She could smell his whiskey breath as he moved closer, yet she still didn’t feel afraid. Not until she saw what he was doing: unbuckling his pants. Oh God.

Suddenly, before she had a chance to get to her feet, he was on her. She screamed. She felt the cot give way and heard the splintering of one of the legs echo through the building. She was tilted toward the ground, headfirst, Martin’s weight on her. He smelled of sweat and booze and dirty hair. Anna tried to scramble out from under him, but he held her pinned beneath him. He was a thousand times stronger than she was.

She clutched his arms. Dug her fingernails into the skin through his shirt. “Think of your wife,” she pleaded. “Think of your daughters.” Please don’t do this. Please don’t hurt me. Was she begging him out loud? What did it matter? Her words were useless. The smell of him was all over her. Up inside her head. She felt the hardness of him press against her. He got to his knees and started yanking off her pants, and she took that chance to fight him. She tried to kick him, but by then, her pants were halfway down her legs, trapping her. “Stop it stop it stop it!” she screamed. She clawed his face and he slapped her, hard, harder than he’d slapped his wife.

“Shut the hell up!” he shouted. “You fucking wrecked my life! Shut up!” He yanked off her pants. She yelped, trying to sit up, trying to grab his hands, but he pushed her down again, his own hand at her throat, tight, pressing, making her struggle for air. His strength overwhelmed her, his body no longer flesh and blood but concrete and steel, and she knew he was going to kill her.

“Think you’re so special ’cause you won a fucking contest!” His spit sprayed against her cheeks. “A fucking imbecilic painting of old ladies and trite crap! It’s gone to your head, you bitch!” He kneed her in the belly, making her cry out. “You wrecked my career!” he shouted. “You wrecked my marriage!”

Both his hands were around her throat now, tightening as she struggled against him. She stopped fighting. She would let him do what he was there to do while she thought how to save herself. How to survive. He tore into her. Plowed into her. She felt herself split open and she gasped. Too numb. Her mind was too numb to think of a way to save herself. A way to live. She lay there limp and weak, her head turned away from his face and his stench, while he ruined her.

And then she saw, lying on the floor only inches from the broken cot, the hammer. She focused on it. Forgot about what he was doing. Forgot he was ruining her.

She was going to ruin him.

Chapter 47. Morgan

Chapter 47

MORGAN

July 18, 2018