Page 3 of The Devil

When she’s done putting in gas, she rushes into the store and drops the exact amount of cash on the counter. Grabbing her box of smokes, she gives me a tired smile. “Thanks, Jenna. See you tomorrow.”

Not saying anything, I give her a lame wave before I walk to where three boxes are stacked against the wall.

The sooner I get everything packed away, the sooner I can continue watching the K-drama I started this afternoon.

My life is pathetic. All I do is watch K-dramas, eat, sleep, and work.

I used to have big dreams. Everything from becoming some badass businesswoman in New York, to being famous in LA, to traveling the world.

All those dreams died a week before my mom and aunt moved to Florida.

Luckily, Mom and Aunt Sherrie are fast asleep as I sneak into the house.

I go straight to the bathroom and strip out of my torn clothes. Turning on the faucet in the shower, I step beneath the cold spray, my breaths nothing but ragged puffs over my dry lips.

My entire body aches horribly, and it feels like I’ve been torn to shreds deep inside my womb.

I can still feel their hands on my skin. I can still feel them inside me.

I cover my mouth with my hands to muffle any sounds as I sink down to the floor. I curl into a tight ball as silent sobs shudder through me.

The horror of the hell the four men inflicted on me keeps hitting me in crushing waves of disgust and shame.

The men threatened to kill me and my loved ones if I breathed a word of what they did to me.

How am I going to hide this from Mom and Aunt Sherrie?

I can tell them I crashed my bicycle and fell face-first. That will explain all the bruises.

Oh God.

Whimpers spill from me as I cry, the shock and pain of being gang-raped too much for me to process.

I shake my head hard to rid myself of the memory and force myself to focus on opening the box of the stack that contains various packets of chips.

As I refill the shelves, I purposely think of the K-Drama I’m currently watching. It’s about a woman who lives in the countryside in a close-knit community.

That’s how things were for me before the attack. I got along with everyone in town. I was happy.

But after that night, I became too weird for people to handle. Now most of the town ignores me, and at Halloween, the children dare each other to knock on my front door.

I hear motorbike engines roaring in the distance, and instantly, a cold sweat breaks out over my body.

Shooting up from where I’m crouched between the shelves, I startle even more when a man walks into the store.

Unlike every other person that comes in here, he’s dressed in an immaculate three-piece suit. The kind many of the heroes in my K-dramas wear.

His dark brown hair is neatly styled, and his face is straight out of a movie.

He looks like an actor. Or maybe some millionaire from the city?

Then his eyes flick to me, and an icy chill ripples down my spine. His brown irises are filled with something akin to anger and danger.

The man stops walking, and when he just stares at me as if I’m a ghost that’s appeared in front of him, I instantly feel painfully shy and terribly awkward.

My face flushes bright red, and I duck my head low while I scurry back to the counter, as if having it between us will keep me safe.

“Do you sell coffee?” His voice is like a crack of thunder, and my body jerks. I also pick up on an accent, but I don’t know enough of the world and different cultures to guess where he’s from.