The Dark Light of Day (The Dark Light of Day 1)

I had to get out of there.

“Now now, Abby. You know I like it when you struggle a little. It isn’t fair that little bitch Jake gets to have all the fun, now is it?” Owen trailed his tongue over my earlobe, his hot breath almost making me wretch. I stretched my neck aside, pulling away as much as I could. I screamed until he covered my mouth with one large filthy hand and began to pull me backward into the dark. I pressed my feet down into the dirt, trying to hold my ground.

Where was he trying to take me?

With his hand still over my mouth, he hoisted me up with his forearm under my breasts, dragging me over the jagged rocks of the seawall. I lost one boot, then the other. My knife was securely tucked in the last one. Still, I refused to let up on my struggle.

The rocks sliced painful cuts on the soles of my feet. With my arms locked to my sides, I tried to use my elbows to dig into his ribs. It did nothing more than annoy him. He was too big, too powerful. He just turned and lifted me, carrying me like a suitcase tucked under his arm. His other hand never left my mouth.

My heart raced. Every vein inside me throbbed in panic.

Jake! I need you! Was my primary thought.

I did the only other thing I could think of, I bit down as hard as I could, digging my teeth all the way into the flesh of Owen’s hand. His blood instantly flooded my mouth, tasting of liquor and copper.

“Motherfucker!” he shouted. But, he never loosened his grip, and he never missed a step.

Hot tears streamed down my face.

“You think that’s going to change anything?” He spoke with a playful tone piled on top of his menacing laugh. I knew now that this was just a game to him, with rules I didn’t have any hope of understanding.

I screamed into his hand, blowing his blood into my nose, breathing it into my lungs. I coughed and choked but didn’t stop the onslaught of teeth into skin. I bit into him again, only this time he released me. I spun around, trying to gain some footing on the uneven sand only to be met with the wrecking ball of his fist smashing into my right cheek. It crunched under the pressure of the blow, spraying the blood from his hand all over my face. It was like nothing I’d ever felt before, like my head had exploded. My entire body vibrated as my legs collapsed under me and I fell onto the beach.

“Fuck, Abby. Look at what you made me do!” Owen scolded me like I was a child who’d knocked over my dinner plate at the table. “If you’d just behave yourself, it wouldn’t have to be like this.”

Words I’d heard before and had hoped to never hear again.

Owen paused and let out a deep sigh. “Either way, baby, it’s gonna be real special.”

I drifted in and out of consciousness after that punch.

Truth be told, I wished he would have knocked me out cold.

Owen took both of my feet in his hands and dragged me under a palm tree leaning over the water. I couldn’t open my right eye, the vision in my left had begun to blur. I kicked my legs aimlessly as hard as I could, hoping to hit something or anything of Owen’s that would cause him to stop. Either my kicks were so weak they had no effect on him, or my perceived kicks were purely a product of my subconscious still willing me to fight.

He dropped to his knees, hovering over me. His sweat dripped onto my forehead like water torture. His pungent body odor mixed with the smell of the salt in the air. I spent the last bit of fight I had left trying to keep my knees together when he pushed my shorts down off my legs, shoving his hands between them and holding my thighs open with his elbows. He hooked his fingers through the crotch of my underwear, ripping them off in one swipe, groaning when his fingers brushed over my sex. He brought my panties up to his nose and sniffed. His jaw tightened. The thick vein in his neck throbbed. His rage erupted.

“I can fucking smell him on you, you fucking whore!” he roared.

He tossed them blindly into the canal. He used his knees to keep my legs spread open, then positioned himself between them.

This is really happening...

I tried to scream, but all that came out was a weak groan. A wave of nausea washed over me. I turned my head to the side, and I threw up into the sand, choking on the chunks of fried chicken as they came back up.

Had it been only an hour since I was with Jake? Was it possible?

Because now I was in hell. With the devil himself.

Owen didn’t seem to notice the vomit, and if he did, he didn’t seem to care. With one motion, he pulled down his jeans and freed himself of his boxers. He forced one hand under my back, yanking me closer to him, and with the other hand he thrust himself inside me. I could feel the grit of the sand from the beach tearing at my insides like shards of glass. The burning was like nothing I’d ever experienced from external touch. This wasn’t like my skin was being ignited.

