Kicking

The pain I could handle, death I could handle but this... his pants falling, his body lowering... I knew I wasn't strong enough for this.
I deliberately starved my lungs of air. I didn't want to live through this.
But nothing happened. No death. Just pain.
I could feel the horrified expression on my face, and the tears continued to pool in my eyes.

He forced me on my back and the pain ripped through my body. I wished I were dead. Pieces of me were shattering, breaking, shredding away. I screamed.
"I can imagine that same cry mixed with the moan of ecstasy." He was just about choking in need.
He manoeuvred himself over me as my back pressed harder against the floor and another agonised scream filled the room. It fed his male dominance.
With his bare knee, he kicked my legs apart and quickly filled the space between them with his heavy body — three hundred pounds of fat.
"You're quite a treat aren't you, Nuru?" He chuckled.
I closed my eyes and in a futile desperate attempt to get him off my body, I placed a weak hand over his chest and pushed.
Suddenly the weight on top of me doubled, I realized he was making sounds — not the groans of pleasure I was expecting — but gagging sounds that caused my face to soak in his blood.
He struggled to his feet, stumbling as he went. His mind was filled with confusion. His eyes searched the room desperately, his hand on his gaping open throat.
Before his mind could register what was happening, Jennie was on top of him, holding the knife securely in her hands and she stabbed him, again and again.
She didn't stop even as the life slipped from his eyes, she didn't stop even when her hand slipped down the sharp blade and cut her palm. She was in a trance.
I stared wide eyed, horrified. My body was in immense agony.
"Mom!" I squeaked, my voice no louder than a whisper. "Stop mom, you'll kill him."
There was no answer.
"Mom!" My voice was weak, I was losing too much blood.
Still no answer.
I slithered across the room to my mother, screaming through the protesting pain, I pulled Jennie by the elbow and the knife dropped.
"Oh no, he's dead!" If I wasn't so weak I'd have been in hysterics.
I pulled the phone out of Nikolai's pocket and punched 911, grimacing against the pain.
I put the phone on loud speaker.
"Port Edward emergency services," the dispatcher said. It was a man. "What's your emergency?"
"There's a dead man lying next to me and I think I killed him," I said, I realized my voice was shaking but surely I couldn't let Jennie take the fall for this. I watched my mother as I tried to explain that Nikolai had been about to...
Jennie snapped the phone and pulled it against her ear and walked away from me. I glared at her angrily as she told the whole truth.
"A deputy is on the way, ma'am," I caught the dispatcher's soothing voice, as if woman killing men in cold blood was an every day normal routine.
"Thank you," she said, her voice cold.
"Mom, do you realize what you've just done?"
"I killed a man."
"No," I meant to shriek, my voice almost echoing in the silence. "I was going to tell them I killed him, it was in self-defence."
Jennie blinked, astonished. "Nuru, you'd have had a record."
"But Jennie, you could go to jail... for life!"
"Nuru, who would want to hire a murderer? Huh?" her eyes were blank. "You have a bright future ahead of you. You aren't ruining that over me."
"But mom—" I began, still whispering. Jennie silenced me with an icy look.
"My decision is final."
And then she was punching hysterically unto the phone. I blinked, fighting against the cloud of unconsciousness that threatened to pull me under.
"Who are you calling?"
"I'm going straight to custody," she told me. "You're going to the hospital, someone has got to be there for you."
"Roman can't see me like this. He'll—"
Jennie interrupted me by answering the phone. "Hello?"
"Nuru?" Roman sighed in both relief and the panic I knew he'd feel. The phone was on loud speaker.
"It's Jennie." She gave him the minor details. "Get here fast, Nuru's hurt."
My eyes were closing, I was losing conscious with each second. I wanted to hold on a little longer, to wait for Roman, to see him once but the dark fog called me, gripped me.
I couldn't see, my body felt like it belonged to someone else, I could hear sirens whether from the ambulance or police car, I couldn't be sure.
Was I dead?
Yes. Because there was no way I couldn't feel the pain I'd felt seconds before.
There were voices coming from everywhere, I was moving through the dark fog, carried by an invisible force. Were those angels? Was I going to be one? Assigned to watch over Roman? I hoped so.
