She picked up her pace, hoping to slip past without drawing attention. But the drunken group had already seen her. “Hey, gypsy!” Victor Sinton shouted, his rough voice carrying in the frozen air.
Leah said nothing and walked faster, almost breaking into a run. “Stop, you hear me?” Alex yelled. The four of them moved to cut her off.
They were drunk, but they moved fast enough, blocking her only path back toward the apartment buildings. Within seconds it was clear she was not going to outrun them. Leah stopped and backed against the cold concrete wall of an abandoned warehouse.
“Leave me alone. Please. I haven’t done anything to you,” she said, trying to keep her voice steady, though her hands were shaking.
Gene, the oldest brother, stepped closest. He was a big man, broad-shouldered, with the puffy face of a heavy drinker and small mean eyes.
“Maybe not,” he said, “but I think you owe me.” Then he gave a nasty little laugh. The others joined in.
“I don’t have any money. Please just let me go,” Leah said. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a crumpled few dollars—everything she had left. “Here. Take it.”
Gene glanced at the bills, crushed them in his fist, and tossed them into the snow.
“We don’t want your money. We’re bored. We want a little fun. And you, sweetheart, look like just the thing.”
What happened next took about twenty endless minutes.
They dragged her into an old warehouse where rusted equipment sat under layers of dust. There they assaulted her one after another, holding her down when she fought and beating her when she screamed. Alex choked her until she stopped resisting, and Baldy was the last.
When they were done, Victor wanted to kill her, suggesting they strangle her or smash her skull with a metal bar. But Gene stopped him. “Why bother?” he said. “Who’s going to listen to some orphan girl with no one behind her?”
He was sure she would never be able to prove anything. They left her on the warehouse floor in torn clothes, bleeding and deep in shock, then walked out laughing and talking about doing it again sometime when they got bored.
Leah lay on the freezing concrete for hours before she could even move. In that weather she could easily have died of exposure, but the warehouse walls blocked enough of the wind to save her. She was young, and her body held on. Around midnight she finally managed to stand.
She pulled her torn coat around herself and picked up the scarf they had thrown aside. Pain shot through every part of her body. Her clothes were soaked with blood, and her face was badly swollen from the blows. Holding onto walls and fences as she went, she somehow made it back to her apartment without being noticed by the few people still out that late…
