Chapter 3: Blood and Rain
The heavy fire door slammed shut behind Zane, cutting off the bar's stale warmth and raucous noise. Rain sheeted down, instantly plastering his dreads to his skull and soaking through his thin cotton shirt. He blinked against the deluge, scanning the grimy parking lot. Neon from the bar sign painted lurid, shifting stripes on the wet asphalt, reflecting in oily puddles. The only sounds were the drumming rain, the distant city thrum, and his own hammering heart.
"Sasha," he breathed, the name ripped from him, lost in the downpour. He clutched the folded hundred and the horrific photo in his jeans pocket, the image of her battered face seared onto his mind's eye. Fury warred with nauseating fear. Who the fuck did this? Where were they?
He took a step forward, peering towards the deeper shadows where dumpsters hulked. Another step. The scent of wet garbage and old grease hung thick in the humid air. He was exposed, a target under the flickering neon. "Hey!" he shouted, his voice hoarse. "You wanted to talk? Show yourself, you fucking coward!"
The blow came from behind. Not a fist, but something cold and hard, jamming viciously between his ribs. A gasp tore from Zane, more shock than pain. A wiry arm snaked around his chest, pinning one of his arms. Emily’s voice, low and venomous, slithered into his ear like oil, inches from his rain-slicked skin.
"Don't scream. Don't fucking move a muscle."
Zane froze. The cold metal dug deeper. A knife. Fuck. He recognized the predatory precision, the absolute control in her grip despite the height difference. He hadn’t seen her. He’d walked right into it.
"You took something from me," Emily hissed, her breath hot against his neck despite the chill rain. Her free hand patted down his torso with clinical efficiency, finding his wallet, phone, keys. The keys clattered to the wet asphalt. The phone and wallet she shoved into her own jacket pocket. "Now I’ll take everything from you. Starting with your dignity. Then your life. Then maybe I’ll let Sasha watch what’s left of you bleed out."
The raw hatred in her voice, the casual mention of murder, sent a jolt of pure terror through him. This wasn't just rage; it was madness. Cold, calculated madness. Sasha was living with this?
"Emily," he managed, the name tasting like ash. "Let her go. She doesn't belong to you. No one does."
A sharp, humorless laugh vibrated against his back. "She belongs to me like a dog belongs to its master. She needed discipline. Needed reminding who owns her. And you…" She ground the gun harder into his side, making him grunt. "You were the fucking splinter under my nail. A ghost she wouldn't let go of. That stupid fucking pendant. My wife wore it while I fucked her tonight. Did you know that? Before she decided to be an ungrateful bitch." Her voice dropped to a chilling whisper. "Now walk. Towards the black Beamer. Nice and slow. Hands where I can see them."
She shoved him forward. The gun remained a constant, icy pressure against his kidney. Each step felt like walking through wet cement. The BMW, sleek and predatory even in the gloom, sat like a waiting beast. Rainwater streamed down its dark flanks.
"Open the back door," Emily commanded, gesturing with her chin while keeping the gun firmly pressed against him. "Slowly."
Zane fumbled with the cold, wet handle. The door swung open. He saw plush black leather seats, the faint glow of the dashboard lights. An expensive coffin.
"Get in. On your back. Legs out."
Zane hesitated, a surge of defiance warring with the primal fear the knife induced. "Fuck you."
Emily’s movement was a blur. The handle of the knife whipped across the side of his head with stunning force. Stars exploded in his vision. Pain bloomed hot and sharp. He staggered, tasting blood inside his mouth where his teeth had cut his cheek. The world tilted.
"Get." Her voice was glacial. The. Car. Now."
Dazed, ears ringing, Zane fell more than climbed into the back seat. He landed hard on his back, his legs still dangling out onto the wet asphalt. Rain lashed his face, mixing with the blood trickling from his temple. Before he could even try to scramble up, Emily was on him.
She slammed the car door shut, plunging them into near darkness punctuated only by the rain-streaked windows and the faint dashboard glow. The knife was gone, replaced by her wiry strength and terrifying focus. In one brutal motion, she straddled his hips, pinning him down. Her knees dug into his thighs. Her hands, surprisingly strong, grabbed the waistband of his jeans and boxers, yanking them down to his thighs in one savage pull. The cold leather seared his exposed skin.
