Into My Own

Fourteen

Early Saturday morning my dad hauled my steer in to the local fairgrounds and left me to my own devices to get him ready. It was cloudy outside but the air was hot and muggy instead of cool like I would've expected.

Both showing and the livestock judging contest went well for me. I ended up bringing home a ribbon for grand champion steer showman and second place livestock judge, which put me on the team that would get compete at district level for both.

By the time I got my equipment cleaned up and my steer put back in his stall it was well past noon so I ran to the burger shack to grab something to eat. Almost everyone was still in the arena watching everyone fight to the death over grand champion sheep showman so I paid for my coffee, brownie and burger quickly. I knew Oakley hadn't even made it to the second round so I wasn't in a big hurry and decided to eat at one of the empty picnic tables behind the hog barns. About halfway through my burger, I realized I was full. The trash can received the other half and I decided to bring the brownie to dad.

The pig barn was eerily empty as I walked past on my way to the show arena.

Suddenly a hand wrapped around my arm and yanked me into the vacant building. 

"He--" I started to shout as my brownie and coffee dropped in the dirt.

A hand covered my mouth and I was pinned to the wall. I didn't try too hard to fight, figuring Tommy or somebody just wanted to scare me. My eyes took their time adjusting to the sudden darkness so I couldn't see who had me in a death grip against the dusty boards.

"Coda, shh..." I knew the voice for sure but couldn't quite pin it to a face, probably because they were trying so hard to be quiet. Obviously it wasn't Tommy; he didn't know how to whisper. 

I didn't make a move to respond.Obviously that was going to be hard to do with a hand over my mouth. That hand didn't move at all. The other shifted wrap me in what felt like a hug and a thin male body pressed against mine. I knew it couldn't be Tommy or Landon because they were both tall enough that they would have to bend over to hug me like this. Justin was a little bit closer to my height but he was the stockiest of the group. Kellan was about the only other person I could think of that would pull me into an empty barn just for a hug.

I tried to convince myself that it was him. All the boys had known about this show for weeks. Maybe he had come to watch. Obviously the boy had a crush on me so the hugging made sense. For some reason, I couldn't quite believe that it was him, though.

As far as I knew, Kellan wasn't the type of guy to hold a hand over my mouth so tight I couldn't even breathe. And after the confrontation the boys had with him the first day we met, I doubted he would try to touch me at all without asking.

"I've missed you," they growled in my ear. The voice was familiar and would have sounded almost nice if I couldn't feel them reaching down to grab my shirt. The hand pressed over my face now held me against the wall, too, so hard I could feel a bruise forming on the back of my head.

I stayed frozen until the free hand began undoing the snaps that held my show shirt shut. If my hands weren't being pinned behind my back by the strong hip that was digging into my stomach I would have slapped them away. They roughly gripped one side and pulled to untuck it, the now free snaps scraping the skin of my chest.

Fear took over and I began to struggle and tried to scream, but the hand stayed clamped over my mouth and the hip pressed harder against my stomach. Stray staples from past years' fair decorations dug into the skin of my hands and back. I squirmed, trying to at least stop that pain.

"It'll be worse if you struggle," they hissed. The wandering hand moved down my stomach to the waistband of my jeans. They had my belt undone and the zipper down before my fight instinct kicked into overdrive.

Even though my upper body and hands were pinned to the wall, I was able to move my foot around behind theirs and knock them slightly off balance right as the hand dug its way into my jeans and past my underwear. As a reflex I rammed my knee up as hard as I could, praying to hit something important. When they doubled over in pain I knew I had succeeded.

My mouth totally free, I started screaming at the top of my lungs and began kicking and punching as hard as I could. I shouted profanities at the person curled up on the rough concrete floor that was probably covered in old pig shit,  still unsure of who they were.

After what seemed like an eternity, several people came running in. It all seemed to happen in slow motion, them yanking my flailing body away from the guy on the ground. They helped him up and took me outside, trying calm me down. My eyes felt wild and my whole body was shaking.

"What happened?" They asked, over and over again.

I was finally able to choke out some sort of response, though I don't know if it actually made sense.

Probably noticing my rumpled shirt unbuttoned jeans, I heard them mutter something to the effect of "That piece of shit".

"Jake, bring him out here."

Somebody appeared, dragging a dirt covered kid with them.

"So apparently this guy tried to mess with this young lady."

"Is that so?" Jake asked, grabbing the kid by the collar hard enough to make him wince. "Do you know him?"

My face went white and I stumbled backwards.

"Woah, it's okay. I guess you do know him."

"I think she had it right by beating the shit out of you." Jake growled, putting the kid in a headlock.

I whimpered involuntarily.

"Hey, it's okay. Do you want a drink? I can let Jake take care of this ass."

I felt lightheaded. Thankfully, the guy took me by the arm gently and sat me down on a bench.

"Hey Jake?"

"Yeah?"

"Call the cops. Let them take care of him."

"Sure." Jake pulled out his phone, not even flinching when the guy under his arm squirmed.

I blocked out the conversation, instead focusing on my breathing.

Next thing I knew, two police officers were questioning me and handcuffing him. I haltingly told them my side of the story.

"Alright. Do you know this kid?"

"Yes." I gulped.

"Name?"

"Ryker Murray."