Chills ran down my spine as pain exploded in my head.
The boy yanked my hair then dragged me to the car and threw me in the back seat.
I tried to plead with Jerry, who had wild blue eyes. But he only focused out the windshield and gripped the steering wheel, while his friend climbed in next to me.
“Drive, Jerry. Get the fuck out of here.”
Blackness seeped into the sides of my vision as houses sped by outside the window. The boy and car were saturated with booze and cigars.
He somehow got me on my back as he straddled me.
I squirmed. I kicked. I screamed at the top of my lungs to no avail. He was so much stronger.
He pulled out a switchblade from his pocket. “Shut the fuck up.” Then he dug the point of the blade into my neck.
I saw my own death. At that moment, I realized no one would miss me. No one would even care that I’d run, not even the foster home I’d run from.
“Cory, man, put the knife away. Your old man won’t get you out of a murder charge.”
I whispered his name, repeated it in my head, promising myself that if I lived, I would hunt this boy down and kill him.
Cory ignored his friend as the car moved at high speeds.
My body bounced as the car sped over the uneven streets, but that didn’t stop Cory from ripping my clothes off and violating me over and over again.
My vision blurred. Tears poured out. But I was a fighter, always had been. So I turned my head slightly, and my lips came into contact with his ear. In one quick move, I bit down on his earlobe as if I were the animal and not him. I bit so hard that I was tasting his blood.
“Bitch.” He spat in my face before he shoved the knife into my neck.
Pain, hot and burning, flew through my body. My vision was on the verge of going dark.
His friend shouted, “Calderon, what have you done?”
Then I lost consciousness.
The police scanner crackled, bringing me out of my morbid memory, one that plagued me night after night.
I adjusted the volume.
“We have a robbery in progress,” the lady on the scanner said.
My desk phone rang. I jumped a mile out of my rolling chair. “Marx here,” I answered.
“Mags, I tried your cell phone several times. You okay?” Ted asked.
I moved file folders, looking for my cell. “Um… I think it’s dead.”
“Glad your phone is and not you,” he said in a relieved tone.
I warmed, knowing someone cared about me. “I know how to protect myself. How many times do I have to tell you that?”
I’d learned how to physically fight from my former gang leader, who had saved my life. Lou Ruiz had found me crumpled against a dumpster, on my deathbed, after Cory had thrown me out with the trash. Sadly, Lou’s life was taken from him in a drive-by shooting not long after he’d rescued me.
“Just because you’ve been in jail and in a gang doesn’t mean you’re immortal.” Ted chuckled, his cigarette-laden voice coming through loudly.
“Don’t remind me.” I’d been in jail for petty crimes several times. My police record had raised a red flag with the paper, but Ted had given me a good reference. “Anything going down tonight?” He occasionally threw me a bone for a story, but his bones were stories about robberies or something vanilla where I wouldn’t get hurt or into trouble with the wrong people, like a gang or drug lords.
“Nothing you need to worry about.” He sounded as though he were hiding something.
