Alex Kava Bundle - Alex Kava [417]
She pushed her arms into the jacket sleeves and discovered most of the buttons were missing. Still it was better than nothing. It smelled of peppermint. She dug into the pockets and found two quarters, a McDonald’s napkin and half a roll of peppermint Life Savers. God, her fingers were still shaking so bad, it took a concentrated effort to unwrap one of the mints and pop it into her mouth. Hopefully it would settle her stomach. As soon as her knees were strong enough, she’d get out of the park, onto the street, and find a cop. Where the hell were the cops, anyway? It was getting dark. There was usually at least one hanging around in the evenings.
Then from behind her, something came over her head and around her neck. Maria clawed at it. It dug into the skin of her throat. She gasped for air, kicking and twisting her body. Her fingers tried to get hold of the cord. God! It was so tight. It was already embedded into her neck, so deep that her fingernails were ripping at her own skin as she tried to dig it out.
She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t pull away. My God, he was strong. And now he was pulling her back farther into the trees, dragging her, because her feet wouldn’t work. She had no energy left.
Air. She needed air. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t focus. Couldn’t even see straight. Her head was spinning again, a blur of trees and grass and sky. She felt herself slipping away. She could no longer hear the chants or the laughter or even the woman’s screams. Where were the sounds of traffic? Why did everything sound so muffled? So far away? The cord drew tighter, and soon she couldn’t hear anything at all.
CHAPTER 49
Justin’s hands were still shaking when he got back to the bus. He hadn’t bothered to wait for the rest of them. He still couldn’t believe this was what Father had meant by an initiation trip. He imagined it to be some test of survival like his so-called week alone in the woods. Or some marathon lecture series like their weekend revival meetings. But, Jesus! He had never imagined something like this.
He felt sick to his stomach, remembering that poor woman vomiting and all those screams. He yanked off his cap and wiped the sweat from his forehead with the back of his arm. The bus was empty. Thank God! Though he could see Dave, their driver, inside the McDonald’s, keeping an eye on things as he probably wolfed down an illicit Big Mac.
Justin slumped into one of the seats, crossing his arms over his chest and trying to stop shaking. He was sweating up a storm, so why was he shivering like he was cold? Fuck! He couldn’t get those screams out of his head. Those poor women. That wasn’t the way his grandfather had taught him to treat women. Even his dad could be an asshole sometimes, but he was good to Justin’s mom. No woman deserved to be treated that way. He didn’t care what the hell Father’s instructions were.
While he handed out Quarter Pounders and beer, Brandon had told them that they were about to learn an important lesson. All Justin had cared about was that finally he had some decent food and that being a warrior wasn’t such a bad thing. He’d hardly paid attention to what Brandon was saying. He must have eaten three Quarter Pounders and drunk four or five beers.
He had been feeling a pleasant buzz by the time Brandon led them to the park, where he continued his lecture about how they needed to put all bitches in their place, make them understand that men were still in power. He said women were the reason everything was going so haywire in the world. Women thought they didn’t need men, were off being lesbos, having babies on their own, taking good jobs away from family men and then crying to the government to protect them. The sluts and whores were responsible for spreading AIDS. They needed to be punished. They needed to be taught a lesson.
They sprayed the