The man in the suit shoves me back down when I sit up and when I try to fight him off, he slaps me so hard, my head hits the edge of the trunk. I’m dazed, something warm slides over my temple, down my cheek. It takes a minute for him to come back into focus and when he does, he’s grinning, and raising his fist and this time when he hits me, I don’t open my eyes. I don’t feel anything after the crushing pain on the side of my head. And all I smell is gasoline as he slams the trunk closed and I feel the car begin to move before I lose consciousness.

21

Natalie

My head is throbbing and my eyes feel like they’re glued shut. I can’t move right away and I’m not sure where I am. I’m lying on my side, I know that because I feel a rough fabric on my cheek. It stinks and I want to vomit, I feel like I might. And maybe I already have. Maybe that’s one of the scents I’m smelling. That and unclean bodies. Sex. The stench of it, of cigarettes and sweat and sex.

I turn my head, moan with the pain over my eye. Try to reach to touch it, but I can’t. Something cold circles my wrists and they’re bound up over my head. I force my eyes open and for a moment, the room spins. The threadbare blanket I’m lying on is a 1970’s orange/brown combination. The walls are yellow but I think they used to be white. On top of a beat-up desk is an old-fashioned box TV and there’s a jacket hanging over the back of the chair. It’s the only nice thing in here. There’s a can of Coke beside the TV and an ashtray full of cigarette butts. I roll onto my back and look up at the blobs of stains on the ceiling, then toward the large window with its curtains drawn shut. They match the blanket I’m lying on.

Footsteps outside, heavy ones, have me turning toward the door. My head throbs with the effort. It opens and a man I don’t recognize comes inside. He’s talking into a cell phone.

“Yeah. Got it.” He gives me a grin and sits on the edge of the bed. “I’m not fucking stupid,” he says and disconnects the phone, sets it on the nightstand. He never stops looking at me.

He’s not the one in the suit. The one who grabbed me. Punched me. He’s wearing a yellow T-shirt stretched too tight over his beer belly. It’s got a stain on it. Tomato sauce I think. Or blood. Mine, maybe.

When he leans in toward me, I press my back into the mattress.

“You up, pretty girl?” he asks.