Page 7 of Defending Van

In the end, it didn't matter who had taken her, she would fight for her freedom with everything she had. She would much rather die trying to escape than live and accept this as her fate.

So she didn't break eye contact with the tall man with the pitch-black eyes as the man called Josh went running out of the room to grab a cane. If they thought caning her was going to mold her into whatever they were looking for, they would be sorely mistaken. She’d learned how not to cry when being hit with a homemade switch by the time she was three.

Pain was just a fleeting sensation. You owned it, controlled it, and then it passed. She would handle the pain the same way she always did, by gritting her teeth and reminding herself that this wasn't forever. If she could get through everything else she’d endured in her twenty-nine years, she could get through this, too. It was no different than what her parents had done to her, or any of the other foster families who thought she was a toy for them to play with.

Josh returned with the cane, and the man before her took a step back as he held out his hand for it.

“Bend over,” he barked, and Bethany, Crystal, and even Cecilia all hurried to comply. They turned to face the wall, their now bare backsides on display. She expected the man holding the cane to take his time, taunt them a little, but instead, he never took his eyes off her as he walked down to the end of the line where Crystal waited.

The slice of the cane through the air seemed exorbitantly loud, and yet it was nothing compared to the sound of it hitting the woman’s flesh. Crystal shrieked and began to cry as she jerked away as though scared of a second blow.

But the man with black eyes had already moved on to Bethany. The woman had her eyes squeezed shut, and she cried out when the cane made contact with her backside, falling to her knees and curling in on herself.

Still, the man with black eyes kept watching her as he walked past the crying woman to Cecilia. There was not a single flicker of emotion on his face as he brought the cane down hard on Cecilia’s sensitive skin, making the woman gasp in pain.

“You undress for me now, and you’ll only get two,” he said when he once again stood before her. “Once for the running and once for the disobedience. If you make me undress you, you’ll get ten.”

“I can take ten,” she shot back. There had been a brief flicker of confusion in his eyes when he said he’d love to undress her himself, like he hadn't really meant to say that. She didn't know what it meant, but if it surprised him, then it was something she could find a way to use against him.

“There’s always someone who has to take the hard way.”

“My entire life has been the hard way. Why change that now?” she said with a shrug. She’d been stripped naked and raped for the first time when she was five, and she was still here standing. Whatever this man thought he could do to her was never going to be worse than that moment when she was nothing but a small waif of a child, not understanding what was happening to her.

The man gave a small nod. Of respect? Of understanding? She wasn't sure, and she didn't have time to figure it out because he pulled out a knife, held it to the neckline of the simple pink and purple sundress she was wearing, and dragged the blade through the material, cutting it from her body.

As it dropped, pooling at her bare feet, she didn't break eye contact. This man could do whatever he wanted to her, she knew that, acknowledge and accepted it, but the only thing he couldn’t control was how she reacted to what he did. That was what he wanted, for her to scream, or beg, or cry, but she wasn't going to do any of those things. She had long since learned how ineffective they were.

A small trail of blood was left in the knife’s wake, and the man gave her one of those weird smiles of his as he moved the blade to the center of her white, lacy bra. It was her favorite, and it sucked that she was losing it this way, but she had bigger things to worry about right now.

When the bra straps fell from her shoulders, he moved the knife to cut through them entirely, and the now ruined scraps joined her dress on the floor. With nothing left on except the white lacy underwear that matched her bra, she parted her legs, giving him access to cut this material from her body as well.

Another flicker of surprise was the only reaction she got, and she was pretty sure that if she hadn't been looking for it, she wouldn't have seen it. Pressing the blade flat to her stomach, the tip toward the apex of her thighs, he slid it between her skin and the lace, then watched her as he turned it, jerking so it cut through the panties, nicking her in the process.

Tiny cuts like this were nothing. She’d had so much worse, which was now on display for all to see as those scars littered her body. She’d always worn them proudly, as reminders of what she had survived. While these new cuts weren't deep enough to leave physical scars, they’d leave psychological ones that she’d add to her catalog.

“Turn around,” he ordered, now that she was naked.

“Make me,” she shot back, her tone even, not betraying any of her fear. She wasn't looking forward to this, but it also didn't scare her in the way it had scared the others. They weren't used to getting up close and personal with evil. On the other hand, she was born from evil.

Chuckling, his hand closed around her shoulder, it was warm, and she could feel that there was a jagged scar running along his palm. There was no time to wonder where he might have gotten it, because he was turning her to face the wall, then bending her over so her backside was presented to him.

“Let’s all count together, shall we?” black eyes said.

“Sounds fun,” one of the other men piped up.

This time, the cane slicing through the air sounded muffled as Makayla braced herself for it to make impact. When it did, it felt like a thousand tiny burning arrows setting her skin on fire.

“One,” black eyes said, along with everyone else, although the women’s voices were shaky, and the crying lady could barely get the word out.

Another hit joined the first, and the pain began to spread, but she didn't cry out. Didn't make a single sound. If you cried, begged, pleaded, or screamed, it only egged people like this on. The best way to fight their brand of terror was to never give in and offer them what they wanted.

By the fourth hit, she was breathing hard, her entire bottom feeling like it was on fire.

By the seventh, she was pretty sure the only reason she hadn't collapsed into a pile along with her clothes on the hard concrete floor was that black eyes still had his hand on her shoulder.

But she still hadn't made a sound.

By the ninth, she was positive she couldn’t take any more of this, it hurt so bad. He had layered some of the strikes on top of others, and she could feel her blood running warm and sticky down her legs. But she hadn't come this far to back out when there was only one more to go.