“The police report says you woke up in a field at one point,” Kai remarked, hoping to get her started on her account. “That’s when he started assaulting you.”  

     She nodded and swallowed hard, looking down at her shaking hands.  

     “Yeah,” she sniffed, then recounted what she had told the detectives.  

     This time, she spoke more personally than a witness statement. She finally felt ready. 

     “I couldn’t see where I was,” she began. “There were a lot of trees and a fire nearby. I felt cold mud and he had my wrists and ankles tied to the ground. 

     I remember … I remember the soft wet grass tickling my fingers as I moved them across the slender blades.” 

     Her voice had become quiet and she seemed to be visualizing as she spoke. 

     “When I first woke up, I felt like I was in a dream, so I just laid there enjoying the feel of the grass and dew on my face. 

     Moisture settled on my cheeks from the low mist. I stuck out my tongue to taste it because I thought of doing that when I was a kid. Somewhere through the sound of bare branches creaking in the wind, I could hear water softly flowing in the distance. I wondered if the bucket my mother caught rain in was overflowing. 

     There was an owl hooting and I looked up at the moon directly above me. I used to talk to the moon as a child, and I could swear it was smiling down at me.” 

     As he listened to her story, he thought of the drug that was used. X-Strain was known to cause hallucinations. In varying doses, it caused multiple reactions, not only unconsciousness. In strong enough doses, it would cause death – intentional and accidental. 

     He thought about the cases he had heard and its popularity among gangs in S. Korea, and he wondered if that Asian club was how it was coming into the U.S. He would have to make a note of it in the report he would send to his captain. 

     He gently swung the swing with his foot as she continued. 

     “It wasn’t until I took a deep breath that I realized something was all wrong,” she told him. “There was a smell that made me sick to my stomach. There was something metal clanging somewhere near my feet where the fire was. 

     Whatever was blocking rational thought started to fade. Regardless of what my dream was telling me, I knew I was no longer a little kid and this was not my parents’ backyard. Somehow, I knew the lie was far better than the truth. 

     I tried to clear the fog from my mind to see clearly. 

     I was cold and reached for a blanket. For some reason, I couldn’t move my arms. It suddenly hit me that I was naked. I kind of knew but being naked outside laying on the ground started to really make me aware something was very wrong. When I couldn’t move, the fear woke me up the rest of the way. 

     All these questions raced through my mind. 

     What was the last thing I remembered? The club. I was at the Jade Monkey with my friends. 

     Was there anyone with us? I remembered three men, two of them had danced with us first. The third showed up out of nowhere and sat at the booth with me when the others went to the bar. 

     Did they get drunk? Was there an accident? Had one of them been drinking and driving and I was thrown from the car? Maybe I was paralyzed, but no, it didn’t make sense. None of us would ever drink and drive, but I did start to remember a car. 

     I asked myself, whose car. I would never leave with a stranger. I followed the memory and tried to see the shadowy form opening the back door for me. It was the man from the club. He laid me onto the backseat. It was the last thing I remembered. 

     Oh, wait, there was something else. There was a smell. It was strong. He had some kind of air freshener in his car with a scent I’d never smelled before. It was the last thing I remembered. 

     Eventually, he came to me. He saw I was awake. I screamed and tried to fight the restraints I had figured out were holding me down. 

     He spoke to me in a dead language. He told me I was worth more to him than the other women. That the others wanted to send a message but I was just for him, like his reward. He said disgusting things, like what he wanted to do to me.” 

    Kai watched as she took a deep breath and looked around the porch. She glanced toward the door as if to be certain they were alone, then looked at him. He tried to give her a smile of encouragement when she seemed worried about continuing. 

     “You don’t have to tell me anything you aren’t comfortable with,” he told her patiently. 

     She looked down at the buttons on his shirt and thought of more that she had never told the detectives or the councilor. He was quiet and somehow made her feel safe enough to go on. 

🩸  “He … He told me what he was going to do with his hands,” she said in almost a whisper. “He grabbed my chest and squeezed hard. It hurt. He pinched my nipples so hard, I thought he was trying to rip them off.” 

