Page 57 of My Girl

A foot kicks between my legs; pain assaults my core. A punch whacks me in the head, and my vision blurs. The hood comes over me again. Everything is dark fabric. I wheeze, and another punch lands on my back, the air knocked out of my lungs. My wrists are pulled into a binding, then my stomach is pressed against the couch. I kick again and hit the furniture. Their laughter vibrates around me.

“You dumb cunt.”

Each of my legs is strapped to something—it must be the feet of the couch—and I’m spread wide. They pull the hood from my head. My heart pounds.

Two brown-haired men, overly muscular, carrying rifles, line each side of me. One tall, one short.

I search their eyes for proof. Is the tall one Crave? If I saw Crave,reallysaw him, I would know, wouldn’t I? There would be a primal connection.

One of themhasto be Crave.

Or this has to be a joke. A new trick he’s playing on me. That’s the only way this makes sense.

Their eyes aren’t right though, too light to be his. And they smell like cigarettes and french fries.

My lips tremble. Crave isn’t here.

A pain radiates between my temples. Crave wouldn’t save me. I know that. But a small part of me holds onto the hope that he would at least spare me.

“Please,” I whisper, tears filling my voice, though I don’t know what I’m begging for. I want Crave to be here. I want his proximity and the fearlessness he gives me. I want to absorb him.

But I’m alone with two strangers, and it hurts like a knife to the heart.

“Please let me go,” I beg.

“We were told to make it painful,” the shorter one says. “Let’s break some bones.”

The taller one slips behind me. Then a heavy object bludgeons my backside. The pain guts me, radiating in my fingertips and swimming back to my lungs. I cry out, closing my eyes, willing myself to be somewhere else. To find a way out of this.

I can’t do anything though. I wail. Another strike. I hold my breath and shake uncontrollably.

Crave is watching from the corner. He has to be.

That’s what this is. He’s going to let them kill me. Hewantsto watch me suffer.

“No!” I scream. If I’m going to die because of Crave, I can’t die like a pathetic victim that walked right into his trap. “No. No. No?—”

A knife prickles across my skin. I scream.

“I bet she’s a bleeder,” one of them says.

Anger fills me. I’m not in control, and it scares me.

I don’t want this. I don’t want them. I wantCrave.

The muzzle of a rifle settles on my temple.

“A bleeder and a screamer,” one of them says.

“We’ll have to tell him.”

Him.Fuckinghim.

Everything tunnels. My only instinct is survival.

Crave is the key.

“Crave!” I scream. “Crave! You motherfucker?—”