Crown of Lies

Their touch dug like five-finger traps into my arms.

Hurting.

Bruising.

“Help!” My heart stuck in my throat, preventing any more than a strangled beg. My uselessness gave them all the time they needed.

With a sinister chuckle, they dragged me deeper into the darkness, away from streetlights and people and taxis.

“Let me go!” I struggled, kicking and flailing. “Help! Help! Someone—”

But it was too late.

They pulled me further, laughing louder as my feet skidded uselessly on the grimy ground. In some strange recess of my mind, I noticed how dirty my shoes had become. How black now smeared the pristine white.

“No! Stop!” I lost my shock-stupor, giving into fighting terror.

I bent and buckled.

I kicked and squirmed.

But they were too strong.

The street was too far away.

The world was too obsessed to care.

“Let. Me. Go!”

“Shut the fuck up.” The harsh command was as sharp as a fishhook, digging into my mind with evil.

“What do you want?” I fought harder, winded and so, so worried. “I don’t—”

“Told you. Shut the fuck up.” They held me tighter, their fingers digging into my flesh like cleavers. “What we want is our business, not yours.” One of them laughed.

Three-quarters down the alley, where the sounds of a busy metropolis were muted in favor of rankness from awful smelling trash, they shoved me forward, slamming me against the wall.

The air in my lungs vanished, leaving me empty.

I doubled over in pain as the nodules of my spine crunched against brick. I tried to suck in a breath, my long hair tangling in a mess over my shoulder.

I peered up through the blonde strands, doing my best to formulate an escape. To them, I was an inexperienced little girl who they could rob and hurt with no consequences. I had to prove to them otherwise.

Even if it’s the truth.

The men chuckled, nudging each other with congratulations.

I didn’t wait to see what would happen next. Pushing off from the wall, I sprinted through the small gap and dug for every bit of strength and courage I had. My mouth opened to scream—to scream as loud and as long as I could—but one man grabbed me, slamming me into his chest. The other plastered a metallic smelling palm over my lips, silencing me.

Sandwiched between the two, I understood my dire situation.

The terribly, stupid bad situation.

“Where do you think you’re going, little bitch?”

Hardness, where there should be no hardness, prodded me in the front and the back. They ground their cocks against me.

I shuddered, understanding right away that whatever they wanted from me wasn’t just monetary but physical.

And I can’t do a thing to stop it.

Tears sprang to my eyes, but I did my best to blink them away. I’d let shock get me into this mess. I wouldn’t let pity make it worse.

Their breath turned heavy as they pressed harder into me. Not caring that their heads touched each other in their bid to consume me.

My bones turned to ash as my heart suffocated.

Please, please don’t let them hurt me.

Being normal was suddenly the most idiotic concept in the world. I would gladly return to Belle Elle and never leave the crystal tower of business for the rest of my life. I would work every hour, of every day until I died if I could just walk away from this untouched.

Please!

I wriggled in their arms, trying to bare my teeth beneath the guy’s palm to bite. He kept my lips firmly glued while his hips thrust against me from behind. His rocking knocked me off balance into his accomplice’s sickly embrace. “Know what tonight is, pretty girl?”

My nineteenth birthday.

My stupid attempt at being normal.

I sucked in a breath, dragging in their scents of corruption and filth.

“It’s the night you give us a good fuck then, if you’re good, we let you go.”

Horror flowed like ice water only to solidify into a glacier as his friend whispered, “We want your money and your jewelry as well as your cunt. Give them up willingly, and this will end much better for you.”

He reached down, cupping me between the legs.

I moaned like a feral cat about to be butchered.

“Don’t and things will get very, very bad.” His fingers clenched around my core. “Fucking bad. Got it?”

When I didn’t move apart from blinking yet more terrified tears from my vision, he pressed his groin into my belly. “Nod if you get it.”

I didn’t want to obey.

I wanted to tell them to die.

His friend snaked his arm around my middle, clutching me so hard my ribs bent, and the hardness in his pants bruised my spine. “Nod, bitch, then we’ll let you go.” He thrust again. “But if you scream, we’ll beat you fucking bloody, and you’ll wake up with nothing. Not even your clothes.”

My lungs ached from lack of oxygen; caustic terror burned holes in my veins, drowning me in blood.

The man in front kissed my cheek. “Last time. Nod if you agree to our terms.”

What else could I do?

I had no weapons, no experience. The most I could hope to do was delay by obeying until I spied an opportunity to run.

Please let that opportunity come sooner rather than later.

It hurt even more than stepping from Belle Elle in shame, but I nodded.

The moment I did, they stepped back. The one in front readjusted his trousers, fisting himself. “Fuck, it makes me hot when they obey.”