Zane bucked instinctively, a raw sound of protest tearing from his throat. "Get the FUCK OFF ME!" He tried to shove her, but she slammed her fist hard into his bruised ribs. Agony stole his breath. She caught his wrists in one hand, slamming them down above his head against the door panel. Her other hand went straight for his flaccid cock.
He was soft, terrified, revolted. Her touch wasn't seductive; it was clinical, invasive. Her fingers roughly encircled him, pulling, squeezing with painful intensity. Her eyes, barely visible in the gloom, were flat, devoid of anything human. Just cold calculation and burning hatred. "This what she dreamt about?" Emily sneered. "This limp little thing? Pathetic."
She spat on her hand, the saliva glistening faintly, then rubbed it roughly over his cock head, the friction harsh and humiliating. Zane twisted his head away, squeezing his eyes shut against the violation, the overwhelming stench of her expensive perfume mixed with rain, leather, and rising panic. "Stop it! You fucking psycho!" He strained against her grip, but the pain in his ribs and the confined space made it futile. She was leverage and vicious intent.
Emily ignored his plea. Her fingers worked ruthlessly, pulling, twisting, demanding a response his body and mind violently rejected. She leaned down, her rain-damp hair brushing his face, her voice a poisonous whisper. "You think she loved you? She loved the cage I put her in. Loved knowing her place. Felt safe being owned. She came harder for me than she ever did for your clumsy fucking." Her free hand pinched his nipple hard, twisting. Zane gasped, his back arching off the seat involuntarily. "There we go. See? Even your traitor body knows its place."
To his horror, a traitorous flicker of blood began to flow despite the terror, the pain, the utter violation. Emily felt it, a predatory smile stretching her lips. "That’s it. That’s my good little bitch." She spat again, directly onto him this time, the warm fluid mixing with the rain and her saliva. Her grip tightened, her strokes becoming faster, harder, utterly devoid of pleasure, solely focused on forcing an erection through pain and degradation.
Zane turned his face into the cold leather seat, biting down on the scream building in his throat. He focused on Sasha’s face, not the battered one from the photo, but the Sasha he remembered: laughing, painting, her eyes bright with the joy Emily had systematically extinguished. He held onto that image like a shield against the monstrous violation happening to his body. He wouldn't give her the satisfaction of crying out. He wouldn't beg.
Emily shifted her weight, her free hand releasing his nipple to roughly push his legs further apart. Her fingers left his cock only to plunge roughly between his legs, seeking his balls. She squeezed, hard. A choked cry escaped Zane this time, a sound of pure agony. "Still thinking about her?" Emily hissed, twisting her fingers. "Think about this instead."
She abruptly released his balls and his wrists. Before he could react, she grabbed his hips, yanking him down the leather seat. Then she hiked up her own soaked trousers and underwear, positioning herself directly over him. Her eyes locked onto his, a terrifying mixture of triumph and utter contempt. She lowered herself onto his forced erection without hesitation, without lubrication beyond the rain and spit.
Zane felt a searing, tearing pain as she impaled herself on him. She was tight, dry, and the friction was agonizing. He cried out, arching, trying to buck her off, but her hands clamped onto his shoulders, nails digging deep. She rode him with brutal, punishing strokes, her hips pistoning up and down.
"Feel that, you black bastard?" she gasped, her face contorted, her movements sharp and jagged. "Feel me taking what's mine? She's MINE! Her cunt, her tears, her fucking life! You were nothing! A footnote!"
Each downward thrust was a violation that ripped through him, physically and psychologically. The leather squeaked obscenely beneath him. Rainwater streamed down the windows, trapping them in a shimmering, nightmarish cocoon. Emily’s breath came in harsh rasps, her eyes wild, fixed on his pain. She ground down hard on him, twisting her hips, maximizing the agony. "Look at me!" she shrieked, slapping his face when he turned away. "LOOK AT ME WHILE I FUCK YOU LIKE THE WORTHLESS PIECE OF SHIT YOU ARE!"
Zane forced his eyes open, meeting hers. He saw the abyss there. The complete absence of empathy or sanity. He saw the lawyer, the predator, the monster who had broken Sasha. Hatred, pure and undiluted, burned through the pain and humiliation. It gave him a terrifying clarity.
