Angel
As soon as Chuckie escaped, all hell broke loose. Fortunately, the men were so distracted with wrangling me down to the ground he was able to slip away, almost unnoticed. I silently praised him in my head for being such a good boy and for running so fast. After this, I promise we’ll go back to Chuck E Cheese, I thought. I promise, Chuckie. We can even go to Disneyland.
The burlier of the two guys grabbed me and held my arms above my back, making my boobs jut forward in a way that was almost painful.
“So you thought you could play us, girlie?” His foul breath was hot on my ear and I struggled against him and kicked until my muscles were aching. “You thought you could run? We’re gonna teach you a lesson, aren’t we?”
He jerked backwards and I realized he was gesturing for his partner to come forward. The other guy was smaller but still much larger than I was. He crept towards me with a nasty smile on his face, reaching out with a greasy hand towards my chest. I tried to jerk and twist backwards but the burly guy held me in place.
The smaller of the two reached out and tweaked one of my breasts painfully. I cried out and the burly guy lifted me off the ground so my feet were kicking in the air. As I cried out, the smaller guy slid his hand down my body and stuck it between my legs, wiggling his fingers obscenely.
“You wanted some attention, red? Well, why didn’t you just say so?” The smaller guy sneered as he stroked the insides of my thighs with his fingers.
A choked sob escaped from my mouth and I tried to scream but there was no sound. It was like being in a dream. I was barely aware of the burly guy dragging me back into the basement and tossing me down the stairs. The impact of landing on the concrete at the bottom was painful, but not painful enough to jar me back to reality.
“Yo, Damien! We got us a little escape artiste!” The burly guy chuckled and stood at the top of the stairs, blocking all light from coming down into the basement. “You wanna come deal with this, or should we?”
Wincing as I struggled to sit up, I covered my eyes with my hand and blinked. I saw Damien’s large frame fill the doorway and run down the steps with alarming rapidity.
“Get out of the way,” Damien snapped. He pushed the burly guy aside and set his eyes on me. Like before, they were fixed in an angry glare. “What the fuck happened?” He stood over me menacingly, spreading his legs to a shoulder-width apart. “Angel, what the fuck happened?”
“I had to use the bathroom,” I managed to squeak quietly. “And Chuckie must have escaped. He ran off and the guys weren’t able to catch him.”
Damien’s eyes blazed in anger. He raised a hand and I cowered, thinking he was going to slap me. But he chuckled softly.
“What are you so afraid of?” Damien stepped closer and nudged me with the toe of his boot. A lick of pain shot through my head as I struggled to focus on his bulky frame. “You think I’m gonna hurt you, is that it?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what to think. You told me you were going to kill me, that you were going to hurt Chuckie. Damien, why are you doing this? What could have possibly happened to make you want to hurt us so badly?”
Damien laughed again, a low, throaty sound. “Because you should have been mine,” he said softly. He leaned down and I smelled the alcohol on his breath. “And because you’re still loyal to that fucking pussy, Trey.”
I shivered as he said Trey’s name. “What do you want with him?” I asked softly.
Damien grinned but it was more sinister this time. “Tell me, baby. Tell me you want me right now and all of this will be over.” He got down on his hands and knees and crawled towards me — a grotesquely odd sight. “You want to make it with me? I’ll let you live,” he teased, reaching over and chucking me under the chin with a finger.
I shivered as his finger traced down my neck. I was waiting for him to grope my boobs like the horrible cronies had, but he stopped just shy of my chest.
“I’m glad Chuckie escaped,” I whispered hotly. “I’m glad he got away from you and that he didn’t have to see this. I know who his real father is, and I’m glad it’s not you. I’m glad we were never together, Damien. You’re a thief and a liar and I hate you!” The words tumbled out before I could stop myself from talking. My cheeks were hot with rage and my heart was pounding against my chest.
