Page 4 of The Night Shift

He grabs my arm and pulls me into the alleyway, shoving me against the wall. My head hits the cold brick surface, and tears sting the back of my eyes.

“Don’t be afraid.” He covers my mouth with his hand. “I’m not a bad guy.” He bends down next to my ear. “I bought you a drink, didn’t I?” He tightens his hold over my mouth and screams into my face.“Didn’t I?!”

My jaw hurts. Looking up at him, I feel so small.

“But what’s the point of being nice, if sluts like you are gonna keep taking advantage of us?”

His voice is hoarse, moving around me like a tornado.

“If you’re gonna keep treating us like we’re the bad ones, we might as well live up to the expectation, right?”

He yanks me by the hair and reaches beneath the hem of my dress, sliding it up to my thighs. A scream tears through my throat, and I knee the motherfucker in the balls, trying to make a run for it. But he simply pulls me back and slaps me hard across the jaw with the back of his hand.

My stomach lurches.

I try to scream again.

He throws me to the ground and comes down on top of me. My breath seizes in my lungs as realization hits me hard and fast. He tugs my underwear from my hips until they fall at my ankles.

After that, it’s all a blur.

I don’t remember a lot of it.

I don’t remember how long I scream before deciding to give up. Before my lungs start to hurt. I don’t remember the exact moment I stop fighting back. I don’t remember how hard I squeeze my eyelids shut, trying to zone out. Trying to put up some sort of mental block, a defense mechanism. I try ignoring the taste in my mouth, the sticky dampness between my legs, the pain radiating through my thighs.Nauseatingpain. Like a bullet ripping through my gut over and over again. My entire mind starts to shut down. Tears spill down my cheeks and I wonder if this is how it happened for her. Is this how she felt too? So utterly and completely helpless in those last moments. Is that why she did it? Because no one came to help her?No. Because nothing felt right afterwards?Stop it. Is that what I’m going to feel too?Stop! Am I going to do it too? My chest heaves up and down, burning and stinging, as my guilt and desolation mingles with the years of pent-up rage. The anger.

So much anger.

My head falls to the side, my blurry gaze catching Aanya standing on the street. The scars over her wrists look worse. Messier. Bloodier. She’s breathing hard. Her long, dark hair is streaked with something sticky and there’s blood all over her hands. So much blood. Blood dripping down her arms, all over her white sneakers. She shakes her head. Once. Twice. She shakes it vigorously like she wants to tell me something. Like she’s desperate for me to know. My heart twists violently in my chest. She points to a broken bottle lying on the ground. I don’t move. At least, not then. I just force myself to breathe.

The minutes tick by. I count them.

At two minutes and ten seconds, the man tells me to stop moving so much or else he will hurt me. At two minutes and twenty-five seconds, I grab the broken bottle and stick it in his neck.

Blood. Everywhere.

My clothes. My neck. My face.

With a guttural shriek, he falls on his side as more of the hot crimson liquid gushes out. I push him off me and stand up. His face contorts as his hands grab at his neck. He tries to scream but all that comes out is a stupid gurgling sound.

He manages to stand up. His hands are still grabbing at his neck, trying to keep the blood from spilling out. It’s useless, of course.

Before I even know what I’m doing, I’ve grabbed the back of his head and smashed his face against the brick wall. The sound surprises me. I was expecting a loud cracking thud, but the reality is much wetter. Like a ripe watermelon being squelched under an iron press.

I do it over and over again till his skull splits open and blood is spilling all over my hands and face. It’s warm and sticky, and I…like it.

I like it a lot.

Breathless, chest heaving, face coated with a mixture of tears and blood, I keep bashing his skull in. I can feel my arms dealing out blow after blow. I hear the gruesome cracking of bone, the wet sound of brick hitting his mangled face. Curiosity compels me to grab him by his hair and hold him still while I push the bottle deeper inside his neck. Blood, flesh, bone. Blood, flesh, bone.

He tries to scream again. All that comes out is a weak whimper. It’s such a pathetic sound that I can’t help but let out a small laugh. Can’t help but feel something I haven’t felt in a long time.

There’s blood on my teeth. Some of it is even coating my gums. I haven’t swallowed it yet, but I can still taste it. It’s warm on the tip of my tongue where the first bit of his arterial blood sprayed me, coating the back of my throat like some kind of numbing agent.

I lick my lower lip. It tastes coppery. Along with the slightest peppery tang that reminds me of arugula.

Hmm.

A large shard of glass sticks out the other end of his neck like an icicle dipped in sticky cranberry sauce. It looks pretty. I want to touch it. Lick it. I let his hair go. His limbs quiver as he loses balance and falls to the ground. His body goes limp on the concrete. His throat makes one last gurgling sound and then it’s just silence.