Perfectly Dysfunctional

I was surprised when I felt movement go right past me. I opened my eyes and turned to watch the guy walk towards Dave lying on the floor.

He picked him up, “Son, they’re here,” he said in a rough voice and I couldn’t help but sob. It occurred to me that my friends were just outside so I made a dash for the front door. The chain was over the door and I banged on it before managing to unlock it, but I was grabbed from behind by even stronger hands than Dave’s and thrown to the living room door where I was caught by Dave. He dragged me in and slammed the door closed, pushing me towards the sofa again.

“No!” I screamed bloody murder and struggled against him for what felt like the millionth time. He reached for his own belt with one hand whilst holding both my hands above my head with his other hand. I continued to cry and beg for him to stop but it was to no avail; he’d removed his belt entirely then grabbed my hands managing to tie them together even through my attempts at hitting him and getting away. I heard the door slamming before I heard raised voices and Dave’s dad’s voice too. I cried harder when Dave reached for my jeans again, pulling the other side down before grabbing at my underwear and making his best attempt to rip it before he gave up and pushed it to the side. I screamed and sobbed to the extent where I felt myself about to pass out – my head was a thousand times more painful than it had been when I woke up, the lack of oxygen getting its way around my body due to my erratic breathing wasn’t helping, and the sheer volume of my own screams and cries was making the pain a million times worse. I fought against the belt that was tying my hands together, knowing I had only seconds. I suddenly had a thought and brought both my hands the way they were tied up down as hard as I could to the top of his head repeatedly, making sure the buckle got him a few times until he stopped moving and slumped forward on top of me.

I was exhausted from putting up a fight for so long, and suddenly I heard even louder shouts before everything became quieter. I pushed Dave off of me and fixed my underwear to maintain a little dignity before using my mouth to start at the belt. My cries had quietened down to frightened sobs and as soon as I loosened the belt I was on my feet and wrenching the door opened.

“How was she, son?” Dave’s dad turned around with a smug look on his face that turned to one of shock when he was obviously expecting Dave to be standing in my place and I felt a little smug at his surprise. My breathing was too ragged and erratic for me to speak, so I took in the scene before me. Max was sitting by the wall clearly disorientated as he had his head in his hands and couldn’t look straight ahead without his head lolling from side to side – pretty much how I felt – and Dave’s dad had Nathan kneeling on the stairs with a gun pointed at his head. If I had felt sick before, there would have to be a whole new word invented to describe how I felt about this. Dave’s dad growled before walking away from Nathan towards the living room. I jumped out of his way as he came close to me but he kept the gun pointed between the three of us. As soon as he was happy that no one was moving, he turned around presumably to wake Dave up. I ran towards Nathan and collapsed in his arms.

“Are you okay?” he asked me.

“How the Hell did you find this place?” I fired back, “Did he hurt you? What about Max? Oh my God,” I turned and sat in front of Max, trying to look in his eyes.

“’M fine,” he mumbled quietly and I bit my lip.

“Jenny!” Nathan hissed and I turned around to see his eyes roaming my attire. His face suddenly had the angriest look I’ve ever seen and he made to stand up.

“Nath no – don’t go in there!” I hissed. He kneeled in front of me.

“Did he-?”

“No, let’s just go, quickly, please,” I begged, tears still forming and falling. But before we could make any moves to the opened front door, the living room door opened and out walked Dave and his dad. Dave’s dirty blonde hair now had some dark stains on it, and his jaw was swollen on both sides. I felt a little bit of satisfaction knowing I’d done all of that, but didn’t have much time to revel in it as I was being grabbed by Dave and cool metal being carelessly pointed at my head.

“Let her go,” Nathan growled as Dave walked backwards towards the stairs and sat down, forcing me to sit between his legs.

“Or what?” Dave challenged then started stroking my hair out of my face. I whimpered when he started whispering into my ear and he pressed the gun harder into my head, “Why should I?” he finally asked Nathan.

