Chapter 64 Murder
Elsie
I launched myself forward, the rope still wrapped around my wrists, and before the man even realized I was behind him, I flung the rope over his head and pulled it hard around his throat.
His entire body jerked in shock.
He let out a sharp grunt, stumbling backward as my weight lifted off the floor and hung on his back. He was tall—much taller than me—and his shoulders were wide and solid like a wall. But I held on with everything in me, locking my legs around his waist, tightening the rope, refusing to let go.
He choked out a curse and staggered, reaching behind him, trying to claw me off. His fingers dragged painfully across my arm, but I bit down on panic and pulled tighter.
The rope dug into my palms, burning my skin raw. My arms trembled, but I kept pulling.
He stumbled back suddenly, slamming me against the wall. Pain shot through my spine. The impact knocked the air from my lungs. For a second, stars danced in my eyes, and I almost lost my grip.
Almost.
But the girl’s scream ripped through the room again, desperate and terrified, and that sound fueled something deeper than fear. I tightened my grip, twisting the rope, dragging it deeper into his throat.
He thrashed wildly.
He rammed me into the wall again. My forehead cracked against the cement, and warmth trickled down the side of my face, blood. My vision blurred.
But I didn’t care.
I didn’t stop.
The man clawed at the rope, trying to wedge his fingers between it and his skin. His legs kicked out, stumbling backward, forward, sideways. We crashed into a metal table, its legs scraping loudly across the floor. He wheezed, gagged, gasped, his boots scraping the cement as he fought for balance.
The girl he’d tried to assault shrieked again, her voice raw. The other girls whimpered against their gags, bound and helpless. Their muffled cries echoed around the room, but all I could hear was the man struggling beneath me.
“Bitch! Let… go…!” he choked, his voice strangled. He lurched forward, trying to slam me to the floor.
I shifted my weight and pulled harder.
His knees buckled.
We fell.
We hit the ground with a heavy thud, and the rope slipped slightly, but I scrambled, tightening it around his neck with all the force left in my shaking arms. He tried rolling onto his back to crush me, but I shifted again, locking the rope with my forearm and dragging him sideways.
He choked out a broken sound, half anger, half desperation, his hands clawing uselessly at the cement.
Then his fingers slowed.
Then stopped.
His body twitched once.
Twice.
And then he went limp.
I stayed there for a full second, breathing hard, the rope still tight between my hands, terrified he was pretending. But no, his chest didn’t move. His eyelids were half-open, glassy and unfocused.
He was out.
Not dead. Not yet.
But unconscious.
A gasp escaped me, not relief, not fear, something between both. My palms throbbed from how tightly I had held the rope. My head pounded. My chest shook with chaotic, shuddering breaths.
Then I saw a gun on the floor, it must have fallen from him during the struggle. I didn’t want to touch it. I had never touched a gun before.
But something told me I didn’t have time to hesitate.
With trembling fingers, I picked it up by the handle. The metal was cold, heavier than I expected.
His hand twitched, just a tiny movement, barely there. But enough to jolt panic through me. I didn’t think. I just moved quickly, I swung the gun like a hammer and brought it down on his skull.
The crack echoed through the room.
The man groaned.
I swung again.
And again.
And again.
Blood splattered across my arm, my face, and the floor. Warm. Sticky. My heart thrashed violently against my ribs as I hit him one last time, and finally… he stopped moving completely.
Silence settled over the room, thick, heavy, trembling.
The girls were crying. One of them was sobbing so loudly her gag shook with every breath.
The girl he’d been assaulting stared at me with wide, terrified eyes. When I reached out to touch her shoulder gently, she scrambled away from me, her bound legs kicking against the floor.
I must have looked like a monster, blood smeared across my cheeks, dripping down my chin, stains marking my shirt and hands. I could feel it cooling against my skin.
I swallowed hard and forced myself to move. I didn’t have time to fall apart.
“Let me help you,” I whispered, even though I wasn’t sure my voice existed anymore. My throat felt dry and cracked.
One by one, I moved to the others. It took longer than I wanted because my hands were shaking uncontrollably, but I managed to free all of them. Their blindfolds fell to the ground. Their ropes were piled on the floor.
“Get up,” I whispered, breathless. “We need to go. Now.”
They didn’t argue. Fear had frozen them silent.
I led them out of the room quietly, stepping over the man’s body, praying no one else was close enough to hear us. The hallway outside was dimly lit and long. Every shadow looked like danger. Every sound felt like footsteps coming for us.
We moved quickly, almost running.
At the first corner, we made a wrong turn and ended up in another hallway, this one filled with wooden crates stacked high. Voices echoed from the far end.
I froze, my heart jumping painfully.
“Back, back, back,” I whispered urgently, waving the girls behind me.
We darted backward, feet slipping slightly on the dusty floor, and hid behind a stack of crates. Heavy footsteps approached, two men, talking about the “shipment,” laughing as if they weren’t discussing human lives.
They walked past us, close enough that I could see the guns on their belts.
We waited.
One second.
Five.
Ten.
My pulse hammered in my ears.
When the footsteps faded, I signaled the girls to follow. We ran silently through another corridor, turning corners, searching for any sign of an exit.
Finally, a metal door.
I pushed it open.
Night air hit my face so sharply it felt like a slap.
“Run,” I whispered. “Straight. Don’t stop.”
We ran across an open yard, our feet pounding against gravel. Behind us, the warehouse loomed like a giant shadow. I kept looking backward, terrified someone would come out yelling.
“Don’t go to the road,” I hissed when I saw headlights in the distance. “If they find the body, they’ll chase us. Follow me.”
I veered toward the forest bordering the property. Branches whipped my arms, bushes scraped my legs, but we pushed forward until trees swallowed us completely.
We ran until our lungs burned.
We ran until our legs threatened to give out.
We ran until the world around us blurred.
Eventually, we stumbled into a small clearing. Moonlight spilled across the grass.
“Here,” I breathed, pressing a hand against a tree to steady myself. “Just… rest. Only for a moment.”
Some of the girls collapsed onto the ground, exhausted. Their breaths came in painful gasps.
The assaulted girl sat a little apart, hugging her knees tightly.
I moved toward her slowly. “Hey… what’s your name?”
She hesitated, staring at me like she wasn’t sure if I was real.
“…Matilda,” she whispered finally. Her voice shook.
“Matilda.” I forced a small, gentle breath. “We’re safe now. I promise. I’m going to make sure nothing happens to any of you.”
I reached out, just lightly, just to reassure her.
But Matilda flinched violently, scrambling backward.
“Don’t touch me!” she cried. Her voice cracked. “You killed him! You killed that man! You’re a monster, don’t touch me!”
Her words cut deeper than any blade could have.
And that was where the night truly hit me, what I had done, what I had become to survive, what I might still have to become again.