The Survivors Club Read Online Free PDF

whether the set guy—Joe, Josh, Jon—has asked her out yet. There would be fresh gossip on her group of friends, of course, The Girls. Tales of adventure from their recent trip to Providence Place Mall, ladies’ night out in Newport, etc., etc.
    Jillian could relax, sit back, and let Trisha go.
Tell me about
every hour, minute, day.
Tell me
everything.
    For this is where the proud surrogate mother and tired older sister come together: they both love to listen to Trish. They love her enthusiasm. They cherish her excitement. They marvel at her wonder, a nineteen-year-old woman-girl, still learning about the world, still convinced she can make it a better place.
    Jillian arrives at Trisha’s apartment complex. Once, it was a grand old home. Now, the building is subdivided into eight units for the college crowd. As the basement renter, Trisha has her own entrance around back.
    Jillian rounds the house as the sun sinks lower on the horizon and casts the narrow alleyway into gloom. Trisha has a powerful outdoor spotlight above the back door. Jillian is slightly surprised, given the rapidly falling night, that Trish has not turned it on. She’ll mention it to her.
    At the door, Jillian raises her hand, she lets her knuckles fall. And then she catches her breath as the door soundlessly swings in to reveal the darkened stairs.
    “Trisha? Trish?”
    Jillian moves cautiously down the steps, having to use the handrail to guide her way. Had Trisha grown tired of waiting for her? Maybe she’d decided to start her laundry and had run down the street to the Laundromat. That had happened once before.
    At the bottom of the stairs is another door, this one wooden, simple. An inside bedroom door. Jillian puts her hand on the shiny brass-colored knob. She turns. The door sweeps open and Jillian is face-to-face with a deep-shadowed room.
    “Trisha?”
    She takes three steps in. She glances at the tiny kitchenette. She turns toward the bed, and—
    A force slams into her from behind. She cries out, her hands popping open, her car keys flying across the room, as she goes down hard. She catches herself with her left palm and promptly hears something crack.
    “Trish?” Her voice high-pitched, reedy, not at all like herself. The bed, the bed, that poor woman on the bed.
    “Goddamn bitch!”
    A weight is pressing against her back. Rough hands tangle in her hair. Her head is jerked back. She gasps for air. Then her head is slammed against the floor.
    Stars. She sees stars, and her scattered senses try to understand what is happening. It’s not a cartoon. There is no Coyote or Road Runner. This is her, in her sister’s apartment, and oh my God, she is under attack. That is not a store mannequin tied naked and spread-eagled to the bed. Trish, Trish, Trish!
    All of a sudden, Jillian is pissed off.
    “No!” she cries.
    “Fucking, fucking, fucking,” the man says. He has her hair again. Her head goes up. Her head goes down. Her nose explodes and blood and tears pour down her face. She whimpers, but then her rage grows even hotter. She must get this man! She must hurt this man! Because even in pain, even in shock, she has a deeper, instinctive understanding of what has just happened here. Of what this man just did to her sister.
    Her hands come out from beneath her, flailing wildly, trying to whack at the weight on her back. But her arms don’t bend that way, and he’s still beating her face and the world is now starting to spin. Her head goes back, her head goes forward. Her head goes back, her head goes forward . . .
    He is sliding down her back. He is rubbing against her and there is no mistaking his arousal. “I’m going to fuck you good,” the man says. He laughs and laughs and laughs.
    Jillian finally twists beneath his body. She beats at his thighs. She knits together the fingers on her right hand and tries to jab them into his ribs. And he whips her head from side to side to side until she can no longer feel the sting. She is in a