Chapter 6 6. The End Of Innocence!
"Merde!"
The curse escaped my lips the moment my foot hooked on a rock. I stumbled forward, my arms pinwheeling uselessly to try and catch my balance. There was no stopping the fall. I hit the ground hard, and the crash of the gourds shattering beside me was like a final insult. I had spent the whole day cleaning and preparing them, and now they were destroyed, their water soaking uselessly into the earth. The waste of all that effort felt like a cruel joke.
Frustration and rage boiled over. "Screw you! Whoever you a.."
He was on me before I could finish. He moved with a predator's awareness of my position, silencing me not with a hand over my mouth, but with a slap so brutal it snapped my head to the side. A high-pitched ring filled my ear, and a fire ignited in my jaw. The pain was a lightning bolt of clarity: this was a fight for my life.
Clutching my throbbing cheek, I tried to surge to my feet. I would not cower. But his hands were like iron, seizing my shoulders and slamming me back into the dirt with a force that drove the air from my lungs. The shock of it, and the sheer physical dominance stunned me. My mind raced, grasping for an anchor. I am the fierce little girl of Jonas. Everyone knows not to mess with me. His training echoed in my head: "Defend yourself. Never make it easy for them."
This was different. This was a raw, choking fear I had never tasted. The rules of childhood were a distant joke. This man wasn't here to bully me; he was here to break me. The air itself felt charged with a terrifying uncertainty that threatened to swallow me whole. But from the depths of that terror, Jonas's voice roared, a single, clear command that drowned out everything else: Fight.
Gathering every ounce of strength and defiance I possessed, I glared up into the shadows where his face should be.
"What the hell are you doing? And who the heck are you?"
Annoyance evaporated, replaced by a cold, crushing truth: I was trapped. His weight pinned me to the earth, a cage of flesh and bone. I was completely under his control. The sound of my dress tearing was louder than the crickets, louder than my own heartbeat. A wave of pure, mind-numbing confusion took over me. I knew that I was in grave danger, but my mind seemed to disconnect, leaving my body frozen and useless. A distant, frantic thought echoed: What is happening to me?
As we struggled, the last shred of illusion shattered. This man would break me to get what he wanted. Suddenly, my instinct took over. I drove my knee upward, connecting with a sickening thud. His roar of pain was followed by a crack against my face that split my lip. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth, a stark testament to his rage and my desperate resistance. He was serious, and now, so was I.
A sound ripped from my throat, raw and desperate. A guttural scream that came from a place deeper than fear, deeper than thought.
"JONAS!"
It was the last shred of my hope given a voice. But as his name echoed uselessly in the dark,, suffocating trees, the truth crashed down on me. It was a prayer to a ghost. My father was not coming. The one person who had always been my shield was gone, and I was lying defenseless in the dirt. The understanding was more paralyzing than any blow. I was completely, utterly alone.
His voice was a venomous whisper against my ear, twisting the knife of my despair.
"He can't save you."
His voice cut through the dark, a low and chilling sound that felt like ice water down my spine. "He can't save you." The words landed with the force of a physical blow, finally shattering the last fragile hope to which I’d been clinging. The truth was absolute: I was alone. There was no one coming to shield me. But as that terrifying solitude closed in, something else surged up to meet what was left, a raw, defiant energy. A silent vow solidified in my soul: I will not make this easy for you. I will fight until I have nothing left.
My hands scrambled frantically in the dirt, fingers clawing through soil and leaves, searching for a weapon, an advantage, anything. Then my knuckles brushed against something solid and familiar, the stout stick that had once held my gourds. My fingers closed around it like a lifeline.
I swung it with all my might, but he was faster. His hand shot out and caught my wrist in a vise-like grip, stopping the blow mid-air. It was as if he could see my intentions before I even acted. A cold dread washed over me. I was strong, but his reflexes were inhuman. My strength was no match for his speed.
With my eyes squeezed shut, blocking out the terrifying sight of him, I poured every ounce of my being into a single, desperate thought: How do I get away?
A flood of tension seized my body, my jaw clenching so tight a sharp pain shot through my teeth. The searing sting on my cheek jolted me back. Not to the river, but to the nightmare of the present. Confusion and fear swamped my mind, a frantic, wordless scream building in my throat. I was deep in the woods, surrounded by a wall of tall trees. They seemed to lean in, creating an eerie, oppressive cage. I knew, with a sickening certainty, that if I screamed, my voice would be swallowed whole by the forest, lost forever in the indifferent rustle of leaves.
The man crushing me was not the one from the river. This man was heavier, his extended belly a suffocating weight that drove the air from my lungs. His fingers were probing, molesting, a violation with no purpose I could understand. A low, hoarse sound grated from his throat, and the stench of cheap alcohol on his breath made my head spin. I felt something hard and insistent poking against my inner thigh.
I twisted, I pushed, I fought. But his strength was a shocking, immovable force.
"Stop," I pleaded, my voice a broken whisper. "Please stop!"
As I kept resisting, he became more aggressive, using his weight to pin my arm and block my view. I felt him fumble, then the rough sound of his zipper. The cold air hit my skin a moment before he did. He tried to force himself on me, but my body reacted before my mind could, a sudden, sharp twist that startled him, blocking his thrust. I squeezed my legs together, creating a fortress he couldn't easily breach.