Page 31 (1/2)

Ruger pulled her closer and ran his cold tongue up her throat and over her chin There was blood on her face and he licked it off "Smart move, sweet piece"

Lois closed her eyes They were naked, entwined in an ugly way on the lounger She had blood on her face and throat and breasts Blood streaked her thighs and buttocks Her pale skin was splotched with the livid outlines of his open hand Her nipples were torn and there were bite er had not takenit last, loving the terror he tasted on her skin and the disgust he saw in her eyes

The rape was bad enough, but Lois lived with Vic and he had never wanted anything she gave willingly He had always taken it, enjoying the fight, the win Hard and vicious use had becoer was not Vic By contrast Vic was almost kind He was cruel and brutal, but he was a er did…what he forced her to do…was beyond anything Vic could do to her The thought of Ruger turning those appetites on Mike was too horrible to even think about, and Lois’s soul collapsed in on itself "No," she kept saying, over and over again, a ers She lay still and they listened to Mike’s footsteps upstairs and then heard the front door Above theer pushed Lois off him and she landed hard on palms and knees as he rose to stand over her His skin was so white it was almost translucent and he stood above her, naked, indoame?" But since she didn’t answer he showed her anyway Now that the house was empty it didn’t matter that she screamed And screamed

3

Vic stood in the doorway to the cellar and watched Ruger stand up and, without cleaning any of the blood fro on his clothes All the while Ruger ser picked up Lois’s robe and tossed it over her, the bulk of it covering her face and chest, leaving the rest of her exposed to Vic’s stare

The gun in Vic’s hand hung there, a dead and forgotten weight at the end of his arer right then, shot hiun would have snuffed Ruger out like a candle, yet the gun just hung there as Ruger tucked his penis into his pants and zipped up the fly He took his ti with bloody lips

It wasn’t Ruger’s ser had broken his house rules, had taken what belonged to him Had taken his wife It wasn’t that as hter that echoed in his brain His laughter Not Ruger’s His

"Penance is a bitch," Ruger said as he buttoned his shirt He started to turn away and then paused, looking down at Lois Then, glancing up at Vic as he did so Ruger sucked up a m and spit on Lois

And still Vic did not, could not, lift that gun

"It’s a neorld, pal," Ruger whispered with his graveyard voice, "and it must be a real kick in the nuts--especially after all these years and all you’ve done--to realize that you’re on the wrong end of the food chain" Ruger tucked in his shirttails, then licked his fingers and used them to sod," he said, and turned away

Chapter 19

1

Mike got to school early and ed to slip into the bathroo noticed He drifted through the rest of the day in a kind of haze and at lunch sat with his friend Brandon and talked about comics Mike could do that on autopilot When Brandon shifted onto last night’s episode of Heroes, Mike just listened and nodded whenever he thought he should He hadn’t seen the show last night and could not for the life of hi should bother hiy to care

One thing he did care about, one thing that wasn’t blunted by the apathetic glaze that see in his mind, was his mom He hadn’t liked the sound he heard in the cellar He hadn’t liked that one bit, and even though he knew that she was supposed to be out--and that she never went down into Vic’s cellar willingly--that knowledge did little to ease that gnawing doubt