“Really?” I tried to ignore the throbbing in my face. “I’d have thought you’d be more bothered by my fists.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, tabbycat.” He shoved my shirt up over my stomach, smearing me with blood. “Compared to mi padre, you hit like a toddler.”
“Not bad for a girl, though, huh?” I said, still trying to free my hands, despite the pain in my shoulder.
He glared down at me, nostrils flaring in anger. “I’m done playing, bitch. You’re risking your life every time you open your mouth.”
A smart woman would have shut up. Did I? Hell no. Intelligence is overrated anyway. “Oh, come on. Wouldn’t you rather go upstairs and lick your wounds? Maybe make an ice pack for your crotch?” I was trying to get him mad enough to make his concentration slip again. He wasn’t falling for that twice.
“I’d rather make you pay for my nose.” He unbuttoned my shorts with one hooked finger. Definitely a scary skill.
I swallowed thickly as my pulse thundered in my ears, begging me to take the easy way out for once and keep my mouth shut. But there was no easy way. It was either rape or death, and I couldn’t live with rape. “Don’t forget your teeth,” I said as he jerked down on my zipper.
Miguel’s eyes narrowed and he sat straighter, running his tongue over newly jagged front teeth. His face turned purple with rage. He hadn’t even noticed them. Maybe I should have left well enough alone.
He punched me again, on the same side of my face, and that time I didn’t even see it coming. “That’s for my teeth.”
My head rocked to the side. Tears formed instantly, running over when I blinked. My vision darkened and for several seconds I felt nothing. But then sight and pain came roaring back as I won the battle for consciousness. My face was alive with pain, and my body begged for relief. But I couldn’t oblige. To stay awake, I let the pain take over and block out everything else—even fear.
“Okay, that’s not funny anymore,” I growled, hiding my bruised cheek against my arm in case he took another shot. The left side of my face felt hot and swollen, throbbing with an agony all its own, yet somehow in harmony with my shoulder.
“Let’s see if you think this is funny.” He tugged on one leg of my shorts, which slipped halfway down my hip, dragging the waistband of my panties along for the ride.
No, in fact, I did not think that was funny. And it was even less funny when he pulled down the other side.
Panicked, I kicked and bucked, trying to toss him off my legs. Miguel hung on tight. He seemed to enjoy the ride, in fact, which made my stomach churn. Luckily, he hit a snag when my shorts were at midthigh. He couldn’t get them any lower while he sat on my legs, but he couldn’t get up without letting go of my hands. Or so I thought.
He leaned forward, his weight threatening to crush my wrists, and got to first one knee, then the other, straddling my lower thighs. He reached down for my shorts, and I brought both knees up into his crotch.
I didn’t have the leverage to put much power behind my thrust, but I didn’t need much after that last kick. He let go of my wrists to clutch his groin again, and I saw my chance. I shoved him in the chest with both feet. He fell over backward on the floor. His head smacked the concrete with a promising thud. I mentally crossed my fingers as I sat up, hoping he was unconscious.
No such luck. Miguel was one tough son of a bitch. But he was hurt. He was bleeding from his nose and his mouth, and had taken two strikes to the crotch. Surely he’d had enough.I scrambled onto my feet and pulled my shorts back into place, buttoning them with one eye on Miguel. If he got me down again, I wanted him to have to work just as hard the second time around. In fact, at that point, I would have voluntarily donned a chastity belt.
Miguel lay motionless on the ground, still breathing. I pulled my foot back to kick him in the groin one last time, to make sure his favorite weapon would be out of commission for a while. But as soon as my foot left the ground, he swept the other one out from under me.
I landed on my ass on the edge of the mattress then fell over onto my back. My teeth snapped together hard enough to jar my brain. My left arm swung away from my waist before I could stop it, and the pain that had subsided to a persistent ache began screaming all over again.
One minute I was up, seriously reconsidering Ethan’s victory dance, and the next I was flat on my back, relearning how to breathe. And waiting for Miguel’s weight to drop onto me again.
But it didn’t. He’d finally had enough, at least for the moment.
Metal scraped metal, and I heard the lock click open. He was leaving, which meant he’d have to open the door. Exhausted but desperate, I rolled over my uninjured arm and jumped to my feet. Miguel had the door open. I ran for it, holding my left arm against my side. I came at him as fast as I could, but his fist was there to meet me. He punched me in the stomach, absorbing my forward momentum and knocking the breath from my lungs. I doubled over and fell backward onto the ground, curled around the agony in my abdomen.
