The darkness had regurgitated me, spitting me out as if I was distasteful. My mind quickly processed my situation. I was slammed to the ground, flat on my back. It was this sudden jolt that woke me. Sean straddled me. The full weight of his body came down on my lower abdomen, pressing the breath out of my body. The gooey darkness was all around us, but through it I could see the trees. The moment I realized where we were, I could feel the damp, bloodstained grass beneath me.
I was lying in the same exact place where Dammon had been murdered. His murderer was on top of me, now gathering my wrists and pinning them to the ground at the top of my head. I could feel my knuckles sink into the cool, blood-saturated earth.
I squeezed my eyes shut. The torment was too much to bear. Sean was crushing me to the ground with his horrible weight. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't move. I couldn't think, because all I knew was that Dammon's blood was still moist and soaking through my shirt, soaking into my skin, soaking into my soul, and my spirit screamed out in pure, raw anguish.
"This is going to hurt you, Little One," Sean said, as he forced my legs apart with one of his knees. "I will not be gentle. You will fight me. And that will please me. But I will fight back."
When I heard Sean unzip the zipper of his slacks, I was able to shift my mind away from the blood beneath me. I began to squirm. Trying to move only confirmed that I was trapped beneath Sean, pinned between the spilled blood of my angel and the madman who took him away from me. The weight and the power of Sean's solid, muscled body made it clear to me that there would be no escaping him. But my sheer will to get away from him was not convinced that Sean had conquered me. I fought with all I had to try to slip free, while Sean made making me his capture seem so easy. He kept me pinned to the ground effortlessly. With his free hand, I could feel him tugging his pants down over his hips.
This is what made me realize that Sean was going to have his way with me, no matter how hard I tried to stop him. I was helpless to resist him.
But I would resist him until every ounce of energy has left my body.
Sean laid himself over top of me, crushing me entirely and pressing all the air out of my lungs. He still held my wrists high above my head with one hand, but now, with his other hand, he was working at unfastening the button on my jeans. I made it as difficult as I could for him, twisting my hips to one side and then the other, even when it pained me to do so, for the ground my bones were digging into was not very giving and there was no where to move but into the earth.
Despite my efforts, Sean still succeeded at unfastening the button on my jeans.
I closed my eyes tight, saying a silent prayer to that god I did not believe in, praying that he would send me an angel, a miracle, anything that would make this stop, anything that would make this go away.
The moment Sean started to pull on my jeans, I heard a crack! I felt the impact before I even knew what had happened.
The weight of Sean's body lifted.
The sound of air gushed by.
I opened my eyes.
Doug, not once, not twice, but three times more struck Sean up side the head with a baseball bat, in full swing.
In total shock as to what I was witnessing, I peeled myself up off the ground. I could only sit there and watch as Doug, The Preacher-Man From Out West, swung the bat, yet one more time, at Sean's head, which was now on the ground with the rest of his body, knocked out cold, undoubtedly from the first blow he'd taken. With all the blood that was coming from Sean's head and that was spraying away from the bat upon its contact with his skull, I was sure he was dead.
Doug turned to me. For one brief moment I swore I recognized the look in his eyes, and I was certain that his eyes were a blue-black obsidian color. But it was dark. Of course I could not see the color of his eyes, let alone the look that they beheld. And besides, I remembered quite clearly that Doug's eyes were a shocking bright blue color.
Doug came to me quickly and fell to his knees beside me. He took my face with both his hands and looked at me with strange and wild desperation in his blue-black obsidian eyes. They were Banes eyes. I would recognize them even with my eyes closed, for I could sense the sticky, dark feeling that they emitted.
I had to be in shock. There was just no other explanation for this.
Doug threw his arms around me and squeezed me tightly, as if he had loved me for so very long. "You are all right now. You are all right," he said, as if more to assure himself than to assure me.
That's when it hit me. I was all right! Sean did not have his way with me. An angel had come to rescue me.
But then I realized that this was impossible because there was no such thing as angels anymore.
And I was still sitting in Dammon's blood.
I quickly scrambled to my feet, feeling the sharp teeth of panic nibbling at the edges of my self-control. I had to get away from it. I had to wash it away from me. I had to get away from Sean and I had to get away from the darkness.
Doug held my hand with one of his and carried the baseball bat in the other, as he led me hastily away from the car wash. Behind us, Sean was stirring. I could hear his groaning even as Doug and I crossed the blacktop.
As Doug led me home, I was certain of only two things in my foggy, confused mind.
One: This was far from being over.
Two: I would be seeing Sean again.
And when I did, he was definitely not going to be happy with me.
But then again, neither was I happy with me.
I murdered Dammon. His blood was on my hands. His blood was saturating the back of my shirt and pants.
His blood saturated my soul.
****
Chapter Thirty
Luna