A Cross to Bear Read Online Free

hours. He was inside her now, crying. He spoke words of love as he thrust into her slowly. She thrashed and kicked, but she was helplessly pinned.
    “Let me go, you sick son of a bitch!”
    “ Gabby . . . ” He panted, getting close.
    She squeezed her eyes closed and imagined herself far, far away. Anywhere but here beneath him. He tensed and cried out, squeezing her left breast so hard it hurt. When he had emptied himself, he lay on top of her, panting.
    He kissing her cheek lovingly. She could feel the heat of his seed inside her and nearly became sick. But she dared not move. Her ears rang, and her head throbbed where he had hit her. It had already been sore from hitting the bedroom wall.
    After a time, he finally withdrew. She waited, not moving a muscle. His belt buckle clicked closed, and she heard him stagger to the kitchen. The refrigerator door opened and closed, and a beer cap jingled into the sink.
    “You want a beer?” He said it as though nothing had happened.
    Gabby broke down then and finally pulled herself up. She found her torn sweatpants and put them on, not caring if there was a hole in the backside.
    “I fucking hate you,” she finally erupted.
    Derek stood, leaning back against the sink, unable to look her way.
    “You hear me, you sick bastard? I hate you! I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!”
    “Then go!” He threw the bottle at her, but it missed her and smashed the screen on his precious forty-inch TV. “God damn it! Look what you made me do!”
    She laughed and cried at the same time, trying hard to find her way across the living room with tear-filled eyes. He didn’t try to stop her. He went to his big screen to survey the damage. When she pushed through the door, he was calling to her. She stepped off the landing and misjudged it, falling hard on the concrete walkway.
    “Gabby?”
    The voice came from the porch next door. Jim, their neighbor and Derek’s buddy, was staring at her, shocked.
    Derek called to her again, and something in the house smashed. She pulled herself up and noted the length of Jim’s cigarette. It was almost gone—he must have heard what had happened.
    “Keep him the hell away from me!” she cried.
    She ran to the road as the front door burst open. Her hands fumbled in her pockets until they found the keys, and she leaped into her car and slammed the door as Derek came around the driver side with Jim in tow. A commotion started between the two men as Gabby turned the key. Thankfully the ignition didn’t mistake her life for a horror movie—it started on the first turn.
    Gabby peeled out and left Derek and the home they had made together behind.

Chapter 5
    Gabby pulled into Maggy’s driveway and locked every window and door after she got in the house. She peered out the windows in the living room when she was done and then went to Maggy’s room and found her lockbox in the closet. She knew the combination; it was their mother’s birthday. The lid opened to a plethora of small handguns and ammo. Their father had taught them both how to use guns when Gabby was little, but she had never shown the love for firearms that Maggy displayed. Still, she felt better when the .38 Special was pressed cold against her palm.
    The shock of what had happened had been drowned by the fear, and now the anger swelled inside her. She began to hope that Derek came through the door. She would empty the clip in his rapist ass and spit on his grave.
    Gabby waited, gun aimed at the door. For half an hour she stood there, until her arms ached from holding up the gun and her shakes gave way to shudders. Finally, she slumped to the floor, exhausted.
    It was really over . . .
    Her anger reared its ugly head once more—anger at herself. There she was, mourning the loss of a man who had just raped her.
    What the fuck is wrong with me?
    She slid into another rage then and wanted nothing more than to unload the gun into something, anything! Her body felt dirty. Her hair was a snarled