Page 8 of Ripple Effect: Ep. 1

He slams my hands into the floor and red-hot pain shoots up into my fingers. “I think someone needs her fucking happy pills.” His sinister smile sends rockets of fury through my veins and in spite of my kicking and wriggling, he manages to drag his tongue across my cheek. “I didn’t get to finish last night, baby girl. You passed out too quickly. This time, I’m gonna make you watch as Hoss ruins the only thing you got left.”

I scream and Randy’s dirty hand covers my mouth, pressing his weight against my teeth, so hard, I feel as if my jaw might crack.

Charlie barks from the other room.

“Don’t fight it.” Randy’s fingers snake down into my jeans, rubbing against the front of my panties. “All this time, hustling to make a fucking buck with nothing but a bunch of stupid niggers on my ass all the time. Waiting for you to turn eighteen. What a joke. I coulda been selling your ass for a pretty penny and we’d all be living good.”

I scream against his palm as he curls his fingers to move my panties aside and buck beneath him.

“I got offered a sweet deal for your ass. Rook’s wanted you a long time, baby.” Oh God. His other poker buddy, a man they call Rook, makes Randy look like a saint. “Sure he’ll have a blast with you, sweetheart. He agreed on twice what I make a year sucking in the smell of fast food and failure all goddamn day. Those pictures I took? He liked ‘em. Offered me cash. More than I ever made selling fucking weed to a bunch of potheads.” His moan in my ear spurs another round of bile as he dry humps me in the same tempo of his fingers sliding across my panties. “You were bred for this. Your momma was a whore and so are you.” He sneers at the same time Layla screams and tears stream down my temples. “So here’s the deal, bitch, you’re going to earn back every damn penny I put into your pretty little ass.”

“Charlie!” My throat is raw as I scream for her.

“Charlie! Charlie!” He taunts with a laugh, reeking of onions and grease. “You fight me on this? I’ll put my gun to her head and laugh when Charlie’s brains explode all over the floor. How’s that? I’ll blow her head clean off and you can sleep with that every night.” His lips are to my ears, his hips still undulating against me. “I don’t want to give you away, Dylan. Tell me you love me and I’ll send him away.” He tugs my panties to the side and glides a finger across my bare skin. “Say it. Say you fucking love me, and you’ll stay with me always. Tell me you only want me fucking you. Me. And I will.”

I don’t tell him I love him. I don’t say those words to anyone. My father once told me that love was the most powerful word ever spoken, and that I should never use it lightly or fall victim to its whims. He told me it’s a declaration of both weakness and strength—a weapon as much as it’s a balm. And even though I’m old enough now to know what he meant, I still believe it’s true.

I never told my mother I loved her. Or my father, for that matter.

“Fuck yourself,” I grit out, wriggling my arms against his grasp.

A sharp sting hits my thigh and panic washes over me when I recognize the sensation moving through me. I don’t know what drug he feeds me every time, but I know I have minutes before it takes over and I’m damn near catatonic.

“You love me.” His whisper in my ear tugs a gag from deep inside my gut, and when he drags his tongue across my jaw, I snap my head away from him. “I know you love me. I want to keep you, Dylan. For myself. Forget the money. Forget Chanel and Layla. We’ll get high and fuck all day. Just the two of us.”

Sick bastard.

Above him, the knife teeters on the edge of the table. With a prayer tucked in the back of my head, I lie still, allowing him to rub his dirty fingers across my flesh, and catch my breath.

“That’s a good girl. See? It’s better when you don’t fight it. Feels good, doesn’t it?”

Warmth floods my veins, and I want to succumb to it. My body craves that blackness where nothing and no one can touch me.

“Uncle Randy can be gentle when he wants. Couple minutes and you’ll be feeling real good.” He releases his grip of my hand and I slowly lift my arm, keeping my eyes closed as if lost in the moment, counting down the seconds for my next move. “Say it. I need to hear you say you love me. Say it and I’ll make all this go away. I’ll give you everything you want.”

Five, four, three, two …

In one swift reflex, I knock the table leg, and the knife falls to the floor with a clang beside me. I grab the hilt of it, and before Randy can react, I stab him in his side.

“Fuck!” He rolls off of me, eyes wide with shock as the knife sticks out of him, the blood saturating his gray T-shirt. “Fucking bitch!”

My body runs on adrenaline, and I grab Randy’s gun off of the table, rushing into the other room where Hoss sits with his pants yanked, legs splayed, stroking his dick while Layla sits beside him on the floor. A white residue coats the glass beside a rolled up dollar bill on the coffee table. To the right of them, Charlie whines, tied to the radiator on a short stretch of rope.

“Like what you see? Want to ride this shit?” The heavy slur of his voice tells me he’s so high, he probably doesn’t register the gun in my hand.

“Get the fuck away from her before I blow your ass into next week, you rotten piece of shit.” My head feels light, and I press the heel of my hand to my temple.

In just a few minutes, I’ll be trapped in the same zombified state he’s in.

He stumbles to a stand and falls again before pushing himself up. “C’mon, bitch. I paid fifty bucks for your ass. For the next hour, it belongs to me.” Even high, the man is intimidating with his tattoos and size. His body is big and beefy, not chiseled, just genetically bulky—like an ox.

Layla sits sobbing on the floor, while Charlie paces, limping as if she’s hurt, the sight of her inciting rage. So much rage, my muscles twitch and I set the gun off, accidentally shooting Hoss in the leg.

“Motherfuck!” He collapses to the ground, his groans of agony mirroring Randy’s in the other room.

I dive for Charlie, loosen the rope that binds her, and grab Layla’s hand. “We have to go, Layla. Now!”

She pushes up from the floor and runs in the direction of the bedroom, yanking me behind her.