Apaches - Lorenzo Carcaterra [67]
“We better get there before my leg starts to ache,” Dead-Eye said. “My mood turns ugly when that happens.”
“Does your father know?” Boomer asked, hand still wrapped around Junior’s arm. “About your little hobbies?”
“Who you think I learned them from?” Junior said, a heavy dose of sarcasm moving in beside the fear. “Some kids play catch in the backyard with their dad. And some don’t.”
“And I was pissed at my dad for making me collect stamps.” Dead-Eye shook his head.
“You missed out on the big-time,” Boomer said. “Coulda been out on the cannibal circuit with Junior here and his old man, making finger neckties and toe necklaces instead of getting glue on your tongue.”
“Yeah. And even money says his collection’s worth more than mine,” Dead-Eye said.
“But at least you can always send somebody a letter,” Boomer said. “That’s gotta count for something.”
• • •
MALCOLM WAS ON his knees, naked, a knife in one hand, his other gripping Jennifer Santori’s waist. The force of his thrusts banged the top of her head against the side of the wall, but his mind was too clouded by drugs and drink to hear her screams and moans. With the knife he slashed thin lines across her bare shoulders. Her blood ran down her body and splattered up onto Malcolm’s face and chest.
She was naked, numb, and ready to die.
Jennifer wanted Malcolm to kill her. She mentally begged him to free her from the torrent of sexual assaults and abuse. She had lost all sense of time, but felt as if she had been cuffed to the pipe forever, held captive to a madman’s demons. The blood over her severed finger had caked, but it still ached from the pain. The cuts down her back felt like sharp pinches, the kind she’d given her brother when he teased her too much about the way she combed her hair. Only the pinches from Malcolm’s blade drew blood and left scars.
As if from afar, she heard Malcolm groan with pleasure, then he eased out of her, falling face down on the floor.
“I’m gonna miss you, baby,” he said, out of breath and drenched with sweat, right hand clutching the bloody blade. “You one of my favorite catches.”
Jennifer stared at him, her mind darting with quick, brutal snaps of all that had been done to her. She took a deep breath, felt the sting settle in her lungs and the dryness coat her throat. She leaned closer, stretching her arm as far down as the radiator pipe would allow.
“Whatta ya need, baby?” Malcolm asked, still breathing hard, watching her move closer. “Ain’t no time for any more lovin’. We gotta get you ready for Junior. Coupla hours from now you be playin’ in his house and you gonna be beggin’ for me to come save you. That’s a fact.”
Jennifer closed her eyes, her legs cut and scraped, inching along the wooden floor, smelling the foul mixture of urine, semen, blood, and drug residue. She stopped when the cuff cut deeper into her wrist, the skin already sliced away, white bone exposed. She brought her head down and could smell Malcolm’s breath. She opened her eyes, looked at him one more time, holding the stare, wishing she could reach over and pounce on the face she would never be able to erase from her memory.
She knew that if she lived, if she somehow escaped from Malcolm’s hold, she would always be his prisoner. The days and nights spent captive in this room had ensured that he would always be alive inside her, crawling to the surface at any moment, bringing with him the visions and the pain, resurrecting the horror and misery she had suffered.
She knew that smiling face would be as much a part of the rest of her life as her own skin. And as young as she was, as innocent as she’d been, she realized that if, in some way, she survived this nightmare and was set free, she would wait for the moment and then commit the one act that would break his hold on her.
At that moment Jennifer Santori knew that if Malcolm did not kill her, she would one day take her own life.
Malcolm stuck the edge of