Page 38 of A Girl, Unbroken
“That’s enough for now!” I heard someone say in the immediate vicinity.
Isaac.
A fear I had never known before crept into me. I lay there almost unable to move, my body filled with pain. Blood collected in my mouth, which I repeatedly swallowed. At some point, there were flashes, one after the next, but that might also have been my burned-out synapses. Then, a rough hand turned my head. I couldn’t do anything about it. The next flash was so bright it pierced my skull so deeply that I almost started to cry. But I shouldn’t cry because it would cost me too much strength, even breathing was strenuous so that it almost ruptured my lungs. As if through a tunnel, I heard Isaac send the men out. When the door shut, a faint light burned, stinging my eyes.
It became quiet and I heard footsteps. A shadow covered me. I recognized Isaac. He sat on the floor next to me and raised his hand.
“No!” I hated myself for begging, but he didn’t hit me. He gently brushed a chin-length strand of hair from my face, but his eyes still held that terrible desire that wanted to destroy me—body and soul.I want you, whispered his topaz-colored gaze, the only thing I could truly see clearly. And I knew then what he would do, that horror rising inside me like a writhing snake. Without me realizing it, he rolled me onto my side for a moment and tied my hands behind my back even though I was already defenseless.
No. No. No. I reared up, but he climbed over me and ripped off my old t-shirt, which immediately gave way because it was threadbare. Then he took off my boots and pants. I wasn’t wearing any underwear because we hadn’t found any that fit in the cabin. My heart was pounding from fear, pain, and shame.Because of the feeling of absolute helplessness. I lay completely naked under him, unable to move, every breath torture. I couldn’t do anything, so I turned my head to the side, tears streaming from my eyes.
He knelt between my legs and pulled the dark green shirt over his head. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a gigantic tattoo emblazoned on his torso, a green-and-black crocodile or some other monster, its mouth wide open as if it wanted to devour me.
“I’ve been waiting for this for so long.” His voice sounded dark, impatient, and throaty, almost lustful like that of a lover. “Do you know what happens when someone like me ends up in prison? Young. White. Not necessarily ugly.”
I couldn’t even shake my head.
“No idea what other inmates do to someone like that?”
I barely heard what he said. I smelled his sweat, drowning me as if he was already inside me, leaving me feeling sick.
Isaac leaned forward, grabbed my jaw, and turned my head so I had to look at him. “Handsome, they called me. Sometimes Yellow Eyes or Prince.” As if through a poorly adjusted lens, his outline was blurred. Unyieldingly, he stared at me as he shoved a handful of nuts into his mouth and chewed thoroughly before swallowing. “Maybe I’ll kiss you today, maybe not.” He leaned even lower, his thin lips almost brushing mine as he squeezed my breasts. “Do you think this kiss would kill you, little lady?” His tongue drew wet circles on my cheek, leaving a burning trail of fire. “Would you choke on it?”
Even I felt my eyes widen.
“So that means yes?”
I wanted to push him away as I tugged at the restraint, but naturally, it didn’t give way. I shook my head, again and again, briefly and quickly, dazed by fear, powerlessness, and the pain of the blows. “No…please…”
He laughed, sat upright, and rubbed my nipples with his thumbs until they hardened from the purely physical stimulus. “Seven hundred and twelve times the men in prison had fun with me. Sometimes, several times a day. Sometimes, they even flipped a coin to decide who I belonged to for a week. I want you to know how that feels…because it was your dear daddy who made sure they locked me up. Innocent. Completely naive.”
My head was pounding and my ears were ringing. I heard the clink of a belt and vaguely noticed him taking off his pants.
Desperate, I reared up one last time, filled with the deranged hope that he would stop at the last moment, but he just slapped me brutally across the face. Then he forced himself into me. Raw and with all the hatred he had accumulated over the years.
Blood and tears covered my cheeks. The pain was like nothing I had ever known. It burned, tore me apart inside, but when I screamed, he covered my mouth.
