Benjamin puts the knife at Eva's upper arm and languidly starts dragging it down.
"Stop, you moronic bastard!" I scream, hazily noting the hitch in Eva's breath. "Stop, I'll tell you!"
Eva snaps her head to face me but I keep my eyes fixed on Benjamin. Just as I had so fervently hoped, he squats down in front of me, so close that I can feel his breath on me. The grin on his face can't be described as anything but cruel.
And just as I had hoped, again, my wrists are free now. I shake them once tentatively behind my back.
"Yes, Charlene darling, where is it?"
"I don't know about now but very soon I'm gonna shove it up your ass!" and I punch him straight in the nose, my thumb out of my fist, just like my mother had taught me once.
Blood starts trickling out of his nose, a few drops even sputtering on me, and because it's on the nose, I'm pretty sure he can't see very clearly. That gives me ample opportunity to free Eva's hands out of the knots while his blood makes mosaic patterns on the dirty floor.
Eva gapes at me openly as I'm bended behind her back and then shrieks suddenly, "Charley!"
I turn back to face forward just as Benjamin comes towards me with his fist in air. I duck and he ends up swatting the air.
Eva is struggling out of the bonds on her feet while I stand up, unsure on my tied feet, and aim my hand straight at Benjamin's nose. I push and tweak the definitely-broken cartilage which elicits a horrible cry from him.
"You fucking dyke!" He's flailing his arms—most likely because his eyes are watering awfully—which is great for me as I signal at Eva to work at the knots at my feet first.
She starts undoing them while I keep holding Benjamin's nose, but suddenly his dumb head starts working as it occurs to him to step back. Then he aims a punch right at my jaw.
Let me just say one thing: that fucking hurts. Even more than your fist hurts when you're the one doing the punching.
He doesn't stop at one and keeps punching until I start coughing up blood.
Time has lost its sense, or maybe I've lost sense of time. Either way, I can't figure out if it's been hours or minutes since Benjamin started mauling me.
I've also lost much of the feeling on my face but I know it's still hurting me somehow because blood keeps spurting out of my mouth, leaving a horrible taste in its wake.
Sometime between those god-awful punches, Eva succeeds in untying my feet so now I'm sprawled on the floor and Benjamin is kicking at me wildly, my body whirring like a very old machine, gradually getting dissociated with me.
Unconsciousness is licking at my head second time in a single day but this time, it's just blackness that is edging closer with each passing second.
In that slowly creeping blackness, something glints for a second, then the kicks stop.
"Lay one more hand on her and I'll fucking slit your throat and eat your body. Piece by piece."
And with the voice of her saving me, I let the blackness win, hoping that this is the last I'd be seeing of Benjamin Ramirez.