     She covered her mouth with her hand as she let out a sob from the memory. 

     “Did I tell you there was a scarf covering my mouth?” she asked, suddenly remembering. 

     He shook his head. 

     “I realized it when I tried to scream the first time,” she continued. “He told me he would remove it if I promised to be quiet. I made myself calm down to trick him into believing I would. 

🩸   As soon as it came off, I screamed louder than I ever had. He hit me with the back of his hand. It hurt and I cried, then he hit me again and again. I didn’t think he was going to stop. He was so angry. 

🩸   I could feel blood filling my mouth, and when I turned my head after another hit, it spilled out over my face. He told me I was a stupid, lying bitch. He said he was going to make it worse because I betrayed his trust. 

🩸   My legs were spread out the way he had tied me down. He started touching me and hurting me with his fingers. He shoved them under my nose and into my mouth. I smelled and tasted blood, not from how he had hit me before, and I knew it was from how rough he had touched me. He laughed when I cried. 

     He took off his clothes and knelt between my legs. I started begging him not to hurt me anymore. I used the language he had been using.” 

     “Pazeh,” Kai interrupted to be certain he read correctly. 

     “Yes, Pazeh,” she confirmed. “Do you know of it?” 

     He nodded. “My mother was from Taiwan. She used to sing me nursery rhymes in the language.” 

     “Det. Fang is from Taiwan, too,” she remarked, smiling a little at the similarities. 

     He returned her smile, grateful for giving her a moment of joy during her harrowing tale. She cleared her throat at the compassionate way he looked at her and continued.

     “Um … You … You can guess what he did,” she whispered. “I could tell he was being as rough as he could. It wasn’t just lust. He was using his body to cause as much pain and damage as possible. 

     The way he looked at me while he was doing it was so evil. He looked furious. I knew he was still mad at me for screaming, but it was more than that. It was like he was taking revenge on me for something personal even though we’d never met. 

     I lost consciousness at some point. I don’t know if it was the blood I was losing or the drug kicking in again. When I woke up, he was crouched beside me stroking my face with his fingers. 

     He said, ‘Shhh…It’s time.’” 

     Melody choked back another sob and tried to still her trembling lip. 

🩸   “He lifted a branding iron that was glowing red from the fire and shoved it over my right breast. I’ve never felt any pain that could even come close. I screamed but he had me gagged again. I blacked out. 

     When I woke up, he was splashing my face with water. I tried to catch my breath as it went into my nose. 

🩸   Then he shoved the iron over my left breast. My skin was wet from the water, so it sizzled and there was more smoke. My body started shaking and I fought to get free of the restraints. It seemed the more I moved, the more the iron was pressed against me. He pulled it away and I could smell the skin and meat, meat from my body. 

🩸   I was crying in pain and he knelt between my legs. He lifted another branding iron and shoved it over my belly. He raped me while he held it down. I blacked out and didn’t wake up until I was laying outside of the club. 

     The ground was cold and hard and it smelled bad. When I saw the neon lights from the Jade Monkey, I realized I was at the back of the club and the smell was vomit and garbage. There’s a small overflow parking lot back there for when the front gets full, so I was about to scream for help. 

     Before I could, I saw him holding a bucket over me. When I saw something red pouring down, I shut my eyes. I found out later it was animal blood. I felt the cold liquid on my body and realized I was still naked.

     He crawled on top of me and told me it had all been for me, that everything he’d done was for me. I tried to scream when I felt something sharp being pressed into my chest, but the scarf he had wrapped around my mouth was too thick. I felt the point going deeper. I thought I was about to die but then he stopped. He stood and ran away. 

     I tried to stay awake to wait for someone to help, but I passed out again. I woke up in my car with my friends and told them as much as I could before I lost consciousness.” 

     She stopped for a moment while she tried not to cry, but the tears ran down her face. He watched her rub her hands together, though the morning was quickly warming up, and he wanted terribly to hold her. He dared not touch her yet.