“Little bitch kicked me right in the bollocks,” the first one complained, tightening his vice-like hold on her so that she winced.
“I’m sorry,” she cried, her breaths heavy and panicked as she desperately tried to calm herself. “Please, just take the car and be done with it. Please just don’t hurt my boyfriend and me.”
Minnie had always been taught that in a situation like this, it was better to give over whatever it was the muggers wanted and escape the situation alive. Even if it meant grovelling, humiliation, and trauma.
The two men glanced at each other, unpleasant smirks dancing on each of their faces. One of them licked his lips. Minnie shuddered.
“Don’t worry, pet,” smiled the guy with the knife. He pressed the flat of the blade underneath her chin, so the teeth teased the skin over her jugular. Silently, she closed her eyes and continued to cry. “We won’t hurt ya. We just want to have a bit of fun, don’t we?”
Both men laughed. They sounded so sleazy that it made Minnie’s skin crawl.
They dropped her so that she fell down to the ground again in a sad puddle on the ground, like a hopelessly broken and mangled china doll.
“Hold her down,” the man with the knife instructed the other as he forced her to lay straight and put his whole weight on her knees so that she could not move. “Hold her arms.”
“No… no, please no…” sobbed Minnie, writhing on the ground amongst the dirt and twigs whilst a vile paste of snot and tears and blood trickled down her face. “Please… please, leav…”
“Shut the fuck up!” the man with the knife bellowed into her face, striking her hard across the nose so that a gush of crimson blood erupted from her nostrils and poured into her open mouth, causing her to choke and splutter.
Through the blur of her tears, she watched the vile monster struggle with the belt on his trousers. “No…. no… NO!” she shrieked, struggling harder then, kicking and thrashing her limbs, fuelled by an intense burn of rage that screamed in her muscles like an angry forest fire.
“GET THE FUCK OFF ME!”
Chapter Ten
2019
The rain had stopped. No longer were the heavy pellets thundering down upon the roof of the RV, causing the entire thing to vibrate and shiver in the miserable weather.
But there was one single noise.
Sienna sat bolt upright in the darkness, her senses pricking. She remained perfectly still in the warm mould of her bedsheets, listening carefully to see if the sound was just a fragment of her dream or if it was real.
There it was again.
A high-pitched moan, long and drawn-out like the call of a bird.
“Jared!” she hissed, furiously tugging on her husband’s sleeping shoulder. “Jared, wake up!”
“Wha?”
“Can you hear that?”
“I can hear you…”
Rubbing her eyes, Sienna crawled across the bed towards the shutters. She heard the noise again; this time louder, more animated, more like a wail of pain than the early morning call of some strange Scottish bird.
“What the hell is that?”
Jared tutted and rolled his eyes, “probably a fox,” he mumbled drowsily.
“In the middle of a damp marsh?” Sienna questioned him, lifting an eyebrow. “I think it sounds like… a person or something.”
Groaning, Jared forced himself up onto his elbows. He squinted his eyes, peering across at his wife through the gloom of the RV. “In the middle of a damp marsh?” he repeated her own question back to her to make her realise what an absurd suggestion she had made.
Swallowing, Sienna hesitated as her hand hovered above one of the shutters. “Can you just go and check? Please?”
“What? No!”
“Jared,” she pleaded him quietly, cocking her head in his direction. Although he could not properly make out her expression, he knew the exact pitiful face she would be pulling at him.
“For god’s sake, woman…” he grumbled to himself.
“Please?”
A pause. “What’s in it for me?”
“Unlimited blowjobs,” Sienna replied in an instant.
Jared chuckled. “I should be so lucky,” he murmured as he sat up and pulled the bed covers off of him.
He took a torch and switched on the outer lights of the RV so that the area all around the motor home would be lit up. Shoving his feet into a pair of wellingtons and throwing on a heavy, padded coat over his pyjamas, he reluctantly opened up the door.
Instantly, a blast of hard coldness swept in through the opening, washing over him like a tidal wave, leaving him shivering in his boots. Teeth chattering, he shone the flashlight up ahead, then yawned sleepily as he scanned the mud-soaked, glistening grass that stretched around the vehicle.
“I can’t see anything,” he called back to Sienna, blinking his sleep-filled eyes.
That time, he heard it. A loud wail, carried by the cold breeze and sailing through the frosty atmosphere. He tensed uneasily.
“Shit…” he muttered, descending the first step.
“What is it?” Sienna shouted.
“It… it sounds like a kid…” replied Jared doubtfully, his face falling into a confused frown.
“Hello?” he called out into freezing, Scottish night. Shuddering with the cold, he took another step downwards and shone the light all around again, scanning the bleak horizon. “Anyone there?”
“Help!”
Jared almost dropped his torch; the response was so unexpected.
“Who’s there?” he shouted uncertainly, tightening his grip around the handle of the flashlight. In general, Jared was a free spirit. Laidback and relaxed. Although, as a child, he’d been given many reasons not to trust others, he was the kind of man who tried to look for the best in every person and every situation.
And yet, at that moment, the unease weighed heavier in his chest. Swallowing back his irrational hesitation, he cleared his throat and took another step. “Where are you?” he shouted.
“Over here!”
At the sudden close proximity of the voice, he jerked the light to his left. Two figures were wading through the mud towards him. He held his breath and waited for them to come close enough for their faces to be illuminated. Then, he breathed a heavy
