The Twin Girl They Rejected

Prologue

I bit his lips as hard as I could. His reaction came instantly. He jerked back, his hands flying to his mouth, and I saw red. Blood. Trickling from between his fingers, dripping down his chin. He stared at me, eyes wide with shock, then narrowed with something far worse.

I'd made it worse. I knew I'd made it worse.

"I am sorry... please forgive me... I am sorry... Let me go..."

"Tie her up and plaster her f***ing mouth," he yelled.

They found ropes from somewhere. I don't know where. The storeroom was full of junk,, boxes, barrels, unused machinery piled up on both sides. They dragged me to a metal column and tied my hands behind it. The rope bit into my wrists. Then someone slapped tape across my mouth.

He came back to me, wiping the blood from his chin with the back of his hand.

"You little bitch... how dare you bite me... Get ready to pay the consequences."

He smirked. Then he started kissing my neck. Licking. Biting. I tried to turn away, but he grabbed my jaw and held me still. When I kept struggling, he started slapping me hard. Over and over. I lost count. My face burned. My head pounded like it might split open.

Then he grabbed my baggy sweater and pulled. It tore down the middle, exposing the t-shirt underneath. A tight one. The kind that clung to everything.

He stared at my chest. I could see it in his eyes. That look.

"She got big boobs, ah?? I love girls with big boobs!"

His hands came up and cupped me over the t-shirt. Rough. Disgusting. I wanted to throw up.

"Why the hell you hide all these treasures under these damn baggy sweaters all the time," he said, pulling my t-shirt up above my breasts. Now it was just my bra. My poor excuse for coverage.

"We are going to have so much fun... I can't wait to see your p***y..."

He started unbuttoning my jeans. His friends were cheering behind him. I could hear them. Four of them. All drunk. All out of their minds on alcohol and weeds. They'd been laughing at me since the beginning, since I'd crawled to the back wall and begged and screamed and cried.

The more I begged, the more they laughed. But I didn't care about the laughter. I didn't care about the hits. I didn't care about the humiliation. Because all the instincts I had as a girl were telling me something far worse was going to happen. Something that was happening right now.

He pulled my jeans down. The cold air hit my underwear. I heard him make an approving and exciting sound.

I closed my eyes. I couldn't stand watching my own body get exposed in front of their lustful eyes. I couldn't stand knowing what came next.

I preferred to die than lose myself to them. I wiggled. I tried everything to protest. But I was just a small doe captured by a pack of wolves.

His hands were on my waistband. Pulling and exposing it more. And then I heard it.

"Stop now!"

Everything stopped.

"Who the hell you think..." He turned around, his grip still on my jeans. I heard him stop. I heard his breath catch. "You!!"

I opened my eyes.

The least expected person in the world was standing in the doorway.

The drunk ones had already crawled out, scrambling on their hands and knees because they couldn't manage anything else. They'd disappeared into the corridor, leaving the ringleader behind with his pants half-undone and blood still drying on his chin.

My blood. No...his blood. From where I'd bitten him.

"This is none of your business," the ringleader said.

"It was none of my business? I felt he took a deep breath and added. "But now it is. Now get the hell out of here. Or I will kill every single one of you and put your shameful bodies for dogs to eat."

"But.."

"I think I should make myself more clear to you."

Then I heard it. A crash. A thud. One of the drunk ones, the one who'd been too slow to crawl out, went flying across the room and hit the wall. He crumpled like a sack of rubbish.

"Okay... okay, we are outta here. Forgive us."

The ringleader stumbled away. He didn't even look back at me. None of them did. They just ran, or tried to, their drunken legs giving out beneath them. They crawled through the doorway and I heard them crash into things in the corridor, panic making them clumsy.

Then silence.

I was still tied to the column. Still half-naked. Still shaking. And the least expected person in the world was walking towards me.

I pressed myself against the metal column and tried to remember how to breathe. My sweater was in shreds on the floor. My t-shirt was still pulled up above my breasts. My jeans were halfway down my legs. I was in my underwear. And it was him.

The last person on Earth I wanted to see me like this.

He crouched down in front of me. He was close enough that I could see his face now. His eyes were focused on mine, not on my body, not on the skin I was desperate to cover, just on my eyes.

He reached for my mouth and peeled the tape away. It hurt. Everything hurt. My face was still burning from the slaps, and my head was throbbing, and my ribs ached from the kicks, and my lip was split and bleeding, and I was sobbing before I even realised I was making a sound.

"First, please.."

He covered my mouth with his palm. I stopped talking.

His touch made me shiver. And I hated that. I hated that minutes ago I'd been touched by them, by their rough disgusting hands, and I'd wanted to peel my own skin off. But his hand on my mouth did something different. Something I couldn't explain. Something I didn't want to admit.

He started pulling up my jeans.

I wanted to tell him to untie me first. I wanted to tell him I could do this myself. I wanted to tell him to stop making me feel so helpless, so exposed, so completely and utterly broken. But his palm was still on my mouth.

He pulled my jeans up gently. Buttoned them. Pulled my t-shirt down so it covered my chest. All without looking anywhere except at my face.

Then he reached behind me and untied the rope. My wrists came free, raw and red, and I rubbed them without thinking. He took off his jersey and wrapped it around me. It smelled clean. Like him.

"Let's go," he said.

His hand went around my waist, and he pulled me up. My legs gave out immediately. I couldn't stand. I don't know how long they'd had me pinned, hours, minutes, I couldn't tell. The only thing I knew was the cold floor and the dusty wall and their laughter and his voice.

He held me up. Leaning on him. His arm strong around my waist.

And from that moment, my entire life changed.

As he led me towards the doorway, I looked back at the storeroom one last time. I saw the boxes. The barrels. The unused machinery. The junk piled up on both sides. The metal column where they'd tied me. The floor where I'd crawled and begged.

I remembered everything.

I remembered the first kick to my lower abdomen. The pain that made me fall onto the cold icy floor. I remembered crawling away from him, my body aching from the countless hits he'd already given me. I remembered hitting that dusty wall, trapped by boxes and barrels on both sides, nowhere to go except forward; where he and his four friends blocked my way.

I remembered begging.

"Please let me go... I will do anything you ask... Please let me go..."

I remembered him laughing like he was insane.

"Why... you want to go... this is so much fun... isn't it?"

I remembered him kneeling in front of me. The smell of sweat and alcohol. His hand grabbing my face. His lips crashing on mine. His tongue forcing my mouth open. His saliva; alcohol, nicotine, disgusting, making me want to vomit.

Now this man led me out of the storeroom, out of that building, into the night air. I didn't ask where we were going. I didn't care.

All I knew was that from that moment, my entire life changed.