I cried out.

This time, I was the flame. The pain was blinding. All I saw was white.

I couldn’t make myself believe what was happening. As a product of the most fucked up home in some deviant God’s creation, I was being faced with the one thing I’d managed to avoid. This can’t be happening. I kept telling myself over and over again. This can’t be happening.

Only, it was happening. There was nothing I could do to stop it.

The pain was worse than when my mother carved me up like a fucking Thanksgiving turkey. It was worse than being stabbed.

Worse than being beaten.

Worse than anything.

I cried out again and again as he entered me. Every sound from my mouth was answered with a blow from his closed fist. “Don’t fucking cry, you bitch,” he spat, thrusting harder, punishing me. “I know you like it.”

He closed his eyes and moaned. When he opened his mouth, I could see strands of saliva connecting his top and bottom teeth. I tried to scream again, I wanted someone to hear me, but this time, no words came out. “I heard you moan like the whore you are when you fucked Jake tonight. I know this shit turns on girls like you. So, moan, you fucking bitch!” With a twist of his hips, he sliced into me like a serrated knife. The more I tried to resist, the more forceful his thrusts became.

I could no longer feel my limbs.

Owen suddenly pulled out of me, scraping my insides like sandpaper, flipping me over onto my stomach like I was a rag doll. With one hand on the back of my head, he shoved my face into the wet sand. “That’s what you fucking get for trying to scream.” His next thrust sent painful shockwaves through my body, I’m pretty sure I lost consciousness for a minute or two.

I was being torn apart from the inside.

I didn’t know how much more I could take. My body was shutting down. I wasn’t gasping for breath anymore. Only small pulls of air kept my heart pulsing slowly, deep within my chest.

“It fucking hurts, doesn’t it?” he hissed through gritted teeth. “Bet Jake didn’t fuck you in the ass!” Taking fistfuls of hair, he yanked and pulled for leverage until he yanked hard enough to rip out patches of hair and scalp. It made the same sound as a stubborn zipper. “You see now, don’t you? A part of you is mine now.” He almost giggled when he whispered those words. I could smell him even through the sand. I could smell and taste my own blood and vomit. I could actually feel my insides coming apart as every grain of sand ground against them.

My mind wandered to the news reels I’ve seen where people describe the aftermath of a tornado: It was a surprise… sounded like a death train… left everything broken and twisted in it’s wake… almost killed…scared to death…lost everything…would never be the same…

I’m not going to survive this.

I opened my mouth to scream into the ground. Instead, I welcomed wet sand into my lungs, gagging until I dry heaved and forced even more of the beach into my throat.

I’m going to die.

I was never going to see Jake again. Just when I thought I finally had something I could trust, something real, it was all being taken from me.

By force.

How stupid I was to think I could ever be happy. I was being punished for wanting more than what I had been dealt. I was going to die here. I lifted my head from the sand in one last attempt to stay alive.

Owen flipped me back over and pressed his hands into my chest forcefully to steady himself. I felt the crack of my ribs and heard bones snap. He kept talking, but now, his voice was just a muffled sound in the distance.

Smaller background noises seemed amplified. A nearby cricket chirping. The rustle of palm fronds in the wind. The splash of mullet jumping into the canal.

Help, please someone... help.

Instead of help, I received only more blunt force, more blinding agony across my battered face.

And then, I died.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

DEATH DIDN’T DRAW ME INTO ITS EMBRACE that night, although I truly believed that it had. I’d rather have been dead than have to be the fucking victim again. I'd rather have been dead than hold the knowledge of what happened, to have the power to see those images whenever my thoughts felt like wondering beyond the walls I’d built. All the reminders of the blows to my face and body would come with them, the revisiting of the horrific intrusion inside of me.

It was too much to ever think that I could be happy.

I wasn’t the happy ending type, after all. I was the fucked-up kid that fucked-up shit happened to. Why had I ever thought I deserved more?

I didn’t know how long I’d lain there, didn’t know if it was day or night. I didn’t open my eyes for hours. I kept them shut and wished for a quick death. I thought if I concentrated hard enough I could will myself into oblivion. People like me were only meant to feel pain and suffering, I opened my eyes —or, I should say, I opened my eye.