He stopped fighting the thrusts. Stopped trying to dislodge her. He went utterly still beneath her. His body rigid, his face a mask of cold, unwavering hatred. He stared into her eyes, unblinking, as she used him. "She'll find me," he said, his voice low, ragged, but terrifyingly steady amidst the chaos. "When she does... she'll see you for what you are. And she'll be gone. Forever."
Emily froze mid-thrust, her frenzy momentarily broken by the ice in his voice, the absolute certainty. A flicker of something raw – fear? – passed over her features before being instantly swallowed by volcanic rage. "Shut UP!" she screamed, slamming her open palm hard across his mouth. Blood bloomed on his lip. She resumed riding him with renewed, frenzied violence, her movements desperate now, as if trying to fuck his defiance away, to break him completely under her weight and her hate.
She came suddenly, a harsh, guttural cry tearing from her throat, her body clamping down on him in a series of violent spasms that felt more like convulsions than release. She collapsed forward for a second, her forehead pressing against his chest, her breath coming in ragged sobs that held no tears, only fury. Then she shoved herself off him, scrambling back as if his skin burned her.
She yanked her trousers up, her movements jerky. She stared down at him, sprawled half-naked on the leather, exposed and bleeding. Rain plastered her hair to her skull, her face a ghastly mask in the dim light. The feral intensity was gone, replaced by a profound, chilling emptiness. The lawyer reassembled herself. She retrieved her gun from where she'd tucked it, checked it with detached efficiency, then pulled his wallet and phone from her pocket. She tossed the wallet onto his bare stomach. The phone she kept.
"It will be kind of hard to tell Sasha about any of this," Emily said, her voice flat, devoid of all previous emotion, as cold as the steel in her hand. "Especially because you will be dead and all. Can’t have you coming and trying to steal her away from me again”
Zane gasped, the knife wound in his side a burning brand. Blood pulsed warm and slick against the cold leather seat, mingling with rain soaking his dreads. Emily loomed over him, the flickering neon from the bar sign painting streaks of garish light across her hollowed face, her eyes devoid of anything recognizable as human. "Dead men don't talk," she hissed, tracing the bloody knife tip down his heaving chest, leaving a thin crimson line. "Dead men don't steal."
He tried to twist away, a groan ripping from his throat, every movement igniting fresh agony in his ribs. "Sasha... knows... you're a monster," he choked out, spitting blood onto her expensive trousers. "She will find me…”
"SHUT YOUR FUCKING MOUTH!" Emily shrieked, the sound raw and jagged in the confined space. Her hand flashed, the knife plunging down. Not into his throat, but deep into the muscle in his shoulder. White-hot pain detonated, stealing his breath, blurring his vision. He screamed, the sound muffled against the leather as she clamped her other hand over his mouth, her fingers digging into his jaw. She leaned close, her breath hot and sour. "That's for talking back. Now this..." She twisted the blade savagely. Agony exploded, radiating down his arm. "...is for touching what's mine."
She ripped the knife free. Blood welled, dark and thick. Zane panted, sweat stinging his eyes, fighting the blackness threatening to swallow him. Emily watched his suffering, a cold, detached curiosity in her gaze. Her hand, coated crimson now, moved lower. She gripped his limp, blood-streaked cock with terrifying possessiveness. "Pathetic," she spat, squeezing brutally, making him arch off the seat. "All that fucking talk, and this is what you offer? Useless."
Rage, thick and choking, momentarily overpowered the pain. "Fuck... you..." he ground out, every word an effort.
Emily sneered “I already did remember? I don’t know what Sasha sees you. I’m just glad I’m real lesbian not like that cheating whore.” Emily kicks Zane out of the car and lets his limp body fall out of her backseat. “Good bye Zane. I hope you bleed out alone and cold here in this stupid parking lot. It’s more than you deserve” Emily said as she slammed her car door and drove off.
The BMW's tires screamed on the wet asphalt as Emily peeled away, vanishing into the curtain of rain like a predatory shadow swallowed by the night. The heavy silence that crashed down was broken only by the relentless drumming on the asphalt, the distant groan of city traffic, and Zane’s own ragged, pain-ridden gasps. He lay sprawled on the filthy, rain-slicked pavement behind the dumpster alcove, exposed and broken.