Damien looked shocked. For a moment, he stared at me, his face turning white with rage. Then he got to his feet and reached in his pocket for a gun. I cowered, thinking he was going to shoot me. But instead, he laughed. “You think I’m gonna kill you, baby? Just you wait,” he said with a nasty grin. “I’m gonna wait for your boyfriend to show up, and then I’m gonna do it in front of him. And that’s not all, baby. You’re gonna be in real bad shape and he’s gonna have to sit and watch.” Damien stepped closer and kicked me again, harder this time.
I cried out as the toe of his boot connected with my ribs, making a painful cracking sound. I scrambled backwards and eventually climbed to my feet, shaking and trembling.
“You wanna fight?” Damien raised an eyebrow. “You wanna throw a punch at me? You think I can’t take that?”
I shivered. He pointed the gun at me. I flinched again. When he moved his arm down, I felt my body relax. But before I knew what was happening, Damien swung towards me and cracked me hard over the head with the gun. It hurt like hell and I screamed, falling to my knees and covering my head with my arms as the blows rained down. He hit me rhythmically, and I could feel blood trickling down my face and neck. I screamed and screamed but no one came, and I could hear Damien cursing me in a frenzy as he kept hitting me. Pain exploded all over my body and there was a terrifying moment where I didn’t even feel like I could breathe.
“You’re a bitch,” Damien hissed. “You’re a fucking cunt and you deserve every second of this,” he grunted as he hit me again, with even more force than before.
It sounded like something delicate snapping in my ear as the gun made hard contact with the side of my face. I cried out but he didn’t stop hitting me, and soon it began to feel like I was swimming underneath murky water. The pain was clouding my vision and I felt like I was going to pass out. As I feebly groped around for safety, Damien became even more enraged. Slowly, I felt my consciousness fade out to a clear, comfortable black.
Chuckie, Trey…I love you…
I was away from my pain, and feeling whole and normal again. I wasn’t in the dirty basement anymore. I was seventeen again and waiting for Trey to pick me up. Trey — just saying his name filled me with happiness. It had only been a few weeks since we met, and I was dying to see him again.
Finally, after what felt like hours, his black T-bird pulled up in front of me. I blushed as Trey leapt out of the driver’s side and walked around, opening the door for me like a gentleman.
“My lady,” Trey said. He bowed gracefully as I stepped past him and sank into the plush leather of the vintage seat. Trey always just said his car was old, but I knew better. Even though it was beat up and needed a lot of work, I loved his T-bird. “It’s vintage,” I’d told him when I first saw it. “And just imagine how beautiful it’s going to look after you’ve restored it.” Never mind the fact that Trey never had money to spend on his car. I wasn’t going to give up the idea of having a beautiful car.
“I missed you,” I said impulsively. Then I blushed.
Trey laughed. He reached over and rubbed my knee affectionately. Butterflies swarmed through my body and I trembled at the touch of his hot, rough hand. I loved the feel of his callouses rubbing against my sensitive skin. Summer was ending and I was wearing a thin sundress under my cardigan. I’d hoped Trey would say something about how I looked but so far he hadn’t. He seemed distracted, like he was in another place other than with me.
“Is everything okay?” I shifted in the seat and watched the profile of the boy I loved as he drove off into the sunset.
“I’m fine,” Trey said shortly.
I pouted. Normally, he wasn’t the most open of people but he’d tell me what was on his mind. After all, I was his girlfriend. Trey had asked me a couple of nights ago, right before I’d gone in to see Mom and Daddy.
“Trey,” I pleaded. “Tell me what’s going on. Please?”
Trey sighed. He kept his eyes focused on the road but I knew he was concentrating on me. “Angel, what happened when you told your parents about us?”
After Trey had asked me to be his girlfriend, I’d gushed excitedly about how I could finally tell Mom and Daddy about the two of us. I couldn’t wait to spill my excitement to my mother. She’d always been my best friend, and I thought this would make us closer than ever.
But it hadn’t gone well. Mom had simply frowned and set her lips in a line. “Do you need to go to the doctor?” she’d asked, looking away and ignoring my crestfallen reaction. “I don’t want you sleeping with this boy, Angel.”
