Page 8 of Freaks
Kicking back, my legs screaming in pain, I shoved myself away from him.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
Sam lurched forward. I tried to roll, to shift myself out of the way, but every movement was agony. I wasn’t quick enough. He landed on top of me, grabbing me, trying to get hold of my wrists. If he pinned me, he’d slap those cuffs on me and my chances of fighting him off would be zero.
I fought.
I kicked.
I screamed.
I bit.
I scrambled through the pain, and my burning lungs, and the shell-shocked silence inside my own head as I wrestled to free myself of Sam’s weight. He was a man possessed, strong and determined. My efforts were wasted. He grabbed my left arm, grinning like a lunatic, and held it above my head. His dick was fully erect now. He ground it against my stomach, panting, sweat dripping from his forehead down onto my face.
“This won’t be quick,” he rasped. “It’s not gonna be painless. I’d save my energy if I were you. For fuck’s sake, just give up, you stupid bitch. It’s over. It’s…all…over.”
His words were a trigger. At the sound of them, something reacted inside me.
Sam was a worthless human being who could only feel good when he was making someone else feel bad. He wasn’t smart. He wasn’t important. He was nobody and nothing. Who the fuck washeto say my time was up? What gavehimthe right?
No…
No, thiswasn’tover.
My admittedly pathetic, miserable existence wasn’t much, but the occasional patches of joy I shared with Amy made it worth something. Worth more that Sam Halloran’s greasy cock and his pinching handcuffs. Enough was enough. For the first time in my life, as Sam held my arm over my head, preparing to snap one of the cuffs around my wrist, a spark of rage ignited in the pit of my belly. That spark took hold, and within seconds it had ravaged me, the flames of my wrath consuming every fiber of my being. Sam saw that fire raging in my eyes, he must have done, because he peeled his lips away from his teeth in a cruel, warped smile.
“Oh, Sera.Thereyou are. Been waiting for you to develop a fucking backbone. Are you gonna fight back? Are you finally going to do something to make this a little more interesting?”
A scream built in the back of my throat, itching and clawing, begging to be released, but I clamped my mouth shut and swallowed it down. I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of hearing me cry out, even if it was in anger. I knew him; he wanted me spitting and cursing, calling him every name under the sun, as I fought for my life. He wasn’t going to get a word out of me. I wasn’t going to make a goddamn sound.
He lowered his face closer to mine, and his rank breath washed over my face, snaking its way up my nostrils, making my gag reflexes come alive. “Don’t let me down now, Sera,” he growled. “This is your final moment to shine. Make me remember you. I want every second of this etched into my memory. I want to be able to relive it for years to come…late at night, when I’m lying in bed with my hand around my cock…I want to remember that look of defiance as it faded in your dying eyes.”
Disgust roiled inside me. He was subhuman. He was the lowest of the low. I wasn’t going to give him what he wanted. And more than that… I wasn’t going to let him do this to anyone else, ever again.
I was much smaller than Sam. Small enough that I was able to twist my leg up to the side and gradually drive it sideways, into my chest, wedging it between our bodies. Sam didn’t even try and stop me. He laughed, looking down as I drove my kneecap into his chest, trying to push him away from me. “Really? That’s it? That’s the grand plan? That’s your move? Honestly, I expected more from Sixsmith Lafferty’s daughter. Something far sneakier.”
That’s right. Keep laughing, you fat fuck.
Tears welled in my eyes, but I left them unshed. There was no time for tears. Later, maybe, when all this was over, I would sink into shock and horror, but not now. Everything hinged on this moment. I had to keep calm. I had to keep a clear head…
I pulled my other leg up to the side, cringing away from the position I’d put myself in by raising both my legs; Sam’s erection was now digging greedily into my jeans between my legs, as if it could burrow through the material and inch its way inside me. Sam groaned, his eyes drifting over my head—the promise of what was to come must have been too much for him, because he allowed his focus to wander, just for a moment. It was a mere split-second, but it was enough.
See, IwasSixsmith Lafferty’s daughter. Iwassneaky as fuck. Trying to push him away with my legs was a fool’s errand. There wasn’t enough space between us for me to build momentum and force him away. The struggling, though. The determination in my eyes. Sam fed off the weak and the helpless. Their pathetic efforts fueled him in the most fucked up, depraved ways. Which is why he didn’t notice, as I was heaving and battling with his considerable weight, that I had been very busy with my right hand.
Misdirection wasn’t a skill I was well versed in, but I knew enough: make someone look to the left, when the magic was happening on the right. Poor Sam never saw it coming. A part of me wished he had.Iwould have liked to commit the moment to memory—the moment he saw the huge, jagged piece of glass coming flying out of nowhere, slashing across the meat of his neck. His look of confusion was going to have to do instead. One minute, he was leering down at me, flicking his coffee stained tongue over his bottom lip, excitement dancing in his eyes, and then the next he was gurgling, choking, coughing, spluttering, dying.
A stream of vibrant crimson blood arced from the hole in his throat where I’d opened up his flesh, as I dug the wickedly sharp shard of glass from the broken coffee table through soft skin and firmer muscle, until I reached sinew and bone.
I gasped as a jet of blood sprayed me in the face—hot, metallic, reeking of iron—but I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop until I’d dragged the make-shift weapon from his left ear to his right. Sam’s eyes bulged out of his head, his tongue protruding, veins straining under his skin at either temple.
He rolled himself sideways, away from me, onto his back, his fingers digging at the tattered edges of his flesh, as if trying to press them back together, but he knew it as well as I did: he was a dead man. His body was simply taking a moment to catch up with the inevitable. He gurgled, making a wet rasping sound as he tried to say something to me, but he couldn’t do it. The terrified, accusatory look in his eyes said all he needed to say.
He was cursing me, damning me to hell, and I didn’t mind. He could damn me all he liked. I didn’t believe in hell. And even if I was wrong and the placedidexist, then it would be okay. I’d pay my penance and gladly, because at least Sam would be there, too, paying forhiscrimes, which were considerably worse than mine.
The hatred flared and then dimmed on Sam’s face as his muscles fell slack, his fingers stilling at his throat. A shudder ran down his body, making his stomach and thighs wobble, and then… nothing. He was gone.