And then I heard it, the voice, as panicked as it was livid... It was still beautiful. It called my name. It was the voice I'd walk through hell for, cross the ocean for — if I knew how to swim — but I'd drawn trying.
"Oh, Nuru, what did he do to you?"
I'm right here. I wanted to say but my voice didn't make it past my lips.
And I knew then I was dead. For the dead couldn't communicate with the living.
"Just keep breathing, Nuru," he sobbed. "Don't you dare give up."
Breathing? Did that mean I was still alive. Did that mean I could see Roman again? That was motivation enough.
I fought against the fog.
"Her pulse is faint." His voice was livid, frantic. "Is someone ever going help her? — fuck this!"
I opened my eyes and saw him, his lips tightly closed with the red margins of the lips becoming more narrow with each second and the lips becoming thinner, his upper eyelids raised in a stare.
My typical Roman. Angry. Irritated. Perfect. I almost smiled.
"Calm down sir, the paramedics have just arrived," a new voice said.
Roman was already on his phone. "Anton get me Angelique, I'll send you the location, now."
"Roman," I said, my voice slow, quiet.
"Oh Nuru, thank god." his voice was relieved. "You'll be fine, Angelique is coming."
"Don't worry. I don't feel pain."
His brows furrowed in worry.
He moved his hand and looked at me expectantly. When I stared back at him in confusion.
He screamed rage.
That broke my heart. Pierced me with a sharp dagger.
"Roman?"
Tears were beginning to pool in his eyes. "Oh no, Nuru. I'm so sorry."
"What's happening? I'm fine now," I assured him. "You're here now."
He merely shook his head, another wave of tears pooling in his eyes. "Oh C...Nuru." His voice broke.
Before I could ask him what was happening, paramedics were upon me, hands touching everywhere.
"Give her a shot for the pain," someone bellowed. I was too busy watching the horror on Roman's face. "We are going to try to move her, eish, looks like she broke her spinal cord."
"Don't bother." Roman's voice was cold. "She doesn't feel anything."
"Oh no. Rebecca? We have a situation. Hurry!" the same voice from before called. Panicked.
I frowned. Was I missing something?
"Honey?" A man in navy clothing lowered himself in front of my face. "I'm going to touch your legs, pull on it a bit, tell me if you feel anything."
I nodded and a sharp pain went through my head. I winced.
"Oh you feel it," he sighed in relief. Almost rejoicing.
I frowned. Of course I did. "My head is throbbing."
"Your head... but... I... your... oh no," he was frantic again. "You feel it now?"
I frowned. Puzzled.
"Rebecca?" he bellowed to someone in the distance.
"I'm doing my best here, John. She's bleeding out fast," she said, just as frantic. "I'm a little bit surprised she regained conscious at all."
John looked away from the woman just above my head and met my questioning gaze.
"Let's try again, honey, okay?"
"Y...yes," I slurred, getting weaker still.
His words finally registered. I was hurt. I was supposed to feel pain. I was supposed to feel my waist, my legs. I was numb from my mid back down.
"And?" the man probed.
Had he touched me already?
By the horrified look on his face. Yes. Yes he had.
My heart stopped.
"Roman?" I was panicked, searching his face.
But Roman was deliberately facing away from me, making no attempt to hide his panic, or his tears as he sat kneeling, face looking upwards, hands bound together.
If it weren't for the string of profanities, I'd have thought he was praying. And then he did glance at me, expression saddened, pained, hopeless. I wished he hadn't.
He held my cheek. It was the only place I guessed was free of visible wounds.
"You'll be fine," he promised, his voice broken.
"You can't know that. I won't walk again," I told him. "I lost feeling on my legs. Roman I can't move my legs. I won't be fine. I can't move them... I... can't... move..." I was spiteful, bitter, hysterical. It would've been better if my voice wasn't so low that Roman had to lean into my ear to catch my words.
"Rebecca," the paramedic called again and gave the woman a meaningful look.
Suddenly I felt a prickle in my arm — a surprise I still had feeling there — and then my eyes lost focus and I drifted. Roman was the last thing I saw.