Trashed and Scattered

I woke up again from a dead sleep, sweating, panicking. The nightmares were getting worse. I would have called Brian but he told me they were travelling overnight so his phone would be off to conserve battery as they left service. All I could do was shiver between the blankets and the hard mattress that I had no idea how Matt managed to sleep on every night. I felt nothing but sheer terror, the dread belonging to thoughts of being watched in the dark of the night. Two in the morning, as dark as the night would get, leaving me vulnerable and quite upset. I hated being alone. I’d never let him leave me again.
Bishop wasn’t with me on the bed as he’d been the last few nights. I left the bed to grab some water and found the damned dog sitting upright by the door staring out the window as if the moon had entranced him somehow. Extremely eerie I found it, but disregarded it for the moment as I crept back to bed. If he’d barked I’d be a little less freaked out. Perhaps Matt had him trained not to bark in the early morning hours, which freaked me out even more, since I’d then have to worry about something being out there. I didn’t want to check. Surely if something was there the dog would go off the wall. I called him and waited for his hulky body to come thumping down the hall and jump back on the bed. He kept whining, louder and louder the more I called him.
I slowly climbed out of bed again, grabbing Matt’s baton from his closet, holding it in a firm grasp in my left hand. “Bishop, what the hell is your time?” I hissed at the stunned creature. He whined and furiously fussed about the door. If he had to pee, usually he’d be waiting at the back door. Could be by blind chance he saw another animal out there, but I left the light off and peeked out the bottom corner of the window. Nothing but pale moonlight faded from the city smog. Eerily, creepily beautiful. My heart was racing.
Bishop began pacing in the front window, his gaze fixed on something out there. I couldn’t pick it out of the background. Several cars passed by. Lots of traffic for this late at night. Something was off about it all. Seemed to be the same vehicles over and over again. I was fucking dreaming and I wasn’t waking up. I picked up Matt’s cordless phone and headed to his garage where I could find a little security. Bishop came with me, cowering. I dialled Brian’s number with shaky fingers. A stomach-dropping tone blared in my ear. Fuck, that’s right. His phone was off. I dialled Zack, only to have the same result. Then again with Jimmy. Johnny. Finally Matt. All off. I was in tears at this point, too scared to go back up and see if they were still passing by.
I sent out several desperate texts before dialling the police. I could barely hold composure as I told the officer what was going on. When she got off the phone with me, I was sure my heart would stop, because that was when I heard the door bust open and crash to floor. Everything in the way from the front door to the kitchen was knocked to the ground. Broken glass everywhere by the sounds of it. I became angrier, full of fire and adrenaline-fuelled energy that was surely going to save my ass before the coppers showed up.
Bishop was going absolutely psycho. I had thought about opening the garage door and sic the fucking Rottweiler on those shitheads. Better not be those cocksuckers that broke into my house the first time. Maybe now I’d actually get a look at them. The idea was sounding a lot better with each passing minute and I was convinced they were getting closer to the garage. I opened the door a crack, holding the huge animal by his chain collar. “Go get them, boy.” I whispered into his ear. He was viciously yanking my arm, so I just let him go. I heard a holler of pure agony and laughed somewhat maniacally. Then the voices were shouting about the garage door, and I sank back down into a little ball of panic. The dog whined and I heard a thump. Oh, god no.
I hid behind Matt’s motorcycle, hoping the fat tires would provide me enough cover for a moment to escape. The garage door opener was on the far wall, and I wasn’t about to risk getting shot to trigger it. There were more this time, about five or six. Bulky, black-clad figures. Two wearing skeleton bandanas as masks and ball caps, one wearing a black leather jacket with stitched lettering on the back. SAMCRO, by the looks of it. The other two were wearing generic black. Skinheads. Faces covered by black bandanas. Couldn’t catch any details of the remainders of their faces, but something tells me I could pick these guys out of a lineup.
I had the bar clutched tight enough in my hands that my knuckles went white, and I shook in panic. My fear was long over. Things got very real very fast. “We know you’re here, girly girl. Come out and say hi.”
Why the fuck were they looking for me? What had I done to deserve it? I didn’t recognize these people at all, even their voices. I had no enemies. Denial was growing. But I was going to fight fate today. Still, for the moment, I lay low, made no noise. Waited for them to come around, waited for the sirens to start blaring outside. Yet for the next few moments, all I heard was the pulsing of blood in my body and their footsteps, heavy set on the ground. I was cornered. “Think she’s even in here?” another one asked. His voice was incredibly raspy. I made note.
“Well, how else would the goddamn dog have gotten out of a closed shop? Of course she’s here. Look around, this place isn’t that big.” I winced. All I wanted to know was why. And if they killed Bishop. Oh, I was itching for the very moment Matt and Brian got their hands on these motherfuckers.
Just as I was about to crawl over to another spot when they weren’t looking, I felt something grab my leg and pull me away into plain sight. It was one of the skeleton-masked bastards. I couldn’t find the breath to scream, nor the energy to fight him off. I was frozen like I was in my nightmares. He struck me in the jaw with his knee and I hit the concrete floor head-first. Ringing in both ears, unable to see anything but blackness. And lord, the pain was throbbing hard. Surely my nose was broken, bleeding. I was senseless. Unable to feel anything at all except the bitter pain that would soon worsen. “I fuckin’ got her!” he yelled jubilantly, bashing my ribs with the heel of his boot. I wheezed and choked out a broken scream, sure that my recently-healed ribs had been re-broken. No…I could only think.
I felt a blow to the chest just under my left breast, dull throbbing thereafter. Then another to the head. A third to the leg. I was seeing red at that point, sure to have tears rolling down in full stream. There was no way I deserved this. I felt a heap of heavy weight on me, but I couldn’t look. My eyes were too puffy to open. Hands groping my body, pulling my hair, slapping my cheeks. “No, no. don’t you go anywhere. You’re gonna stay awake for this whole thing!” Fabric tearing, my heart was breaking. Horrible sensation of skin against skin. Tearing pain between my legs.
From then on I found myself to be impure. Broken. Left alone in the dark without the sanctity of clothing, bleeding from every orifice. Sirens consumed me. EMRs surrounded me. A concoction of police, ambulance workers. God, the humiliation. How much time had actually passed since I made the call? “Ms. Haner? Ms. Haner, can you hear me?” I heard someone say. A woman, by the softness of the voice. I was too deep in the shadows to cling to anything real. The darkness was real, the only comfort I would have for a very long time.
The next time I woke I was in the hospital.

Notes

TRIGGERS! I cannot stress this enough. Please use discretion proceeding. Very dark chapter.