Page 7 of Shadow Man

“Feeling good now, sugar?”

I nod, watching Faceless through narrowed eyes as the last few months disappear in a swirl of bright colors and blinding lights.

Out of body.

Out of my goddamn mind.

“Here, have another,” he says, cold hands straightening me up before a stinging smack to my cheek jolts my senses awake. “Snort up, beautiful. Let’s get this party started.”

More fireworks. More hours cut adrift to another stupid, reckless decision. More fractures to my soul as I take a powder-white wrecking ball to the remains of the woman I used to be.

Bursts of euphoria filter through the deadness as I stumble after him into the night. A part of me knows how this scene will unfold. A part of me resigns myself to it, and when he pushes me up against a wall in a deserted alleyway, I almost feel my body sagging with relief.

This is what I know.

This is what they made me know.

This is all I’m good for.

That’s what they said to me.

When a second male voice joins the scene, I don’t even bother pushing him away.

“Bitch likes to double team.”

Cold hands close around my neck. Now they’re pinching at my breasts, snatching at something that will never be theirs to take, ripping at my black dress like animals.

“Yeah, baby... You know you like it rough.”

Do I?

I take it all without protest, my head floating up to that point in the sky where nothing can hurt me, even when I’m spun around and shoved so hard into the wall I’m left breathing in the grit and damp of the brickwork.

Why am I allowing this?

Because I’ve forgotten how to fight.

My legs are forced apart. My panties get ripped aside. I’m in a tunnel with a sliver of light at one end, but it’s fading fast to the cruel, cruel sound of zippers. I close my eyes and brace for the pain. I’m a traitor to myself, an ideal, to him—

There’s a noise behind us.

Joseph.

The air turns frigid and flat.

Grayson.

I sense his rage before he begins; before my rapists even realize that Death is here to collect. It’s there in the staccato beats between my sad acceptance and their messy grunts, and when he strikes it’s over in seconds.

The first man is ripped away from me while his fingers are still inside my ass. I wince, and then a dull thud is echoing around the alleyway.

I keep my head turned as Joseph continues. I’ve seen what he’s capable of. I see it every time I close my eyes.

There’s barely a sound when he kills the second, just the frantic scrabbling of dying feet against the asphalt as he uses his bare hands to sate the worst of it.

There’s another dull thump—a thicker, heavier one—as the body gets tossed aside, then finally he speaks.

“We’re leaving.”