Then they had offered her a glass of champagne to celebrate Terrance winning the picture in an online auction. She told them she didn’t drink, but they assured her that one or two sips of champagne wouldn’t hurt, and it would be rude not to celebrate with them. She didn’t want to be a nerd, so she’d drank maybe half of what was in the glass.
Dallas and Terrance were talking about something on the television in the living room, but they sounded as if they were in a tunnel. Everything appeared to be covered by a thick gray fog, and then Dallas took her by the arm and led her into a bedroom that opened off the living room. “You should lie down and take a little nap,” he said.
“Take. Me. Home.” Words, even that much, came out slow and labored.
Suddenly, it was as if Emma left her body and was watching everything take place. She yelled at herself to get up and run. Climb out a window. Lock herself in the bathroom. Nothing worked. Her body was only semiconscious and couldn’t move.
“I’m sorry, darlin’.” Dallas kissed her on the neck and whispered, “But I owe him a lot of money that I don’t have. He’ll forgive every dime of it for a virgin.”
Dallas laid her on the bed that had black satin sheets on it. She remembered a white fur–looking rug beside the bed and the thought had gone through her mind that everything wasn’t black and white. Sometimes, things were a gray fog, like her mind was in that night. She raised her voice—or thought she did—and told him again to take her home. Then Terrance, the star football player for another college nearby, came into the room, patted Dallas on the back, and told him he’d done a good job. Dallas closed the door as he left the room. Then Terrance jerked her jeans down around her ankles. She fought and clawed at the six-foot, beefed-up guy. She yelled at him to stop, but she was helpless in her semidrugged state. The last thing she remembered before she passed out was excruciating pain and a heavy weight on her whole body.
Then she was back in her body, and it wasn’t a dream. Her stomach lurched, and she leaned over the side of the bed and threw up on the white fur rug. Pain radiated through her female parts, and her legs ached where Terrance had forced them apart with his strong hands. There was blood on the sheets. When she pulled up her underpants and jeans, even more blood stained them. She was still wobbly when she eased the door open and pulled a small pistol from the side pocket of her purse. Terrance and Dallas were sprawled out on a nearby sofa, playing a video game, drinking beer and laughing, but the apartment went quiet after she put a bullet in the back of each of their heads. She staggered out into a long hallway and held on to the walls to get to the front door. When she made it outside, a hard, cold wind slapped her in the face, and that helped to steady her so that she could get into her car. She drove straight to the hospital.
“I’ve been raped, and I killed the both of them,” she had told the nurse. “My mother can’t know.”
“How old are you?” the nurse asked.
“I’m eighteen,” Emma answered.
“We don’t have to call your parents if you don’t want us to, but, honey, we should call the police,” the woman said. “You take off all your clothes and put on these scrubs. I’ll be back to process you for evidence, and then we’ll make some phone calls. And remember, none of this is your fault.”
“No, no, no!” Emma yelled.
She was sitting up in her bed, eyes wide-open and seeing nothing, when Sophie switched on the lights. For a moment, she didn’t know where she was or even if she was still dreaming. She wiped tears from her eyes with the sheet and begged Terrance to stop.
“Wake up. It’s just a dream. Come on, Em, wake up.” Sophie sat down on the edge of the bed and wrapped her arms around Emma.
Emma hugged Sophie tightly and sobbed into her shoulder. “It wasn’t a dream. I know what happened. I saw it. I felt it.”
“Talk to me, Em. Tell me about it. Maybe it was only a nightmare.”
Emma shuddered and told her what had happened in the dream in