Page 58 of Precise Justice

“Last night, after dark, a couple blocks south of the South Beach of Lake Harriet. Do you know where that is?” Amanda answered.

“Yes, I do,” Robbie said. “It’s close to where I went to middle school, Sanger.”

“Is Holly pretty beat up?” one of the other girls, Bella, a senior at Wheaton, whom Robbie knew, asked.

Bella, which means beautiful, a name her mother chose, was anything but beautiful. She still bore some light, plastic surgery scars. Robbie knew she was not the least bit self-conscious about the scars.

“You mean other than being grossly violated?” Amanda said.

“Amanda, come on, you know what I meant,” Bella said.

“Sorry. No, fortunately. At least nothing to require medical attention. One of them slapped her several times, but she’s okay.

“There were three of them. They dragged her into the back of a van, taped her mouth shut and took turns. Two of them held her down while the third, well you know.”

“Did you call the police?” a blonde girl with designer glasses wearing the name tag Chelsea asked.

“Of course not,” Amanda said. “Remember what happened last time when…well, you know.”

“This happened before? What happened last time?” Robbie asked.

The group went silent. No one made an effort to speak or explain what happened. Finally, Amanda broke the silence.

“She was sixteen. She was too ashamed to tell her parents. Instead, she went to the police who acted like she was a freak and probably asked for it.

“She called me,” Amanda continued, “She told me what happened and the cops’ attitudes. They didn’t even send her to a hospital for a rape kit. By the time she called me, it was too late. She later killed herself. Took her dad’s loaded gun and shot herself in the head.

“She was a sweet girl. So, no, Holly isn’t going to the police. And she won’t tell her parents.”

“What is she going to do?” Chelsea asked.

“I don’t know,” Amanda said.

“What can she do?” another girl, Bethany asked.

“Hunt them, find them. Then she can decide what to do,” Robbie said.

Everyone in the circle of chairs was looking at Robbie. Four or five nodded their heads in agreement.

“That’s probably a bad idea,” Amanda said. “That would be a good way to have it happen again.”

“Or worse,” Chelsea said.

For a while they kicked around Robbie’s idea of finding the rapists. They eventually stopped for a break. Three of them went outside to smoke, several to the women’s rest room. Amanda approached Robbie who was hanging with Stephanie.

“Hunting these pigs down would be something we would all like to do. You need to understand something, Robbie. Despite all of the media attention there are a lot of people with hostility toward us.”

“At some point, we have to treat bullies as bullies. Stand up to them,” Robbie said.

“Gays and lesbians, at least a lot of them, secretly hate us. They think we’re just hiding our sexuality. Most people don’t want to know us,” Amanda said.

“I’d like to talk to Holly. Is she coming to the next meeting?” Robbie asked.

“Leave it alone,” Amanda said.

“No, we can’t just leave it alone,” Robbie said.

“Holly isn’t the first,” Amanda said. “There have been at least three others that I know of.”

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