“She’s got nothing to do with this!”

“She’s kinda everything to do with this now. Besides, if I don’t have her, I pretty much have no leverage over you,” I heard the smirk in his voice and thought of how I could get out of this situation with no bullets fired but came up short. There was a long pause before Dave spoke again, “You ruined my life, Sykes,” Dave said dangerously.

“Oh, hardly, you made those fucking rumours up!” Nathan shouted, keeping his eyes on the gun in Dave’s hand, me, and Dave’s eyes.

“Ah-ah-ah,” Dave said and cocked the gun, pushing it further into my temple. I bit my lip and made a small noise of fright from the back of my throat. My heart raced as Dave’s free hand rubbed up and down my arm. “Don’t worry,” he muttered, “If I have to do it, it’ll be quick. Nathan,” he said louder, “I’m telling you; one more wrong move and we’ll be wearing the contents of her head, you got that?” Everyone was silent. “Get in there, all of you,” Dave pointed towards the living room and I stumbled over my feet a little as Dave’s dad shut the living room door behind us, staying out in the hallway.

“Dave, please just let Jenny go,” Nathan pleaded.

“No can do I’m afraid.”

“What; why? I’m here now; you’ve got me right where you want me!”

“Not quite. I’m not stupid, Nathan. I know you’ll have told your other friends about this, and probably the police. So I’m going to have to wait and take them all down before I can deal with you lot. Everyone else will go, then it’ll be us three left,” he moved the gun and waved it between me, him and Nathan before pointing it carelessly back at me, “And trust me, you will be last to die.”

I gulped. He was insane. I looked at Nathan, forcing myself to stay calm when I saw the panic in his eyes. I tried to silently tell him, plead with him, to not panic, but he didn’t get it. “Y-you’re crazy,” he muttered.

“Don’t call me crazy!” Dave moved the gun, cocked it again and aimed it at Nathan. I bit down hard on my cheek to stop myself crying out. Nathan stayed still, keeping his eyes on Dave. After a few long moments Dave relaxed again and pulled me even closer to him. He pointed the gun back at me then buried his face in my neck. “Does this get to you, Nathan?” he mumbled against my neck. I held my gaze with Nathan. Dave started kissing and sucking on my neck and, as uncomfortable as it made me, I let him. Nathan’s fists clenched at his sides but he relaxed when I kept my eyes glued to his. “Even if it doesn’t, I’m gonna keep going-”

Suddenly the door opened and in walked Jay. I looked behind him and saw Dave’s dad being kicked in the ribs by Tom as he walked in to stand beside Jay. Dave growled and turned his body round to face Jay and Tom bringing me with him, “What the fuck is going on?”

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Dave,” Jay grinned at him and intentionally cracked his knuckles showing absolutely no fear at all despite the fact there was a cocked gun pointed at my head, “I’m Jay. But you know that. Just in case you don’t remember though, you gave me this.” Jay pointed at the left side of his forehead where his scar was. Up until that point Jay had been grinning and talking sweetly, almost as if to a child, but now his eyes grew dark and his tone was menacing. I quickly realised that I didn’t like Jay like this one bit, but his attitude wasn’t aimed for me, so I quickly let it go. Jay definitely wasn’t the strongest or most physical, but I wouldn’t dare cross him when he looked this angry. It was then that there was a lot of shouting and Jay stepped out of the way and we all realised that it was the police that were shouting – thank fuck. I couldn’t really see any of us getting out of this without bullets being fired, though. Dave panicked and lifted me by my hair so I was standing on my tiptoes and moved the gun from my head to my throat as they rounded the corner yelling stuff about dropping the gun or something. Their shouts got louder and more spaced apart as they waited for someone to make a move. My brain wasn’t registering anything; my heart was beating faster and my vision was blacking out. I hyperventilated as more shouting went on then fell to the floor as Dave’s gun was fired.