Bittersweet Chocolate (10 page)

Graham helped her to sit up and removed the gag. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her hold impenetrable. He held her close, the quivering muscles in his arms indicating the depth of his anger. Leaning away, she looked up at his face. His eyes were alive with a smoldering rage, and she was afraid for him. He was so outnumbered.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought it was over, once they knew I intended to marry you.”

“What was over―no, never mind, let’s just get out―” Her words morphed into a scream. Joel and the other three men jumped Graham. She tried to help, managed to get in a few punches to a face or two, and landed one good kick to a groin, but there were too many. Two men finally wrestled her down on the bed, tied, and gagged her. Graham lay unconscious on the floor.

Joel came to the bed, slapped her, a stinging blow to her left cheek. “Ah, that’s right, guys. Forgot to tell you, she thinks she’s tough.”

A seething anger transformed his features just before he threw the first punch. She jerked her head to the side, avoiding a direct hit to her mouth. The blow glanced off the side of her face and splinters of enamel peppered her tongue before she clamped her teeth together. Stifling the rage wanting out, she refused to cry or scream, wouldn’t give him that satisfaction.

Joel continued to beat her and she realized this wasn’t about rape. No, the viciousness of his attack, this was revenge for not allowing him to dominate her, for being tough enough to stand up to him, and fighting back. Plus, her agreement to break up, in his skewed psyche, he probably perceived that as a slam to his manhood.

Joel removed the gag and she spat blood in his face. A punch to her eye and warm liquid slid down the side of her face, whether blood or tears, she couldn’t tell. Blood pooled in her throat and she swallowed convulsively to avoid choking. He alternated between punches and slaps, but the blow to her nose, the subtle crunch—
the pain!

She thought she’d pass out, wanted to pass out, needed to pass out, but she didn’t.

Dazed, her vision blurred, she stared into space. Refusal to plead or cry made Joel angrier and more violent. Mind screaming in agony, she didn’t utter a sound, maintaining her self-worth, determined to show these animals that she
was
physically and mentally tough.

Her psyche took over, her mind shut down, it wasn’t happening to her...did she blackout.

When she refocused on her surroundings, she noticed the bastards had dressed. Taking the unconscious Graham with them, they walked out, leaving her tied to the bed, still gagged.

They should have killed her.

The first signs of daylight peered through the blinds before she lost consciousness. Her next cognizant thought, she assumed she was dreaming, until she opened her eyes. No such luck, Joel had returned and he sat beside her, smiling while he gently stroked her.

“I know you’re almost there, Marissa.” His voice sounded hushed and breathless like he was about to climax. “You’re starting to quiver, I know you want it,” he said. “Promise not to scream and I’ll remove your gag.”

She nodded, her gaze never wavering.

He removed the gag and covered her mouth with his. He seemed to take pleasure in being as savage as he could to increase the damage to bruised and swollen flesh. It hurt so much she couldn’t bring her teeth together to bite him.

His current actions reinforced her belief that his attack on her was about revenge. It wasn’t about her falling in love with Graham and her defection, because Joel never loved her. Uh-uh, his assault had been a display of contempt, meant to debase her―not working. If she survived, he would live to regret it.

Once he seemed satisfied, he released her mouth. Voice a husky croak, she asked, “Where’s Graham?”

Joel laughed. “Oh, worried about the boyfriend? Well don’t, he’s all right. A little bruised, but we have him nice and tight next door.”

“Why, Joel?”

“He’s a brother. We didn’t want to hurt him too badly.”

“Why, Joel?” she repeated, knowing he understood her question the first time.

“Because I’m a patient man,” he mocked. “I waited two years...dated you for two fuckin’ years, and for what? A few kisses, some hugging, a little touching? You humiliated me in front of my boys. One good turn deserves another, so I’ve heard.”

“Your
boys
...oh, that’s right, you’ve always needed their approval, and their help to rape one woman, you
goddamn
coward,” she rasped out. “You never were man enough―”

He slapped her hard enough to snap her head to the side. Tears blurred her vision, but she held them in check. Grabbing her chin, he turned her to face him. “Bitch, you continue to think you’re too good, better than other women, and so
damn
tough, no tears, no pleading.”

