Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 72561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
My neighbor was a cop.
“Ma’am,” the K-9 officer snapped at me. “Come open this door.”
His demanding voice brought me out of the sinking hole of seeing the one person that I’d felt attracted to in years was a cop. Exactly like the one who’d nearly raped me. My God, but he was even dressed the same.
Walking quickly to the man and holding my breath, I punched in the code to get to the back room and backed away quickly. Placing my back against the wall and pushing as far into the corner as I could to get, I deep breathed, hoping to hold off the panic attack that I could feel rushing me. I wasn’t successful. It consumed me.
Dropping down to my knees, I hunched my body over on itself and rocked back and forth, but I was too far gone.
The panic attack and memories had me now.
***
Ten years ago
“Oh, my God. I’m going to be in so much trouble,” I groaned under my breath.
I watched as the officer approached my car with strong confidant strides.
He was dressed in jeans, and a black t-shirt. He had his gun on one hip, and his badge on the other.
The bad thing was that not only was I speeding, but I was also out past the curfew that the city put on all new drivers ages sixteen to eighteen.
I had to be in by ten on weekdays and eleven on weekends; it was now two forty in the morning. Things were not looking up.
When he finally approached my passenger side door, I rolled the window down and looked at his scary face.
He didn’t really look like a cop, but who was I to say what a cop should look like?
Although, I was fairly certain that unkempt beards were not on the list under professional.
“License and insurance,” the cop demanded sharply.
Handing him over the papers, I waited for him to walk back to the car, but he didn’t.
Instead, he stayed stooped down, staring at me.
“Step out of the car please. Have you been drinking?” He asked suspiciously.
Startled, I released the latch on my door and stood, walking to the back of the car.
He didn’t stop at the back of my car, though; he stopped at the back of his.
“Come over here and stand at the back of the car. Don’t move,” he instructed.
It was then that the scary factor started to kick in.
I was on a side street that ran beside the high school with no lights, and a police officer who wasn’t in uniform was way too close to me for comfort.
Did everyone have to step out of the car as I did? What was he going to make me do?
Thoughts flitted through my head at a mile a minute, and when he started to walk closer to me, my uncertainty became a full fledge panic.
“I’m n-not comfortable being this close to you.” I stuttered.
He smiled at me. The only thing I was able to see were the whites of his eyes and his sparkling white teeth. Which was why I was able to see the evil grin that overtook his face just before he grabbed me by the waist and sat me on the hood of his car.
“It’s okay, darling,” he said. “I’ll take really good care of you.”
When I started to struggle, his superior strength easily overtook any pitiful strength of mine.
He proceeded to wedge his body in between my legs.
“Are you aware of how fast you were going?” When I didn’t reply, he put his hand around my wrist and broke it.
Just that easy. One quick squeeze and it snapped like a dry piece of spaghetti in his big hand.
That was when I screamed.
The pain was excruciating. So excruciating that I had my pants down around my ankles before I even registered he was trying to remove them.
True panic set in, and I started fighting with everything I had.
I kicked, punched, scratched and screamed my sixteen year old heart out.
He held me pinned against the trunk, unable to do anything but hold me down with his body as the fight slowly drained out of me.
Exhaustion hit, and I knew...
***
Loki
When my neighbor dropped down to her knees in the corner of the room, I knew something terrible was wrong. Something more than what was going on around us.
“Hey, honey. You’re okay. Shhh, snap out of it. You’re safe,” I said soothingly to my little next-door neighbor.
What the fuck was she doing here?
“Back away from her, Rector. She’s afraid of cops. Deathly afraid,” The Chief said as he walked towards us.
I’d gathered that over the past four months of living beside her. I remembered her offhanded comments about cops.
Yeah, nobody wants a cop here, she’d said.
Then the way she acted the one time I had a patrol comb through the neighborhood on the pretenses of searching for a young child.
As soon as she’d seen the cop car, she’d bolted inside and locked the door.
At the time, it’d made me suspicious, but now it was all making a sick sort of sense.
Reluctantly, I backed away until I was standing beside my boss.
“What happened to her?” I asked, helplessness prominent in my voice.
She rocked back and forth, but when the distance between me and her widened, her keening had dropped to small pitiful moans.
“From what I’ve gathered from my wife, she was the victim of a rapist who posed as a cop. Been that way ever since,” he said grimly.
My eyes closed in pain. “And she lived on the block with that fucking douchebag all this time?”
Cabe’s face swiveled towards me, and his jaw was clenched tight. “Yes. Why do you think I gave you that house in the first place?”
“I thought it was to get me in the same neighborhood as Varian?” I asked in surprise.
He smiled grimly. “Two birds. One stone. My wife also made me promise I’d put my best man on her. That was the only way she wasn’t telling her.”
I shook my head. “How could you not tell me this? How’d your wife find out?” I asked.