Free Flesh Worn Stone by John Burks Page B

little to fear from physical confrontation. She thought the story of him running a grocery store was laughable, the crisscrossed scars on his face telling another story entirely. She’d seen those scars, that night in Club Zero, as she and Cassandra danced with him, even touched them, running her fingers down the long crevice while her hips moved in sync with his, Cassandra dancing behind her and her hand doing much the same. On the dance floor, she didn’t care who a person was. It was as close to sex as you could come without actually having intercourse. The blaring music, the people moving as one…and Darius had played the part well with both of them.

    Later, in the van with the other men, he’d had on a mask but she could still tell it was him. When he was on top of her, thrusting with his mule dick while the other men laughed and Cassandra screamed out, she knew it was him.

    “Please,” Cassandra had whimpered during the multiple rapes, “it wasn’t supposed to be like this.”

    She’d blown off the resemblance before she’d been taken off the beach, but now she wasn’t so sure. Had Cassandra known something of what was coming? Amanda tried to shake the thought, along with the stricken look on Cassandra’s face before Rebecca killed her, from her mind.

    It wasn’t possible, she thought. My best friend in the world wouldn’t do that to me.

    But what did she really know about Cassandra Mills? They’d met their first year at Rice University in Houston and hit it off like long lost sisters. Cassandra had come from similar roots—middle class parents that were maybe not wealthy, but well off. She’d only met them once, when she’d gone home with Cassandra for the holidays, but they seemed just as nice and well adjusted as her own parents. There didn’t seem to be any dark secrets, no axe murdering sideline hobbies or drug addictions, and the two had spent nearly every free moment of their freshman and sophomore years together. There was nothing that she could think of to indicate her friend had known about this situation in advance.

    And yet she’d said it twice— It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

    She sat down near a pile of rubbish, exhaustion and fear and panic overwhelming her, and sank her head down between her knees. She didn’t know what was going to happen to her or if there was even a way out of this place. Rebecca didn’t know how she would survive in the place. Nothing in life had prepared her for it.

    The only thing that she knew, for sure, was that Darius was somehow responsible for her and Cassandra being here and that meant the man had to die
    * * *

    John watched Steven stomp off, searching for his wife, and wondered why the man was here.

    “He’s not going to make it here,” Darius told him. “He doesn’t have the fire you need.”

    “Steven does seem to lack passion,” John agreed. “Yet I can understand his emotional state.”

    “Things are tough all over,” Darius said, nonchalantly. “He can get over it or he can die. That’s just all there is to it.”

    “That’s pretty harsh, Darius. The man lost his children. They were killed right there in front of him while he listened. I don’t have children, but I can’t imagine that being any sort of pick me up.”

    “None of that matters,” Darius told him. “Nothing about where we came from or what we were matters here. They could have butt-fucked the Virgin Mary while snorting coke off Mother Theresa’s ass in front of him and it just doesn’t mean shit. You can either get with this program, learn to adapt and survive, or you can fucking die.”

    Darius’ tone bordered on rage and John couldn’t help but wonder if the man had two voices. There was one that he used in front of the women, soft spoken, demure. And then there was this one, showing the hint of rage and anger that sat just under the man’s scared black skin.

    “I take it you have some experience with situations like this?”

    A