“You ignorant asswipe,” she lisped, cutting him off, undeterred, releasing all her pent-up rage. “You never were man enough to handle me, and I wasn’t then, nor am I now, afraid of you.” She paused and inhaled deeply, painfully. “You perverted dumbass, unlike you, I had values, goals, wanted to graduate before venturing into sexual exploration. I
definitely
didn’t intend to end up like the skanks you and your
boys
screw around with,” she mocked.

He ran his fingertips gently down the side of her face, smirked, and asked, “Where are your ideals now?”

She ignored his question. “Joel, are you going to kill me? I warned you about hurting me and not killing me.”

“Yeah, you warned me. So what, I live here.” He snorted. “With your track record, who’ll believe your loving boyfriend did this,
please,
you’re a tease. Besides, why kill you? I want you to remember me...this, the next time you climb up on your high horse.”

Oh yeah, I’ll remember you.

She stared into prismatic baby-blues that had captivated her when they first met. Eyes she once thought soulful, now soulless, darkening, and smoldering with rage. With every breath she took, pain wracked her body, and she knew he could do more damage, but she refused to stroke his ego and play the submissive.

“Go to hell, Joel.”

He struck her across her jaw. Her teeth scraped raw tissue, and she felt faint, but it was the brutality of his next punch, to her abdomen, that left her breathless. Biting down on her lacerated lip, she stifled a scream as blood pooled in her mouth. Vision clouding, she fought the darkness long enough for one final, defiant gesture. She inhaled sharply, a deep tortured breath that hissed out like a slow leak.

“
Fuck
you,” she rasped as darkness enveloped her.

Joel should have killed her.

Marissa briefly regained consciousness, feeling cold, dirty, and the stench―the putrid musk of unclean bodies and stale deodorant―the smell of them lingered. A severe cramp caught her by surprise, but gratefully, she didn’t remain awake for long.

Floating deliriously in and out of consciousness for most of the day, she came fully awake as darkness started to blanket the room. Weak, gagged, and cramping, she glanced around to make sure Joel wasn’t there. She had to get help.

While wrestling with her bonds, she heard the screen door slam. Someone had entered the apartment, and the person was in the master bedroom, moving her way. She closed her eyes, feigning unconsciousness. Pulse roaring in her ears, she lifted her lids a fraction and the sudden brightness of the overhead light temporarily blinded her.

“Oh my God, no,” Graham whispered and rushed to the bed. He came to an abrupt stop, and stood staring down at her for what seemed like an eternity. She watched myriad emotions skate across his features and his eyes brimmed with tears. Pulling himself together, he untied her, and removed the gag. “Don’t move, honey, I’ll call an ambulance.”

Overwhelmed with relief, she wouldn’t release her convulsive grip around his neck. Words a raspy whisper, she said, “Gray, the baby. It’s too late. I think I’ve lost our baby.”

Survival is nothing more than recovery.

―Dianne Feinstein

Graham suspected she had miscarried, but he didn’t know what to say, or how to console her. On first entering the room, his focus had been on nothing but the blood, so much blood. She lay in a pool of blood. Gathering his wits, he evaluated her overall condition, and the tears he’d tried to keep in check spilled onto his cheeks. Her pretty face so distorted, she was unrecognizable.

For a few minutes he remained holding her, rocking her in his arms and not saying a word. Coming to his senses, he kissed her forehead, eased her back on the bed, and rushed into the master bedroom. He grabbed the phone and dialed “zero,” explained that he suspected his girlfriend had miscarried and requested an ambulance, never mentioning the rape. He didn’t want the cops here, just yet. Knowing the ambulance attendants were sure to report her condition to police, he’d deal with them at the hospital. He’d have his story together by then.

Returning to Marissa’s side, he gently lifted her into his arms, but didn’t know what else to do. “Please, God...baby, hang on, help is on the way,” he whispered against her neck. She didn’t respond.

The doorbell pealed. He laid her back on the pillows and hurried downstairs to open the front door. “Top of the stairs, second door on the right. You have to hurry.”

The two ambulance attendants carrying a gurney, and one holding a medical bag, preceded him upstairs. They stepped into the bedroom and stopped, audible gasps escaping both. Entering the room behind them, their expressions didn’t surprise Graham. Trained to hide their emotions, he could see the shock of Marissa’s condition clearly etched into their features, eyes glistening.

