October Academy

Chapter 64

WARNING THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS SEXUAL ASSAULT. PLEASE SCROLL TILL YOU SEE THE BOLDED WORDS "Darcy comes to my room"  IF YOU DO NOT WANT TO READ ANYTHING SA RELATED. 

"It's a shame," he says, "I like you much better in your uniform."

I'm trapped between him and the boot of his car, my hands hand cuffed behind my back, his greasy face behind my neck.

"Stop, stop!" I squeal and squirm but its no use.

He starts to rip at my dress. The fabric doesn't tear, so he pulls out a knife and slices it. The blade grazes the back of my thighs and I shriek in pain.

"Be quiet," he says, bringing the knife to my throat. "Be quiet and take it."

My beautiful dress is butchered, and part of it falls to the floor. It's short now, short enough that I'm exposed and shaking and cold.

He pulls down my underwear and I start to feel faint and sick and – the fear is all consuming. I think I'm going to vomit.

I'm frozen and crying. I see star fire across the parking lot, glass shattered around the bitumen. I try to focus on her as he undoes his belt -- "Get the fuck away from her," I hear someone growl.

I look up through tears and strands of sopping hair to see Darcy pacing towards us.

Taylor suddenly stops and backs away slowly.

I realise now that Darcy isn't alone, that Topaz and Acacia are with him. Topaz has a gun pulled and aimed at Taylor. I realise that Acacia has her phone out, and is already calling people. Hopefully not the police.

"Uncuff her!" Acacia demands.

Taylor uncuffs me.

"Leave before this gets ugly," Topaz says.

Taylor hesitates. I know he is a coward. He scrambles to his car and I use all my energy to push myself off it before I get run over.

Darcy runs to me as Taylor escapes, and I collapse into his arms, a heap of tears and mess.

He holds me tightly, then takes off his suit jacket and pulls it around me. My dress pools around my ankles, some bits cut off still attached in fragments.

Acacia runs over next, holding me in her arms and going off about killing him.

"I'm so sorry," Darcy says, patting down my hair, and I realise that he's crying too.

I'm crying, Acacia is crying, and now Darcy is crying.

.

.

.

The next week, us seniors are given as many mental health days as necessary. We just survived a terrorist attack. And I survived an assault.

But no matter how many days I take off, I can't take my mind off Taylor. The way he trapped me, destroyed my car, watched me suffer, then almost raped me.

The smell of his filthy hands is engrained in my memory. The feeling of his sweaty body against mine.

I wake up every night crying and damp and shaking. Nothing seems to help, even when Gladys comes to my room and checks up on me. I don't tell her about Taylor, all she knows is that I'm traumatised from the bomb, and traumatised that the police thought I had something to do with it, and traumatised that Xander is in the hospital, comatose.

Xander is in the hospital.

That was the worst day of my life.

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