For some reason, this caused a fresh round of uproarious laughter.
Spluttering, Stella gagged and retched; green, acidic bile tumbling up from her throat and dribbling down her chin.
Throwing back his head, Neil snatched up the foil packet of long, vertical dog treats. He turned to Stella’s body and smacked her around the face with the packet. “You see these, bitch? I’m putting one up your arse and one up your snatch. Thumper here fucking loves them…”
At this, a bloodcurdling scream ripped through Stella’s throat. Her head fell involuntarily backwards as the lower half of her body twisted and turned. No longer was she thinking. She just knew she needed to keep moving. If she kept wriggling and writhing, they couldn’t hold her down. Maybe she could have a rogue shot at kicking Neil in his piece-of-shit face, knocking the mother fucker out.
But she was no longer in her right mind.
Chaotic, frantic images of warped delusions raced through her mind at the speed of light. She grew exhausted quickly; her energy zapped almost instantly by the severity of her wounds.
They grabbed her. Tonnes… what felt like hundreds of clammy, dirty, grabbing hands clutched at her, pierced her skin with their dirty, long nails, and steadied her.
Like a poor little piglet, she spun and squealed on the branch; no match for her leering captors…
BANG!
A deafening explosion suddenly broke out across the clearing, sending everyone apart from Stella collapsing onto the ground. The noise was so loud; so violent; that it shook the entire woodland, momentarily stunning every one of the aspiring drug dealers to the spot.
Sobbing louder than ever, Stella blinked, the gunshot ringing and vibrating like a death siren in her eardrums.
The girl blinked, peering through the blurry film of her tears.
A shriek of pure, unadulterated relief rang from the back of her throat.
Stepping forwards, a tall, dark man with icy cold eyes cocked the gun and held it up again with such purpose that everyone there remained shell-shocked on the ground.
Unable to look in his daughter’s direction, Ronnie Garnet focused on the quivering adolescents scattered around the clearing and let out a low, humourless chuckle. Behind him, his two sons quickly filled the area, also both wielding guns.
“Well,” said Ronnie gruffly, his eyes widening. “It seems you’ve made a fatal error here, boys.” He stepped forward and abruptly stomped as hard as he could on the skull of one of the young men’s heads.
An almighty crack of bone and flesh ripped through the air; as red muscle and fluid leaked from his orifices out onto the forest floor. Another who was lying nearby let out a small, frightened squeal.
“One huge, colossal, fuck-tonne of an error.”
Chapter Thirty-nine
Spring, 2000
“Do you think they’d still send me to juvey?”
Minnie blinked thoughtfully up at the familiar dark abyss of ceiling that hung suffocatingly low above them. She ran her hands over the warm swell of her rounded stomach and felt her lip curl involuntary upwards in one corner as a tiny baby kick poked one of her palms.
The two of them sat, flat on their backs, legs balanced up against the wall. Ronnie’s skinny arm was draped over her shoulders, his protruding rib cage sticking not-unpleasantly into the side of her pregnant torso.
“Surely not,” Minnie replied with a shake of the head.
“Maybe it’s like GTA,” Ronnie mused. Even in the gloom they’d grown so used to, Minnie could hear in his voice that he was smiling as he said it. “Where after a certain amount of time, the cops just leave you to it and stop looking for you.”
A small, half-sad breath of laughter came from Minnie’s chest. It had felt like an eternity since the two of them had spent weekends together at Ronnie’s house in the living room, fighting over the game console. Ronnie was a control freak. Minnie had never been as good at the games, and it seemed to physically pain him to watch her play.
Things used to be so simple.
“No…” said Ronnie quickly, sensing the melancholy shift in the atmosphere between them. “I’ll go to the nuthouse, won’t I?” he sniffed. It was supposed to be a funny joke. Ironic because the two teenagers had both learned that there would be no escape. Not even to a prison cell or a grim, eerie asylum for the insane.
As days, and weeks, and months had passed, the young couple had adapted. The part of Minnie’s brain that had always marvelled at human biology and neuroscience, though forced down and dulled by the trauma, found it incredible that they were still alive. And not only that but there’d been times when they’d shared jokes. When they’d cuddled. When they’d laughed about old times.
They’d even had that beautiful moment where Ronnie had felt the baby kick for the first time. Despite their aching limbs, they’d both leaped up and danced, giggling manically like a pair of lunatics.
Amazing what the human machine is capable of.
The abuse, although still awful and dreaded, somehow just became another given of life. Like homework or laundry. An unpleasant occurrence that simply had to be done.
It wasn’t as though either of them had a choice.
Minnie still pretended she could make her soul slip out of the shell of her body when it was happening. She’d close her eyes and envision a small, ghostly version of herself standing up, taking her unborn child by the hand and floating upwards through the ceiling of whatever horrible place she’d been brought to.
When it hurt, or when there was shouting, or when there was… more than one of them… she’d force music into her head as well. It didn’t matter what song, anything. Some jazzy pop number from the radio or a classical piece she’d learned at school. Anything to drown them out. Anything to protect her baby from
