Page 135 of Deliria

Behind him, Irene shifts, rocking from one swollen ankle to the other, her arms crossed like she’s impatient for this all to be done and dusted. No doubt she wants to start counting her coffers.

Alexander swipes his hand like it’s some sort of signal and Sydney steps forward, grabbing hold of me before I can scramble away.

Hands. Too many hands. Touching me. Hurting me.

I shut my eyes, fight the flashback as it hits me like a ton of bricks. I can’t afford to fall apart right now. I can’t afford to be overwhelmed by my trauma. I need to be here, present. To fight them off until the moment comes when the board flips.

It’s just a few more minutes, I tell myself. Not long now.

Just stay alive. Just survive.

I can hear Rafe’s voice in my head. I can hear him trying to reassure me, to calm me, to comfort me. But there is no comfort here. There is nothing but pain.

I lash out, my hands feeling like claws, like talons. They connect with fabric, with fine costly silk shirts and expensivesuits. I can feel as my fingers impale their flesh, but it doesn’t stop them. It doesn’t stop this.

I need them to stop. I need this to stop.

Only, it won’t. I know that. I knew that coming into this house, waking up in that hospital bed so many months ago. I knew exactly what was waiting for me. I knew it before Alexander got me completely drunk and technically raped me the first time. I knew who he was, who his father was.

And yet I had to do this, to be here, to place my neck on the executioner’s block, aware that it was my soul I was tarnishing, my soul I was destroying.

I had to let myself be hurt, to be used and defiled.

I had to do this. To play this part.

I had to be here today. I had to do everything, to endure everything to be here, right here, facing these three men.

I let out a scream that seems to rise up from the very pits of hell.

A hand smothers it, smothers me. Apparently, they don’t want my fight. They want my body, they want my cunt, but they don’t want disobedience.

My eyes dart from one leering, disgusting old face to the next. Do they want to pretend that I’m into them, is that it? Do they want to pretend that I want them to fuck me?

I bite down hard on the fleshy palm obstructing my protests, and a cry tells me I’ve hit home.

“Fucking bitch.” Fraser says. “She bit me.”

“She’s a rabid dog. Just like her father.” Sydney says before laughing.

Another blow to my head, a heavy one, knocks out what little sense I’ve managed to push through the drug haze.

And then Alexander is there, standing behind me. He leans down, grabbing the back of my dress and in one awful, aggressive move, he shreds it to pieces.

I’m rendered naked.

Exposed.

I scream, fighting harder, and it has no effect.

More hands grab at me. My limbs are held down, pulled in different directions. I’m stretched wide and forced flat onto my back.

As my eyes dart around in panic from one abhorrent face to the next, I see Irene standing behind them all with a glass of champagne in her hand, as if she’s getting off on this. Her lips curl as she meets my gaze, and she says the word ‘whore’ clearly enough for me to understand.

Sydney climbs on top of me, pawing at me while my dear husband and Fraser keep me in place.

He pushes into me, and I screw my face up, as if that could stop it, as if that could take away the shame and the degradation of this moment.

I can’t bear to think about the fact that this man raped my mother, that the hands holding me also raped her. And when they were done having their fun, they’d done worse. That act of barbarity wasn’t enough to sate them. No, they wanted more. More violence. More revenge. So they’d kicked her, stomped on her, beat her to death and left her body in the street like she was some piece of trash to discard and forget about.

---