Dark City

66.

Alex awoke in the trunk of a car. She kicked the hatch with her feet. Her shouts only rang in her ear. She slammed the door with her knee and hissed one last obscenity through her teeth.

In the compact darkness, she could hear someone breathing beside her. This other body was warm, his scent familiar.

"Tom? Is that you?"

"Yeah. Are you hurt?"

"No."

"Good, Don't worry," he said. "I won't let him hurt you."

She knew he couldn't promise something like that. If Liam wanted to hurt her, he would hurt her. They went off the main road and the ride became significantly bumpier. Alex held her breath in so they could listen to the conversation in the car.

It was only the radio.

When they halted she heard Liam turn on the CD player and play heavy metal at max volume. The trunk popped and Liam came over with a flashlight, his smile gleaming in the pale fluorescent shine. He snatched up one of Tom's legs and, with a boxcutter, sliced the back of his ankle. Screams erupted from both Tom and Alex.

"So much for your fencing career," Liam said. He sliced the other ankle too. Blood rushed Alex's brain and her heart beat out of control in her throat. An animalistic dread overpowered every other thought in her head. Liam was going to kill them. Let this be a nightmare. She couldn't accept this was happening. But it was. Liam, like a man scruffing a cat, ripped Alex out of the trunk by her hair.

She tried to run but he snared her wrists behind her back and shoved her onto all fours. Twigs cut the fleshy heels of her hands. She looked about herself, seeing only the car's headlights that penetrated shadows ahead. Trees loomed all around, stretching out into the black night. They'd come too far to be in Ghost Woods. This had to be the middle of nowhere, some place where nobody would hear their screams. These were the pine barrens, the vast wooded labyrinth of the Jersey Devil.

Liam yanked Alex to her feet and marched her to an oak.

"Alexandria," he said, pressing her against the bark. He bound her to the tree with rope. The edges of bark perforated the fabric of her dress, rubbing her skin raw. "A city carved from white marble where monks wore black to shield their eyes from its reflective surfaces. It was said the city was so bright that even in the dead of night, a tailor could thread a needle without a lamp. Alexandria. Where Ptolemy Philadelphus filled the mother library with scrolls. He was a hungry collector. All his texts were lost, however, burned to dust by Christians.

"Do you remember what else they torched in Alexandria?" He smiled, then wrinkled his eyes up and roared, sounds of sorrow intermingled with fury. "Hypatia! Ever heard of Hypatia? They ripped off her clothes like she was an animal! Burned her alive! Imagine her horror!"

"I'm sorry," Alex cried, but she didn't know why she was saying it. She just wanted him to stop.

"No no no no no," he stuttered, chuckling darkly. "Don't apologize. You didn't kill her. It was your knight in shining armor here. And because he's a fucking cop's kid they pinned it all on me."

Liam ripped the Accolade pendant from Alex's neck. He licked the side of her face and tightened his hold on her arms behind her back.

"Please," she wept. "You don't have to do this."

"Oh, but, sweetheart. I do. For Hypatia. You will burn for your lover's crimes."

Alex tried to keep her mind as far away from this place as she could as he slid the dull side of the bloodstained knife over her throat. He cut the front of her dress down the middle and Tom, insane with anger, climbed out of the trunk on his shredded ankles. He fell forward and reeled in agony.

"It's okay. It's okay," Liam cooed in Alex's ear as he rolled her panties down. He shoved them in her mouth. "This isn't so bad, little Daisy. We've already done this once before. But this time you'll remember it."

"I'll fucking kill you!" Tom shouted, trying to crawl. He promised Liam he wouldn't get away with this, but his words were cut off as Liam came sauntering over and kicked him in the teeth.

"Shut up. You don't want to miss this." Liam dragged Tom forward and bound him to one of the scrawny, malformed dogwoods.

Alex screamed to no avail through her gag.

"Don't be like that, Daisy," Liam said, returning his attention to her. He caressed her cheek with the tip of the letter opener and sliced the hair over her left ear. Stroking her throat with the yellow tresses, he whispered, "Soft, like goose feathers." Alex kicked at him. He dodged her attack and in retaliation, lightly sliced the flesh of her inner thigh. He subdued her legs by lifting them and wrapping them around his hips.

She watched his eyes, amazed at their opaque glassiness, as if he had never looked anywhere at all but within. She held her breath and shook her head frantically, which seemed to incite fascination in him. "You never get them any sweeter than this, do you, Tom?" He kissed the side of her hair that was still long and unzipped his jeans. Before he could get himself inside of her, she felt his ejaculate dripping down her thigh. He moaned in her ear. "No hurry. We have all night."

Alex hung lifelessly against her binds, sobbing through her gag.

"I'll kill you!" Tom shouted. "I swear to God I'll kill you!"

Liam smirked at Tom. "Sure you will."

"I swear to God! I'm so sorry, Alex. This is all my fault. I could have stopped all of it from happening. I should have taken you home when I saw you at that party."

Alex nodded tearfully. All was forgiven. She wanted Tom to know it.

Liam went to the car and retrieved three swords from a long duffel bag.

"Remember this one?" he said, unsheathing a curved saber Alex knew from her childhood. "You loved this one!" he shouted. Alex looked to see the sword dividing the air. He dropped the other two on the ground beside her, a rapier and a broadsword.

He swung above her head, planting the saber into the bark of the tree. Alex shrieked at the sound of impact. She couldn't see anymore through the tears. Blinded, all she could make out were Tom's heartbroken cries.

She lowered her head, shut her eyes and tried to project herself into some other place. She thought of Nathan with yearning in the pit of her stomach. She imagined herself in his arms again in the dark forest as they waited for the ambulance. It was hard to believe that she had once been so full of hope, thinking that everything would be all right, that nobody would ever hurt her again. In her mind, she hid from Liam in the memories of Nathan's letters.

I would watch the sun set in your hair.

Even after everything he'd been through, the love in Nathan's eyes had never changed. She knew from his eyes that he remembered the world they had built together in their correspondence.

At night I think about that kiss and I pretend that I'm coming home tomorrow.

"That's good," Liam said, collecting the blood on her thighs and dabbing her lips with it. "I can go again in a few minutes."

She listened to the music emanating from the vehicle. Under the layers of melody and distorted guitar she still heard Tom screaming. His roars of anguish exploded into the night.

I could die happy seeing you one last time.

Dawn is creeping over the Helmand River Valley.

The sun sets in your hair.

She was there with Nathan until she felt Liam's warm, exhausted breath melting down her neck.

Her death wish peaked into desperation and she longed for the world to go black and be quiet and done with. Every pill she'd ever taken in her miserably short life, she wished she'd taken all at once.

"Keep your eyes closed," he whispered. "Like you're sleeping."

She shrieked through her gag. She shook her head furiously, body convulsing against the binds as she tore her vocal chords apart screaming.