Alex Read Online Free PDF Page B

frozen. And the baffled thought: he’s abducted her, tied her up, dumped her here – what is he going to do to her?
    Alex cries; she can’t help herself. The man walks away without a word. He goes to the far corner of the room. With a sweeping gesture, he pulls away a tarpaulin; it’s impossible to tell what it was covering. And that magical incantation begins again: please don’t let him kill me.
    His back to her, bent double, the man staggers backwards, both hands dragging something heavy – a crate? – that screeches against the concrete floor. He’s wearing dark grey cotton trousers and a striped jumper, large and baggy, that looks as if he’s had it for years.
    After moving backwards for several metres he stops, looks up at the ceiling as though calculating something, then stands, hands on his hips, as though wondering how best to proceed.Finally he turns and looks at her. He comes over, crouches down, his knee close to her face, reaches out and suddenly slashes the tape binding her ankles. Then his fat hand grips the tape at the corner of her mouth and rips it savagely away. Alex howls in pain. He manages to haul her to her feet with one hand. Not that Alex weighs much, but even so, one hand. A wave of dizziness courses through her – standing sends blood rushing to her head and she falters again. She barely comes up to the man’s chest. He grips her shoulder hard and turns her round. She doesn’t have time to say anything before he cuts the tape around her wrists.
    Alex summons all her courage; she doesn’t think, she simply says the first words that come to her.
    “Please, I’m b— b— begging you …”
    She barely recognises her own voice. And she’s stammering, like a child, like a teenager.
    They’re standing face to face. This is the moment of truth. Alex is so terrified at the thought of what he might do to her that suddenly she wants to die, right here, wants him to kill her right now. What she fears most is this waiting, which her imagination fills with images of what he might do to her. She closes her eyes and sees her body, pictures it as though it is no longer a part of her, a body lying as she was a moment earlier: it is mutilated, bleeding profusely, in excruciating pain; somehow it is not her, but it is her. She sees herself lying dead.
    The cold, the stink of piss, the shame, the fear – what’s going to happen, don’t let him kill me, please don’t let him kill me.
    “Strip,” the man says.
    His voice is deep, calm. The order is deep, calm. Alex opens her mouth, but she does not have time to utter a word before heslaps her so hard she spins around, losing her balance. Another slap and she crumples on the floor, her head smashing into the ground. The man comes towards her slowly, grabs her by the hair. The pain is vicious. He pulls her up. Alex feels as though her hair is going to be ripped out of her scalp; she grips his fist in both hands, tries to hang on, in spite of herself she feels strength returning to her legs and she stands up again. When he slaps her a third time, he’s still gripping her by her hair so her body just gives a jolt, her head whips round a quarter turn. The sound is so loud. She is in so much pain she can barely feel anything.
    “I said strip,” the man says again. “Everything.”
    And he lets her go. Alex takes a step, dazed. She tries to stay standing, collapses onto her knees, stifles a whimper of pain. The man comes over, bends down. Lowering over her, his fat face, his large head with its oversized skull, his grey eyes …
    “Do you understand?”
    As he waits for an answer, he raises his hand, the fingers splayed. Alex panics. “Yes,” she says over and over, “yes, yes, yes.” She immediately gets to her feet, prepared to do whatever he wants so he doesn’t hit her again. Quickly, so he will realise that she is prepared to do whatever he says, she peels off her T-shirt, rips off her bra, fumbles hurriedly with the buttons of her jeans