MINA [#Wattys2014]

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

As he ran with her in his arms he never looked over his shoulder once. Not once. His eyes focused on the way forward, constantly searching for the way out. He glanced down at the small broken body in his arms. She may have been broken, but she was resilient and he knew she would make it. This woman had done so much for him, in ways she probably didn’t comprehend, but she had.

He owed her so much and he knew that he had to make sure she got out of this alive; he could never live with himself knowing that he had failed. He refused to fail. He loved...

His thoughts were broken by the sound of hysterical screams. It took him a second to come to the realization that the tragic sound was coming from Mina. She was trembling against him, and she was screaming hard...

"He's right behind you...Tank he's right behind you!"

Her hands gripped his under shirt and he made the biggest mistake he probably ever would.

He looked over his shoulder.

With his attention now shifted he misjudged his next step and the error caused him to trip up just enough to lose his hold on Mina. She slid out of his arms so suddenly that there was little he could do but try to stop himself from falling on her too hard. His hands broke his fall but he hovered over her just the same. He lost sight of his intentions for a second but in that second he found himself unable to do anything but look into her eyes. He saw past the battered marks on her face; the dirty straggly quality of what her hair had become; the slight discoloration of her skin, from being kept locked up underground, against her will for so long.

In contrast to all those pictures, her eyes now shone with determination, the desire to live and to continue living despite. He saw everything in those eyes. These were the eyes of the woman who had come to him and in them he saw everything he had wished to see in all the girls who had ever told him that they loved him. He never saw in them that strength, that quality that put her above the rest. He never saw that abundance of inner beauty in any one of them. He saw them in her though. In Mina Santra, his Literature teacher, twenty-four years old of fire and fierce determination and so out of his league, but she had made him realize the value of a lot of things...of having goals and of fighting for what he wanted the most...who he wanted most…

She couldn’t die, not now...

He would see to that.

He pulled himself up and grasped her hand, pulling her to her feet as well.

"Let's go...can you...never mind." He pulled her into his arms once more and she wrapped her arms a little more firmly around his neck this time.

When she gripped his shoulder and whimpered, he took that as his cue to run faster.

Adrenaline was one heck of a thing and the reason for the way he was able to move. When they made it through this he might just thank his dad for forcing him to endure football after all.

"You can't have her! You can't take her away from me!" Marty's voice boomed from somewhere behind them, "She's mine!"

Mina shook in terror and clung to Tank as he ran with her. She bit her lips, but that didn’t stop the whimpers from escaping.

There was no doubt that his voice drove a magnitude of fear within her so strong that she thought she would die of fright, whenever she heard him speak. The memories and the feelings that voice evoked. It was hard to believe that was the same voice that had laughed and chided her as she bought wares from him. The same voice that had encouraged her in her attempts to learn a second language...it was so hard for her to believe that she had once smiled and laughed along with that voice...once upon a time...she had trusted that voice, she had trusted him, she had trusted Marty.

All this time she would never have thought it possible that it would come to this. Tucked into the arms of her student, who cared far more about her than half the people she had ever met in her lifetime, running for her life from the person she had considered a friend.

She remembered in vivid details each time he had crawled atop her...each time he had forced himself into her, each time he had violated her, over and over again and how, with explicit details. She remembered each time he had hit her and where, as he had muttered in great details what he had done to the others.

Yes, she shuddered at the thought, there had been others before her...Katie, Tiffany, Janice, Felicity, Sanya, Geena, Marie, Jody, Emily …and there were more that he’d used and abused earlier in his life. All because of his sister. Yes his older sister, who'd paraded men through the house when his mother was out getting her fix. His sister who in a drunken state had made him aware of her intentions for him at the age of 15, then laughed at him when he hadn't been able to perform...he'd showed her though, and all the rest shortly afterwards. Learning about himself and what he needed to reach that point of ecstasy. But those he’d dismissed as inferior experiments, not worthy of mention...even as he'd shown her the pictures...all of them. He did like to take picture and now those faces were forever imprinted on her mind and she would be unable to ever forget them, even if she tried.

But she had been special; he’d told her, right after he had violated her for the third time that day. She could only assume it was a day, since in the dark and floating between conscious and unconsciousness she had no real concept of time. But he’d made sure to tell her that she’d been different from the rest of them. The difference, at face value had been pretty obvious. They all had flaming red hair in the pictures, and green eyes...dead eyes. All except Sanya. No, Sanya had been a mistake, a mistake that should have never happened; an experiment gone array. It had felt so wrong from the get go but he had gone along and tried just the same and in the end the result had been disastrous.

But she, Mina, she was all the proof he had needed...the proof that it was possible. That he was getting better. She was helping to fix him. She’d thrown up at the thought.

'Now everything will be okay,' he had said.

'OK?' she had wanted to scream at him.

Okay for who?

She was being held against her will and being used like she was 11 years old all over again. When she’d thought she’d finally moved on with her life and been able to put those years behind her, he’d kidnapped her and raped body and soul! Not just once but over and over again…

But he had continued to ramble on. About what? She didn’t know and frankly she didn’t care. She had cringed as she had felt his calloused fingers come in contact with her bruised skin. Was he caressing her? Her skin crawled everywhere he touched. If she ever got the chance to she felt sure that she would burn it all away.

She was torn from that bad memory at the same instant that she felt Tank stumble. Marty had caught up with them, she realized. Tank was thrusting her out of harm's way as he fell. She tried to reach out to him but the impact stunned her momentarily.

Tank groaned, from the blow he had received as a result of the blunt object Marty tossed at him like a missile. Sadly he had a really good aim because it had managed to hit him and with a substantial amount of force.

"Tank get up! Get UP!"

She shook him.

"GET UP!"

Tank didn’t budge, but she wouldn’t leave him though it terrified her to stay. She became more persistent in her attempts because as he lay there, unmoving, Marty advanced.