This was a world in which children were abandoned, abused and murdered. Ghandi had once said that you could tell the quality of a nation by how it looked after its animals and she’d been to the shelters. Cages overflowing with unwanted pets. All of those innocent eyes staring back at her, begging for some sort of affection. For love of any kind. Many of them would never leave. Not alive anyway. It was heartbreaking.

Tears were streaming down her cheeks and she shook her head as the freak moved back to her ankles. “Now…” His voice vibrated with excitement. “Are you going to be a good little girl or am I going to have to teach you some manners?”

There was no way she was going to just lie there and take it. She gave a nod, feigning acceptance.

“That’s a good, little—” He began to say, but at the last second, she kicked out. He yelled out in pain and anger. The guy moved much quicker than she expected. He gripped her hair and pulled hard. He pulled until she was sure it was going to come out by the roots. He pulled until pain surrounded her and filled her. Until she became one with it.

Her head thudded softly against the wooden floor as he released her. She could feel him tugging on her pants, could feel the cold steel from the scissors as he worked his way up her leg. She was too afraid to move in case a sharp edge caught her.

Her scalp throbbed with every beat of her heart. Unfortunately, her heart was beating fast so her head hurt badly. Then his hands were on her. He rubbed up and down her leg and squeezed her thigh. He’d cut most of the way up her thigh but had stopped just short of going all the way.

She forced herself to open her eyes and moaned in frustration and irritation. This seemed to egg him on. He squeezed her thigh harder, almost to the point of pain. “I can’t wait to fuck you real good. Show you what a real man can do.”

Right. If he was any type of real man he wouldn’t be doing this. He might be ‘playing pretend’, but he was sick just the same. That much was apparent.

He moved up, his eyes glued to her chest. No you don’t, asswipe! When he leaned forward, intent on cutting her T-shirt, she head butted him in the face. There was a cracking noise and his nose began to gush.

“What the fuck!” He cocked back his fist, his face pulled into a sneer.

“Don’t you dare.” Ellis warned, trying to make himself sound gruff, even though she could hear he was smiling. He was loving every minute of this. Sick son of a bitch that he was.

“She broke my fucking nose,” the guy whined.