Cold seeped into his bones, sharper than Emily’s blade, warring with the burning agony radiating from his shoulder and ribs. He tried to move his right arm. White fire lanced from the stab wound, forcing a choked cry from his throat. Blood, diluted pink by the rain, streamed down his bicep and pooled beneath him on the grimy concrete. His jeans were bunched around his thighs, exposing him to the elements and the memory of her violation. Shame warred with the more immediate terror of bleeding out alone in this stinking alley. Move. Get up. Fucking move, Zane. His tech-logic brain, usually so sharp, felt sluggish, drowned by pain and shock. Sasha’s battered face swam before his eyes again – the photo Emily had left him. She needs you. She got out. Find her.
Gritting his teeth against a wave of nausea, Zane rolled onto his left side, crying out as the movement jarred his ruined shoulder. He used his good arm to clumsily yank his jeans and boxers up over his hips, the rough denim scraping his abused skin. Every breath was a knifepoint in his ribs. Emily’s knee. Fucking bitch. He crawled, inch by agonizing inch, dragging his bleeding body across the cold, wet pavement towards the meager shelter offered by the overflowing dumpster. The stench of rotting food and stale beer was almost welcoming compared to the lingering scent of her perfume and violence inside the car. He collapsed against the rusty metal, shivering violently, the rain plastering his dreads against his skull and neck. His vision blurred. Passing out. Not now. Can’t…
Desperation clawed at him. His phone. Wallet. Gone. Emily had them. He patted his pockets with his left hand, wincing. Nothing. Then his fingers brushed against cool metal, tangled in the wet fabric near his hip. The chain. The pendant. Sasha’s pendant. Emily hadn’t found it tucked away. He fumbled the small, smooth disc into his palm, clutching it like a talisman. Its familiar shape, the faint engraving he knew by heart, was a lifeline. Sasha had worn this. Touched it. Loved it. Loved him. The thought cut through the pain fog like a beam of light. He squeezed it tight, the metal biting into his palm, anchoring him. She got away. She’s out there.
The alley spun. The neon sign above the bar door flickered erratically through the downpour, casting monstrous, shifting shadows. He needed help. Shelter. Now. Forcing his eyes open, he scanned the alley. Across the way, partially obscured by rain and steam venting from a grate, was the grimy back entrance to an all-night laundromat he vaguely remembered passing earlier. A dim, sickly yellow light glowed through its wire-reinforced glass door. Maybe… maybe someone. It felt impossibly far. Gathering every shred of will, Zane pushed himself up onto his knees, using the dumpster for support. His vision tunneled. He vomited violently, a bitter mix of bile and blood splattering the wet ground between his hands. The world tilted.
He didn’t remember crawling the rest of the way. Only the cold bite of the concrete under his palms and knees, the drag of his useless right arm, the pounding in his skull keeping rhythm with the rain. He reached the laundromat door, a rectangle of damp, warm air hitting his face as he slumped against it. He raised his left fist, knuckles scraping against the wired glass, pounding weakly. Once. Twice. The sound was lost in the storm. He slumped lower, cheek pressed against the cold glass, the pendant still clenched tightly in his fist. He saw movement inside. Blurred shapes. A figure approached the door, peering out cautiously. The lock clicked.
The door opened a few inches, a chain still securing it. Warm, humid air thick with the smell of detergent and damp cotton washed over him. An older woman with tired eyes and hair tied in a messy bun stared down at him, her expression shifting from annoyance to shock to horror in rapid succession. Her gaze took in his battered face, the blood soaking through his t-shirt at the shoulder, the raw terror and pain in his eyes.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" she gasped, one hand flying to her mouth. "Son? What in God's name happened to you?" Her accent was thick, comforting in its ordinariness.
Zane tried to speak, his voice a shattered rasp. "Help... please..." He held up the hand clutching the pendant, a feeble gesture. "Call... police. Emily Chen... she... my friend... Sasha... danger..." The words tumbled out, fragmented, desperate. He slumped further, darkness threatening to swallow him whole. The woman’s eyes widened at the names. She fumbled with the chain lock.
"Hold on, honey, hold on!" she urged, her voice cracking with alarm as she finally got the chain off. The door swung open fully. "Don't you pass out on me now! Get inside, outta that rain!" She reached down, her hands surprisingly strong, hooking under his good arm, trying to haul his large, limp frame across the threshold into the bright, buzzing fluorescence. The scent of bleach and dryers was suddenly overwhelming. Zane’s head lolled. The pendant slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the linoleum floor as the world dissolved into noise and blinding light. The woman screamed for someone named Ray. He didn't hear it. He was gone.