Stained Read Online Free PDF Page B

flesh.
    â€œUnderstand?” he says.
    Cars are honking like angry geese.
Please, please let someone come up to the car.
    Brian presses the blade harder against me, and my skin burns with pain. His eyes are cold and filled with hate.
    A sour taste forms in my mouth beneath the rag. Brian looks like he wants to kill me.
Rape and murder—that’s what happens to stupid girls like me, isn’t it?
I bite down on the cloth.
No. If he’d wanted to, he would have already. Wouldn’t he?
    â€œHey—you listening to me? I asked you a question. You going to behave?”
    â€œYes!” I bleat through the gag, nodding my head exaggeratedly, trying to show how good I’ll be.
    He grunts and pulls the knife back, tiny feathers floating up into the air, white innards from my down coat. “Good choice.” He disappears from my view. The car lurches forward again, my head slamming into the seat behind me, and I gulp-breathe past the gag.
    Brian punches the radio on. Jann Arden’s haunting voice sings, “Will you remember me when I’m gone?” The words cut into me deeper than Brian’s knife, and I stuff back a sob. Brian changes the station to another, and then another, before jabbing it off again. The silence is a relief.
    I fight to draw air in through my nose. Brian is so full of vibrating rage that I am sure he would have hurt me, right there on the road, if I pushed him enough. He knows I know who he is. There’s no way to pretend I don’t. So how can he ever let me go?
    I look up through the window at the gray sky and dark, knobby branches we pass. I have to find a way to escape. I can’t let him take me wherever he’s taking me.
    I desperately yank at the tape. The edges dig into my skin.
    â€œWhat are you doing back there?” Brian asks harshly.
    I yank harder. Disjointed images pop into my mind—sad, shadowy faces of girls who’ve been raped and murdered. Girls who never made it home. Girls who were on the news.
    I twist and contort myself, trying to get free, but the tape won’t loosen.
    Brian thrusts his arm back, his fingers groping until he finds my arm and squeezes hard. “Lie still or you’ll regret it. I swear to god.”
    Hot tears stream down my face, snot running from my nose, and I have to struggle to breathe. I am all alone with this nice-guy-turned-crazy, and not even my cell to call for help.
    I long to feel Dad’s strong arms around me, to feel Mom’s lips against my forehead, to breathe in Dad’s comforting after-shave, but all I can smell is the damp carpet, the sickening smell of Brian’s piney cologne, and the overpowering new-car smell.
    I want to be home drinking chocolate milk at the kitchen table with Mom, then rushing upstairs to write a new comic. I want to be talking about movies and books with Charlene, listening to music, and laughing about our crazy day. I can’t believe I’m here instead, stuffed like a sack of dirt in the back of Brian’s car.
    I keep seeing Dad’s face, knowing his world is collapsing around him. How much worse will this make him feel? And Mom—all that anger and hurt between us, and now I can’t even say I’m sorry. I keep hearing myself scream those awful words. It’s not her fault that she’s beautiful and I’m . . . the way I am. The tears keep coming, making it harder to breathe. I’ll never be able to tell her that I love her.
    I wish now I’d gone to every self-defense class Mom wanted to drag me to. Wish I’d never wimped out just because some of the other girls whispered and stared. Maybe if I’d gone to all the classes, I’d have been able to fight Brian off. But it’s no use thinking that. I have to find a way to escape now.
    I want to beg Brian to let me go, want to tell him that I’m a good person, that I don’t deserve any of this, but I know that none of that matters to him. What