Continuing to hemorrhage, she lay in a widening pool of blood, with one eye swollen shut, both lips split open and crusted with blood. Her nose, possibly broken, had dried blood caked around the nostrils. Black and blue blunt force bruises, purplish-red bite marks covered ninety percent of what used to be smooth golden-honey skin. Long, zigzagged, claw-like scratches speckled with blood ran the length of the insides of both thighs.

The attendants seemed paralyzed with distress as they stared down at her distorted features and no longer tried to contain their tears. “She’s just a baby,” the younger of the two whispered, a catch in his voice. Sidelong glances at one another mirrored the anger smoldering behind their tears. In unison, they turned on Graham.

“What the hell happened here?” the older man asked.

“Listen, I’ll answer your questions, after we get her to the hospital,” Graham growled.

“We’ll have to call the police,” the older man said. “What’s her name?”

Before answering, Graham watched the younger man move to the bed, drop to his knees, and start checking Marissa’s vital signs. He grabbed the older man by the arm and tugged him over to the doorway while keeping a watchful eye on the other attendant. “Call the police, do what you have to do, after you get Marissa to the hospital.”

“No, you listen. My partner is doing all he can for her, so she can be moved,” the man stated. “Her name is Marissa...what?”

Graham sighed and ran a hand across his features. “If it will make you move any faster, her name is Marissa Wells.”

The attendant stiffened, pen poised above his clipboard. He stared at Graham like he’d seen a ghost. “Son of a bitch,” he snapped, his head pivoting toward the bed.

“What?” Graham grabbed the man’s arm when he started to move away.

The attendant shrugged off the grip and strode across the room, reached the bed, and sank to his knees, shoving his partner aside. “Marissa. Honey, can you hear me?” She didn’t respond. Tears flowing freely, he stood and rounded on Graham. “Who the fuck did this?”

“What’s it to you?” Graham closed the distance between them. “Who are you?” He glanced down at the attendant’s nametag—Tommy Logan.

“Don’t worry about who I am,” Tommy snapped. “Do you know who Marissa’s father is? Hell. More importantly, do you know who her cousin is?”

“Yes to both.”

“Let’s move, Tommy. She’s too unstable,” the younger attendant stated. “We can notify the police on the way.”

Tommy moved to the bed and helped his partner place Marissa on the gurney. They had started to wheel her out of the room when Tommy paused and looked back at Graham. “I hope for your sake, you didn’t have anything to do with this, because right now,
I
could kill whoever did that to her.”

Impotent anger kept Graham rooted to the spot for several seconds before he followed the two men out the door. He had no idea who the man could be, but clearly, this Tommy knew Marissa and her family. Graham didn’t want word to get out on the street before he’d had a chance to talk to Marissa. The Tommy person’s rage didn’t have anything on his. If he caught up with Joel first, he
would
kill him.

Graham rode in the ambulance with Marissa, but she didn’t regain consciousness. At the hospital, he put up a furious struggle when hospital personnel tried to separate him from her, until he realized his actions wasted precious time, delaying her treatment. He paced outside the emergency room, pausing to glance through the window in the door each time he passed. All he could see was bustling activity around the cubicle where they had taken Marissa.

* * * *

Aware of the brightness highlighting the insides of her lids...why couldn’t she open her eyes, and why didn’t somebody answer her? Her lips were moving, she was screaming, wasn’t she. Why couldn’t they hear her?

She could hear them whispering, disjointed phrases like preliminary exam, assessing the extent of the damage, literally ripped apart, and hemorrhaging again. Why didn’t they stop the pain?

Her world faded.

* * * *

The doctors stabilized Marissa and allowed Graham to stay by her side until she went into the OR. He went into the waiting room and encountered Tommy Logan.

“Just who the hell are you?”

“A friend from Marissa’s past. Do you live with her?”

Graham sighed and relaxed slightly. “No, I’m her neighbor. She had a party last night. A few hours after everyone had gone, I heard her scream, climbed over the balcony rail, and found her door ajar. As soon as I stepped inside, someone jumped me, and knocked me out.” He’d been rehearsing that speech for the cops, and it still sounded stiff, mechanical.