Phillips was silent for a long moment, just tapping a finger against his chin and squinting his eyes, as if mentally saving this information into the correct folder in his mind. She’d seen Xander make that same expression many times before. It was like these computer nerds had some CPU in their brains. When he finally spoke, his voice was clear and still wonderfully calming. A contradiction to what was being said. “That is the biggest lie I have ever heard,” he remarked, careful to punctuate every syllable.
“What?” Cathy asked, her tears suddenly visible again.
“I mean seriously, how much denial can one little girl be in? Please, Catherine. Your case-file says that you always have to be the centre of attention, but this just goes beyond anything I’ve ever encountered before. Really, I expected more from you.”
Her brow furrowed, and she shook her head in disbelief. “What are you saying?”
“Oh, it’s obvious. Painfully so. Julie and Greer become victims and suddenly everyone in school is talking about them, thinking about them. They’re not looking at you anymore, in your tight little outfit that only a whore would think to wear. Do you tell them you’re a virgin, Cathy? Do you? Is that what you tell the men right before you let them in, you filthy thing?”
Now it was her turn to be speechless.
“So, you couldn’t handle these poor, sad girls getting all your precious attention, so you made up a story where you got raped, right? Some sick story from a delusional mind. Worse yet, you used a dead boy in it, a sweet young man who can’t even defend himself,” Phillips shook his head, then grew very angry. “Well, my dear. If you wanted it that bad, believe me, there are plenty of people out there willing to help you out. Give you what you need.”
She looked up, knowledge sparkling in her eyes too late. “What did you-?”
He lashed out with one leg, kicking her between her breasts and knocking all of the air from her lungs. Her back pressed against the soft cushions of the chair, her head knocking back onto the wooden frame. Pain shot through her skull, the jolt forcing her to close her eyes. By the time she opened them again, he was on top of her. His hands gripped her blouse viciously, grabbing her skin whenever he could. He ripped it, sending buttons flying in all directions.
CHAPTER SEVEN:
FEVER DREAM
For a moment, everything felt disjointed. Her mind tried desperately to catch up to what was happening in the room around her, taking great leaps of logic from one revelation to the other. She was confused and her brain felt groggy as her hands went up, instinctively pushing back on his face to keep him away from her. She tried to kick him but barely managed to twitch her leg under his weight as he struggled with her and attempted to keep her pinned down.
Pain brought her mind back to crystal clarity as he slapped her across the face hard enough to rattle a molar. Her head jerked awkwardly to the side and sent a v-shaped stream of saliva streaking across the floor. The red print of his hand stayed on her flesh and she smelt copper as a small tendril of blood escaped from her left nostril.
He grabbed her forcefully by both shoulders and shook her, slamming her head back against the floor. Each impact made her vision go completely white for a moment. When it returned, he was never in quite the same position where she had left him. When her mind snapped back the last time, he was mauling her breasts under her bra with his nubby fingers. His other hand gripped her chin and forced it to look up, stretching her neck to the point that she thought she could feel tendons snapping in her shoulders. His thumb was riding her throat, making it choke for air more and more with every failed breath she tried to take. She felt his lips on her collarbone and wanted to vomit.
Unable to move without extreme pain, Cathy stared up at the cross that hung lop-sided on the wall. On it, Jesus writhed in pain as well with blood streaming down his forehead from the crown of thorns. His eyes were turned up in his head, as though the agony had driven him mad.
She felt the clammy flesh of his palm leave her chest and got the impression that he was trying to unbutton his pants. Suddenly his grip got tighter and she could barely get any oxygen at all, her lips turning blue the way Xander’s had earlier that same day. Her body made the convulsions of a cough but the sound never actually came, choked off at her windpipe by hands that smelt like copy toner and bleach. Now her vision was starting to go black around the rims and her throat was as dry as a
