The Beasts of Juarez by R.B. Schow (best books to read for beginners txt) 📕

She felt that awful pain expanding if that was even possible. Where a deep and poignant sense of detachment kept her from suffering the true depths of her emotions, there was still a part of her that knew these men were speaking from a place of truth. They would turn the world over with their wickedness at the cost of everything, even their very souls, and they wouldn’t even think twice.

“Every minute I tell Jose no, that he can’t shoot you, or rape you, or hack you into pieces and throw you to the dogs, is an additional sixty seconds that you get to live. So rather than thinking you’re being held hostage, why don’t you try to understand that every single minute you are allowed to breathe, it’s because I gave you that minute.”

That motherly instinct to find her girls, to save them, and to get the hell out of there, was a slowly dying flame. She fought to summon her courage and her resourcefulness, but the truth was simple. There was nothing she could do to save herself or her girls. Where would she even start? Where had her daughters been taken? What was happening to them at this very moment? The fact that they’d been separated was a truly daunting thought, one that brought her to a state of such crippling paranoia she wanted to fall to her knees and scream until her lungs were raw.

Sydney turned and looked at Jose one more time. He glared at her with eyes cold enough to freeze water. She hated him immediately. But would killing him even matter? Would killing anyone in this house matter? Even if she succeeded, she still wouldn’t know where to find her children. The one thing she had left, the only thing of value to her, was the ball of rage quietly building inside of her. If she attacked either of the men around her, it would be for her own selfish pleasure now that the girls were gone.

So with that, Sydney rushed Santiago, jumped on his back, and snaked her arms and legs around him. In the same fluid, vengeful movement, she bit down onto his ear so hard that when Jose tore her off the man, it was just what she needed to rip away that one piece of Santiago he couldn’t get back.

Jose not only grabbed her, but he also threw her to the ground so hard that the expulsion of air caused her to spit out the ear. The red chunk landed somewhere on her chest. She tasted the man’s blood right before the two of them started kicking her.

As she curled up and took their unrelenting abuse, as spikes of pain drove into her side with each and every shot, she wondered if she had earned the right to be killed. Without her girls, she didn’t care if she died. Death was, in fact, preferable to living without them. But death was not what these monsters had in store for her.

Instead, Jose reached down and began to rip and tear the clothes from her body. The brutality of the attack was so frenzied and vicious, she could mount no defense. The whole demeaning experience rattled her beyond measure. When her clothes were finally torn off and tossed aside, when the two men stood back huffing and puffing and out of breath, she pushed herself to her feet like a beaten animal with hardly any fight left, and then she stomped on the piece of Santiago’s ear where it lay beside her.

Jose took out a blade then walked up to her. She couldn’t run, let alone stand much longer. He wrapped his mammoth hand around her throat, his fingers digging into her flesh. He forced her to stare into his dead eyes as he cut away her bra and panties.

“A man like you could never get laid on your own,” she hissed.

Santiago grabbed her by her arm and dragged her out into the backyard where the other guards had perfect views of her naked body.

There, in front of the pool, he held her in a controlled chokehold while Jose used his blade to cut away her beautiful, shoulder-length blonde hair. When they were done with her, she was left with mostly stubble cut down to the base of her scalp, with a few longer strands remaining because they made her look ugly.

Santiago pushed her off of him, letting her stand on her own two feet humiliated, disrespected, assaulted. She did not tuck her head in shame, nor did she turn and submit to these two sadistic Neanderthals. Instead, she met the eye of every single guard looking at her. They seemed to take no pleasure from what had just been done to her, yet they stared at her parts like this was the first time they’d seen a naked woman’s body.

“How pathetic,” she said, loud enough for them to hear.

The strange thing was, other than pity, she felt nothing. No shame, no fear, no anger. Even the immense amount of pain hobbling her body served only to dull her emotions. Whatever feelings she had left she had wept out as her daughters disappeared before her very eyes. When they took Callie, Zoey, and Maisie, these behemoths literally took everything.

Slowly, she turned her gaze on Santiago, who had blood running down the side of his jawline from his chewed-off ear. He glared at her with rancorous, hateful eyes. Her eyes were soft now, the fight gone, the most ferocious parts of her stamped down and dead. And then she smiled, wondering if the blood in her teeth would make her look savage and formidable.

“You have no idea what you just did to yourself,” Santiago hissed, touching the torn edges of his ear.