Never Touched by Laney Wylde

Author:Laney Wylde [Wylde, Laney]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Clean Teen Publishing, Inc.

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Third Street was empty. It always was at the beginning of this nightmare. The hollow sound of my Chuck Taylors stepping onto the pavement echoed off the houses. The first man emerged from the yellow house onto the east sidewalk. He started whistling and shouting. I wanted to tell him to shut up, that the others would come out if he didn’t, but no one in this dream could ever hear me. No one but Simone.

I felt her slender fingers slip into my hand, her steel medical ID bracelet cold against my wrist. Her blonde hair was still streaked with the natural chunky highlights of a child. She was just a child, shapeless and small.

The doors of the houses lining the street opened, men filing out to form a crowd on the sidewalks. They reached out for us, but it was as if there was an invisible fence holding them back. But at any moment, that barrier could break and they could spill into the streets and grab us. They had before.

Simone and I took deep breaths and let go of each other. It was impossible to decipher the demands flying at us from either side of the street, but we had to try. We had to obey. I started by shrugging off my flannel, letting it fall to the rough ground below. After I stepped out of my shoes, I slipped off my jeans. Silk and lace covered my ribs, leaving a hollow where my breasts should have been. Simone wore close to the same, her lips coated in red and her eyelashes in black.

The roaring grew louder, the hoards thicker. There weren’t enough houses in the neighborhood to have contained these men. They had traveled from somewhere else.

Even over the din, I heard every breath between the two of us, labored and afraid, each one pushing us forward. Jeff was behind us; we didn’t have to check over our shoulders to know. Simone stopped, her heart pounding like a bass drum as she stared ahead.

“What?” I whispered. I followed her gaze to Travis and his three friends at the intersection of Ransom Street and Third. I grabbed her hand. “We have to.”

She shook her head.

I dragged her along. Her hand relaxed in mine. Acquiescence. Then she slumped to the ground, her breath wheezing. “Hey!” I stooped down to catch her. She lay limp in my arms as her eyes closed. “Help! Someone, help!”

Shh, Sawyer. It’s okay.

But no one listened. Or no one could hear. Maybe my screams were too quiet—just puffs of air over loose vocal chords. “Someone, please,” I begged when her breathing stopped.

Hey, you’re all right. I’m here.

Sprinting steps closed in. Finally. Travis scooped Simone out of my arms and laid her on the pavement. I waited for him to do something else, something to save her, but he turned back to me and unzipped his pants. When I went to punch Travis, I fell off Cash’s bed.

Pain spiked into each vertebra as my back hit the floor.

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