Ten minutes later, I hadn’t found the remote to change the channel and some poor guy was lying on the floor bloody on the screen in front of me, so I just turned the TV off. Kane was part owner of the most exclusive clubs in town and in these shitty rooms he didn’t even have a remote for his fucking television. Did he just watch MMA shows whenever it was on?
As I sat there in the silence of Kane’s apartment, the memory of the last time I lay in a bloody mess after Aaron beat the fuck out of me came back with a vengeance. I hadn’t thought of it since that night he found me at the grocery store. Sliding the wig off my head, I ran my fingers over my chopped hair, unable to stop the tears.
I stood outside the store with my arms full of bags to wait for the cab to take me to Gemma’s house and felt someone brush up against my back. Immediately on edge, I had no way of getting away as he wrapped his hand around my neck and whispered, “I’ve been looking for you, Abbi.”
I wanted to cry out, but I knew it was no use. With all the bravado I possessed, I turned my head and said quietly, “Let me go. I won’t let you do this to me.”
His dark eyes narrowed and he tightened his grip on my throat, his fingers pressing hard into my skin. Low in my ear, he said, “You don’t get a say in what I do, Abbi. Now come with me and keep your mouth shut or the beating you get when we leave will be even worse. You know that I’ll do it.”
I let him lead me to his car and jumped as I sat down and heard the automatic locks click shut. I was trapped there with Aaron, the man who’d promised to kill me if I ever left him. Covered in the bags after he’d thrown them on top of me, I thought about anything I could use to fend him off. Cans of soup and boxes of breakfast cereal wouldn’t stop him. As he talked about what he planned to do to me, I retraced my steps through the supermarket to remember if I’d grabbed anything that could help me.
“You thought you’d just leave me, Abbi? You’ve had your fun, but now it’s time to come home. No more hanging out with Gemma, that fucking whore. The next time I see her I’ll show her what I think of her taking you away.”
I knew better than to defend Gemma. If I did, both of us could get hurt. As it was, he might forget about hurting her if he could take his rage out on me enough.
He continued to rant about my leaving him, and I continued to mentally walk through the store. I’d passed up buying too much junk food because Gemma warned me if I was going to dance, even at The Carousel Club, I needed to make sure I kept at my best weight, so I’d spent most of my shopping trip in the fresh fruit and vegetables section. But hitting Aaron with the asparagus I’d gotten a great deal on wasn’t going to help me much.
Then I remembered the scissors Gemma had asked me to buy for her to cut food up. Fuck! What bag had the guy packed them in? Quietly, I slid my hand along the outside of the bags, feeling for the outline of the scissor package. If I could find it and get them out of the plastic before we got back to the apartment, I could use them. I wasn’t above stabbing someone to get away from having my skull crushed in.
Aaron stopped the car at a stoplight and turned to face me. I froze as he ran his hand through his blond hair and gritted his teeth in anger. “What are you doing over there?”
“I was looking for an apple. I’m hungry.”
“You can eat when we’re done,” he snapped. “Until then, you’ll listen to me tell you how stupid you were to leave me.”
God, I needed to find those scissors! The image of me jamming them into his neck made listening to his threats and insults even possible, and I slowly went back to feeling for the scissors package.
He jammed the car into park and jumped out of the car in a picnic area surrounded by trees, angrier than I’d ever seen him. As he stormed around to my side of the car, I grabbed wildly at the plastic grocery bags. Just as he opened my door, I wrapped my hand around a rectangular plastic package I knew contained what I needed and stuffed it down the back of my pants.
“Time to go, Abbi. We have some things to work out, and since you brought all this food with you, I’m thinking after we’re done you can make me a nice meal to make up to me.”
I held on to two bags and stepped out of the car to stand behind Aaron. As long as I could stay out of his line of sight, I might be able to get the scissors out of the package before he started hitting me. I followed him for a few steps knowing I couldn’t outrun him, my right hand clutching all the bags as my left hand worked to get the scissors out of my pants. I needed my right hand to open the plastic, though, but when I moved to tear at it, the bags made a rustling noise.
He quickly turned around, and in an instant, all my efforts were exposed. The rage in his eyes terrified me, and any thoughts of fighting back rushed away as he yanked me into the bushes. I fell onto the ground, scattering the groceries everywhere around me when they flew out of my hand as I held tight to the scissors package, my last hope.
I stared up at him as his anger exploded out of him. “Planning on cutting me, Abbi? Let’s see how it feels.”
He grabbed the package from my grip and ripped open the plastic with one tear. Scrambling to my feet, I made it two steps toward the clearing when he grabbed my hair and sent me flying back down to the ground. In a flash, he was holding me down, his body covering mine so I couldn’t move. He pressed the point of the scissors to my neck and ran it down to my shoulder, and I was sure at any moment he’d stab me.
“I got a better idea. Just in case you were thinking anyone else would want you, I’m going to make sure they don’t.”
“Aaron, please don’t kill me. Please!”
He laughed the way he always did when he was going to hurt me. “I’m not going to kill you, Abbi. I’m just going to make sure no one else wants you.”
I cowered in fear, sure any second I’d feel the point of the scissors blades cutting into my face, but he didn’t go for that. Instead, he slowly opened the scissors and winked. With his knee pressed into my chest and his left hand holding my wrists, he began hacking into my hair, scraping my scalp with the points as he carved into my favorite part of me.
“Aaron, no! Don’t cut my hair!”
My pleas did nothing to stop him. He just continued hacking away at my long blond hair as I struggled to get free, twisting my head left and right to try to end his attack. Finally, he stopped and looked down at me. Spitting into my face, he said, “There. Now see if you can get anyone to fuck you looking like that.”