This makes me shake even harder, on top of everything else. So much so, that I don’t even hear Melissa approach. I don’t even know she’s out there in the parking lot with me until her hands come around my arms and pulls me from the ground. And then pulls me into her embrace.
“I’m not going to leave you,” she whispers, and that’s when I realize I must’ve said some of those things aloud. “Come on. Let’s get out of here. Let’s go someplace far away, where she can’t do anything to you.”
Like I did the very first time Vanacore overstepped her boundaries with Melissa and me came to the rescue, I let her pack me into her car. She buckles me up safe and sound and drives me away. Drives me somewhere to think. To come down off of my adrenaline, and to think about where I go from here, now that I’ve been sexually assaulted and had Vanacore not just harass me sexually, but attempt to rape me.
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Melissa
Immediately upon entering the office and heading to the top floor, where my desk and phone await me, I’m filled with dread. The dread I’ve been feeling all week, except this is so, so much worse. Where I’ve just been feeling like something bad is looming on the horizon, today I feel like I have a hood over my head. And executioner’s hood, being led to the guillotine.
Though I’m not sure why, until I hear my phone ring. It feels like that executioner’s hood has turned into the phone cord, and it is wrapping around my neck. As it rings, I instantly get a picture of Tommy. I instantly get a feeling that something very, very wrong is happening with him.
I pick up the phone, dreading what I might hear or not. I don’t bother to say anything. I just pick up the phone, put it to my ear, and listen.
At first, I don’t hear anything. Just static. Just garbled sound, from the speaker being rubbed up against something. And then that silence is broken, and by the very thing I feared more than the silence. A sound from Tommy. A cry of fear, followed by, “No, Ms. Vanacore! No! I’m not doing that with you! I gave you oral sex, but I’m not doing any more with you! I’m not having sex with you!”
Ms. Vanacore is who I hear next. I barely recognize the sound of her voice with how angry and dark it is. “You are going to, Tommy! You’re going to have sex with me, even if you don’t want to! It’s the least you can do after taking me around! Making me think you were interested in me! That you were uninvolved!”
I hear sounds of stumbling, of things getting knocked over, and Tommy crying out again. He doesn’t say anything. Just screams, and I can hear his terror.
I feel mine escalating. I need to do something! I need to try to find a way to slow Vanacore down, but what can I do? How can I help? I need to stop this before it gets any further, but what? Around these thoughts, I hear Tommy continuing to struggle and fight Vanacore off. He continues to scream and cry, but from the sounds of things, Vanacore hasn’t succeeded in subduing him.
“I’m going to take that thick, big cock of yours,” she says. “I am going to completely and totally wreck it, Tommy! I’m going to make it so that no one, not your little girlfriend, Melissa, can enjoy fucking you ever again!”
Hearing this, my stomach drops out. My head spins, and I have to fight passing out. It’s just as Isabella comes to sit at her desk. She looks at me, looks at my face, looks at the way I’m clutching the phone in my shivering hands, and asks silently, “What’s the matter? You okay?”
I don’t answer her. I just hang up the phone, deciding I’ve heard enough. “Someone called for Vanacore,” I say, feeling numb, “and now I’ve got to call her to let her know who called and why.” I pick up the phone and hit the series of numbers that will get me to her office and her desk. As I do, I pray that it will be enough to interrupt her and take her attention away from Tommy and her mission to destroy him, though I’m not optimistic.
No one answers my calls.
Not sure what to do. I stay frozen in my chair, wondering if I should call security. Movement catches my eye. Looking out the window, I see Tommy. He’s in the parking lot running towards my car.
Without a word to Isabella, I grab my purse and leave to join him.
****
After leaving the office, I take Tommy to the only place I can think of. To the nearby park. Not to get out and walk around, but just to have somewhere nice and safe to park the car, while I find out what exactly happened — though I already have some idea — and what to do next.