48
I wish I could say I died quickly. I wish I could say it was over as fast as my own death in the operating room, but it wasn’t like that this time. I felt it. Every blow. Felt the breath shocked out of my body and the blood flowing warm down my cheek. Felt the pain searing through my head, through my body, through my mind. I knew it was over. I knew I was about to leave them—the only two people I loved on that earth—and there was nothing I could do to stop it.
They tried, too. Little Annie scratched and bit, but he just kicked her out of the way. David shouted and pulled and hit, but Alex was so much bigger than all of us. Everything I’d always been afraid of if I’d refused him—if I’d run away—if he’d found us—this was it, and it was so much worse than I’d imagined.
A body can’t last