As I lay on the floor, gasping and unable to move, the lock clicked shut, and I knew I’d missed my chance. I cried. I couldn’t help it. I screamed in rage and frustration, sobs shaking my body with enough force to knock my head against the concrete.
I didn’t watch him leave, though I knew he was limping from the syncopated rhythm of his feet on the stairs. I couldn’t look at Abby. I couldn’t even open my eyes. Shrieking at the pain in my shoulder, I crawled onto my mattress and cried until sleep came to my rescue.
Twenty-Three
As the sun set on my first day behind bars, I sat on my mattress in the rapidly fading daylight, evaluating the various injuries vying for my attention. My left shoulder screamed in protest as I stretched, and my face felt raw enough to qualify for examination by the Food and Drug Administration. My stomach, now rainbow-hued, was too tender to touch, as was my right foot. I tried to run a hand through my hair, but my fingers got stuck in Miguel’s dried blood a couple of inches from my scalp.
Lovely. And me without my shampoo.
After a careful inventory of the rest of my body, I pronounced myself fortunate that nothing was broken. I was pretty sure Miguel hadn’t been so lucky.
Digging through the remains of my lunch, I found an unused paper napkin, which I dampened with the last of my water. I couldn’t do much about my hair without a good hot shower, but at least I could mop up the rest of the mess. Well, most of it, anyway.
The back of my right hand was swollen and crusted with dried blood, so I began there, wiping at my knuckles with short, measured strokes intended to spare my shoulder from unnecessary movement. After several minutes of slow work, I uncovered the source of my own minor blood loss. Miguel’s teeth had gashed my fist in three places, but the cuts were small and already scabbed over. More good luck.
With my hand reasonably clean, I started on my face and neck, avoiding my left cheek entirely. Without the benefit of a mirror, I had to explore my skin with my fingers, searching for each drop of blood Miguel had dripped on me. I scrubbed until the napkin fell apart in my hand, then scratched the rest off with my fingernails.
As clean as I could get without a shower, I glanced into Abby’s cage, where my cousin lay asleep on her mattress. Watching her, I realized she was right; if I was no use to Miguel, he had no reason to keep me alive. Once he’d healed, he would kill me. I had no doubt about it. I wouldn’t go out without a fight, but there wasn’t much I could do against two men at once, and I was pretty sure he’d bring Eric along next time, even if just to hold me down or sedate me. Miguel wasn’t stupid. He was just psychotic.
With the big threat stewing in the back of my mind, my thoughts to turned to a more immediate problem: I had to use the restroom. Soon. Disgusted but desperate, I picked up the discarded coffee can and glanced inside. You’ve survived worse, I told myself, but it didn’t help. Peeing in a can was just another in a series of dehumanizing humiliations to be endured, like being snatched, sedated, tied up, groped, knocked around and groped some more.
Not my best day, overall. In fact, house arrest didn’t seem so terrible anymore. Hell, the state penitentiary was starting to look good.
I’d almost talked myself into using the coffee canister when the basement door opened—this time without warning. The rest of me froze as my head swiveled toward the steps. The plastic jug shook in my grip. I wasn’t ready to take another beating in defense of my honor. Not yet.
Thankfully, the aroma of fried chicken gave Ryan away almost immediately. My tension eased and my stomach growled. There was no rosemary, but even KFC was better than another burger.
“If I ask nicely, will you turn on the light?” I asked, trying my best to sound friendly as I dropped the coffee container on the ground.
Ryan paused on the third step. “Let me hear the magic words.”
“Pretty please.” Abby beat me to it. I smiled, glancing at where she now sat cross-legged on her mattress. But instead of returning my smile, she gaped at me in horror. I blinked at her in confusion for a moment, but then I remembered my face clashing with the wall. And with Miguel’s fist. Twice.
Good thing I wasn’t vain. Much.
Ryan flipped the switch, and Abby gasped, still staring at my face. Evidently the light was unflattering. Even without a mirror, I understood her alarm. In the weak overhead glow, I saw the swollen edge of my cheek at the bottom of my vision, like a purple half moon on the horizon. “It looks worse than it feels,” I said, wondering if that was even possible.