up through the bottom of my leg as though I’ve kicked a rock. But still his grip on me loosens, and I grasp at the opportunity to run.
I make it ten steps before he’s got me by the hair again. I try to scream, but it only vibrates against my lips. He turns me in his arms, and I cower beneath his shadow, waiting for him to lash out.
This must be it. I expect him to hit me. To kill me. I don’t know what it is he wants from me, and I’m petrified to find out.
He reaches into his pocket again, and this time, he produces a knife. A strangled sound leaves my throat when he brings it to my chest and skims along my collar bone. I squeeze my eyes shut, and water leaks from the corners.
This can’t be real.
It can’t be real.
That’s what I try to tell myself. But it is real. And this isn’t how I want to die. I haven’t even lived yet.
The tip of the blade digs into my skin, and I stop breathing. I think of my father. I wonder how he could have ever trusted this man. How he could have ever cared for him. And then I wonder if Javi is responsible for his disappearance.
The stark conclusion is a shock paddle to my heart.
My eyes open again and seek out the golden orbs beneath the hood. But he is skilled at hiding them. So much so that I can no longer even see the lines of his face. And the need inside of me is real. To know. To unmask him and see him for the monster he really is. The boy that my father trusted and cared for. The one he sacrificed his time with me for.
I hate him. I hate him with a level of passion I have never confronted before.
I try to tell him so, but the words don’t come out the way they should. Instead, spit drips from the corner of my mouth, and my humiliation is real and painful.
But none of that matters. Because he is still wielding the knife against my skin. Edging the framework of my bones. And then he dips lower. So low, he’s tracing over my nipples with the tip of the blade. They harden in response.
My body is betraying me. Disgusting me. Giving him mixed signals. I reach up and wipe the spit from my chin. And then I do something incredibly stupid.
I hurl it at his face.
Another low growl. And he tugs me closer yet. So close, I can feel the sickening hardness of his erection pressed against me.
This is turning him on.
He drags the knife between the top button of my shirt, slicing through the thread. I try to move, and he clutches me by the throat this time, with a palm that could crush the life out of me in one good squeeze.
I am completely powerless to him. The reality of that washes over me again with stark clarity.
I don’t move. I don’t even breathe.
I just stand there, frozen and numb while he slices through the remaining three buttons. He slices all the way down until only two halves remain.
Tears leak from my eyes when he does the same to the bra strap beneath. My breasts spring free, and he touches them with the knife. Dragging the blade over the soft mounds in an exercise that tests his own will. It occurs to me that this knife is the only thing keeping him from touching me himself.
And suddenly, I am grateful for the blade.