I tried desperately to shut off my senses, but couldn’t. I was frozen, unable to move but aware of everything, disjointed and distorted. It seeped into my brain like acid into soft skin: His moist, hot breath, heavy on my face, his hands grabbing my bottom, and squeezing my breasts, pulling at my hair; my body scraping the wood from the impact, that subtle scraping and the sounds of sex. I could smell him. I could hear my breath being forced out of me in spurts and I could feel how much my fear and helplessness excited him. Again and again, he almost brushed his lips against mine, deliberately gasping into my mouth and thrusting harder and deeper as my fear grew.
I didn’t want to die, not today, and at the same time, I wished I were already dead. Repeatedly, I closed my eyes to escape him, but then he hit me and demanded that I look at him. When he sat up a little, I looked closely at his crocodile tattoo that stretched across his upper body. The green-and-black head ended above his belly button and the body and tail stretched up over hisupper arm. My daze brought it to life. Every time he thrust, the yellow eyes flickered like flames and the dark mouth widened, black bursts of fire shooting out like a dragon. Burning with heat. Burning inside me. The hard scales spread and stung my skin, and when Isaac came inside me with a rough, triumphant sound, the crocodile pulsed and twitched in time with his body.
It was over. His muscles relaxed and he pulled out of me. Briefly, very briefly, he drank moonshine that was brought to him, smoked, and left me on the floor like an empty shell only to rape me again. It lasted all night and it only stopped when the sliver of light peeked through the window again. It was little more than a premonition, a forewarning that I would not survive the next night if Isaac repeated this. I lay on my back on the floor, staring at the ceiling, feeling nothing but pain while he pulled on his pants. Pain in every fiber of my being.
As Isaac approached, I flinched. “I’ll let the others come now,” he said. I cried. Unable to hold it back any longer, I only heard the deep sobs coming out of me like thunderbolts. “You really believe that,” Isaac said at some point before he untied my bonds. “There, put this on!” He threw me a t-shirt, the dark green one he had worn hours ago. I didn’t dare resist, but I couldn’t manage to sit up either because it felt like my ribs were piercing my lungs.
He knelt over me again and put it on me. It smelled disgusting, soaked in his scent and sweat. Suddenly, I also felt sticky and damp between my legs. My stomach cramped and Isaac patted my cheek.
“Thanks for the night, little lady,” he said before he left.
Chapter 10
The day was loud. Downstairs, the men were making noise, laughing, drinking, and playing music like they were at a party, but I only perceived it through a distorted filter. Sometimes, my surroundings seemed as grainy as a test pattern, and then everything was so crystal clear that it hurt. Every time I heard Isaac speak, my body went rock hard and I was plunged into a world of numbing, ice-cold darkness for seconds or minutes. I was still on my back, unable to move, maybe because my ribs were broken or my legs, then again, maybe out of sheer shock. Now and then, someone would look in, probably to make sure I was still breathing, but I started shaking as soon as I heard the creak of the wooden stairs.
I couldn’t even think about the night with Nathan, about our love and the wild, sweet kisses without thinking about what Isaac had done to me or what he had whispered in my ear. Time crawled but still passed too quickly. I tried to gauge it by the beam of light, which shimmered sometimes dimmer, sometimes brighter, but that was probably just the difference between cloud cover and sunlight.
Because I was so afraid of the coming night, I thought about Rosewood Manor. Still lying on the floor, I mentally movedthrough every square inch, running in the spring air through the blooming gardens, through the wide Victorian halls to the tall, mysterious oaks on the west side, but as I did so, I cried. In my mind, I hugged Mom’s statue and stroked the smooth marble until I realized that I was rubbing my palms on the floor.
At some point, when the beam of light dimmed, barely exposing the dust, Isaac returned. I didn’t think I would be able to move, but at the sight of him, I crawled into the corner like a beaten animal. He acknowledged it with a smug smile. Every bone in my body felt like it was about to break. My muscles were rock hard and my abdomen still ached as if he had stuck a knife in it.
