Bittersweet Agony

Chapter 1

It was dark and it was cold. Music blared from the club beside me and wind whipped my hair across my face and froze my bones. I shook violently against the cool bricks as they pierced my bare skin. My already slinky dress rode up my body, exposing my upper thighs to the ground too. I shivered as tiny pinpricks of frozen air shot at my skin.

I've done it, I thought. I've finally found a way to escape. I'd finally be free from the pain and clean of the excruciating memories.

Or so I thought, until I heard footsteps creep slowly toward me.

"Well, would you look what we have here; another drugged up slut. What's your name, Love?" Two men loomed over me, looking down upon me shamelessly. The one who spoke stood just by my head as I peeled my eyes open a sliver.

"Not 'Love'." I sneered, despite the aching in my throat from years of tortured screams.

"Oh come on, now. There's no need to be difficult." The man spoke again softly, almost trustingly, and two large hands grasped me and pulled me up and into his body.

Fully awake and aware of my surroundings then, I thrashed in the man's arms and screamed "let me go, bastard!"

"Fine. Have it your way." He dropped me to the ground harshly, and I groaned as I landed on my bad arm that was still weak from having broken it only three weeks before. Craving to have the warmth of his body back, I began convulsing from the cold.

"Let's try this again." The man whipped a gun from his waistband and aimed it at my head before speaking again. "What's your name, Love?" He spit the last word like it was poison on his tongue, and snarled his lip at me. I didn't even flinch.

"Sul mio cadavere." (a/n translation: 'over my dead body'). I sneered in disgust.

"Ah, that's cute; another language. What is that? Spanish? Italian?" His eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Non lo so. dimmelo tu." (a/n translation: 'I don't know. You tell me.')

"Alright, listen. I'll give you -"

"Hey, guys there you-" a third man was running toward the other two, but stopped when he saw me. Where he stopped, the light from the streetlamps was shining just perfectly so I could make out most of his face. He had bright orange hair, and so many freckles you could barely see the true color of his skin. He wasn't particularly tall, but he wasn't short, either. He wore a green t-shirt that complimented his hair, and a pair of dark wash jeans. "Oh, uh... Could you maybe make this one quick? I need to get home." He spoke anxiously.

"Why?" The man with the gun asked, angry and impatient.

The same man that interrupted us laughed nervously. "That's a funny story, actually. Well I uh, may have accidentally sort of hustled a few guys out of 400 bucks, and now they kind of want their money back... Which I'm not giving them, and..." He trailed off.

"How many is 'a few'?" The third man spoke.

"Oh, not many. It's only like five or six. It's really not-" he answered, nonchalantly covering up his inner turmoil.

"You're such an idiot." The third man huffed, cutting off the others' sentence and dragging him away from me and the man with the gun.

"Well, looks like it's just you and me." I smirked.

"Shut up." He snapped.

"I thought you wanted to know my name?" I gleamed, happy to have the upper hand in the conversation.

"Shut your mouth and stand up." He commanded, waving the gun pointedly.

"Hmm," I thought. "And what if I don't?" I smiled defiantly, and teased him with a mocking laugh.