“Didn’t you want to meet him? Don’t you want to know who makes me so happy?”
Mom had simply looked at me. “It’s getting late,” she’d said. “It’s time for me to go to bed. Goodnight, Angel.”
Since then, we hadn’t talked about it. But now that Trey was asking me, I felt a certain heaviness in my stomach, the kind of anxiety that came with the knowledge that my family didn’t approve of him.
“Um, it went well,” I lied to Trey as we drove into the dark night. “I mean, she was tired. We didn’t talk about it for very long.”
Trey snorted. “Right, she was tired. More like she was too tired to hear her daughter talking about fucking a boy from the slums, right?”
I rolled my eyes. “Trey, she’s not like that,” I argued. “She cares about me. She cares about my happiness.”
Trey shook his head. “Angel, I…” he trailed off, and my heart seized. Was he going to tell me that he loved me? Or even that he liked me a lot?
“Yes?”
“Angel, I don’t know that your family has your best interests in mind,” he said softly. Reaching over to grab my hand, he twined his fingers through mine. “And you know, maybe you won’t wind up living like they do.”
I pouted. “Of course I will,” I said. “That’s why I have a fund. And I’m an only child, so you know they have to take care of me.” I blushed, thinking about my future with Trey. Would we have babies? I always pictured my parents would make great grandparents.
Trey looked at me. “Angel, I want to believe you,” he said with a sigh. “But you know, my friend, Damien, says we’ll probably always be rejects. He has some plan to get us going in the world, you know, get us really started on living successfully.”
I frowned. “There’s only one way to do that: going to college and getting a good job. That’s what I’m doing. That’s what you should do, too.”
Trey looked at me with a glimmer of exasperation on his face. I frowned. This night wasn’t going the way I wanted it to go at all. I shivered and wrapped my arms around myself; the chilly night air coming in through the T-bird’s windows was making me cold.
“Angel, the world is a lot different than you are,” he said. “For the most part, at least. You and your family are used to a lot of status that we don’t necessarily get.”
I pouted again. “I don’t wanna talk about it,” I said finally. “But I know Mom and Daddy will love you once they meet you.”
Trey’s lips were in a thin line. “I gotta establish myself as a real man before I meet your parents,” he said, almost more to himself than to me. “You know that, Angel? There are some things I have to do.”
I shrugged. “I think you should just work hard. My parents respect that.”
“Bullshit,” Trey responded quickly. “I don’t think they give a fuck about anyone but themselves and anyone who wants to hurt their daughter. They’re never going to accept me, Angel. You have to break with them if we want to stay together.”
“No,” I said, almost crying. “No, Trey. No. That’s not right, and you know it. If you love me, you’ll work to prove to them that you love me. That’s how we’ll be together. I’m not running away from my family just to be with you!” As soon as the words had left my mouth, I realized how hurtful they would be.
Trey sucked in a sharp breath like he’d cut himself. “I didn’t know you felt that way,” he said almost coldly. “I can see that you feel strongly about this, though. If it’s that important to you, I’ll try to impress them, Angel. But not right now. I have to wait until things are in order, and until things are right. Does that make sense?”
I let out a grateful sigh. For a moment, I’d thought Trey would be too hurt over what I said. Relaxed, I settled back into the seat and closed my eyes. Here I was, with a boy who loved me…who’d do anything for me. When I looked at Trey, his eyes narrowed and focused on driving, love swelled in my body.
“I love you,” I said suddenly. “I’ll love you for the rest of my life.”
Pain throbbed in my head and I felt a pair of hands gripping me under the armpits.
“Angel,” a familiar low voice urged me. “Angel, wake up! It’s time to wake up, Angel!”
Moaning, I tried to open my swollen eyes. Damien had beaten me so badly that I was barely aware of being carried out of the basement and propped up on the ground. When I was able to focus, I saw Trey kneeling in front of me and stroking my face with his hand.
“Trey?” I managed to croak, wincing with pain.
“Just hold on, Angel,” Trey said, wrapping his arms around me and pulling me close. “Just hold on.”