Dead Girl Ch. 01-02

When Don got up 30 minutes later the next day, he decided to take the car to the park. It wasn't that he was worried about missing her. He was hardly thinking about her anymore, except to jerk off 2-3 times a day. He'd found that he liked being at the park alone, watching the world change around him in the growing light. It made him feel as if he were part of all that change and newness somehow.

He parked in the school lot and made his way to the sidewalk that circled the park. He was about half way around when he saw it, a dark lump in the middle of the field, not far from where he'd found her the first time. His heart leapt and he immediately began jogging towards her--towards it--through the wet grass.

Don reached her panties first, two or three feet from her in the grass. She was lying on her side with her back to him. Her skirt was pulled up again and he could see her ass. 'Damn!,' he thought as he stared at it briefly. She had an amazingly luscious ass for such a petite girl. He picked up her panties, wet with morning dew. They were lacy and white and impossibly small. He looked around to make sure no one was watching him before he lifted them to his nose and breathed in the scent of her pussy as he stared at her ass. He wanted to file that away for later use.

He walked the rest of the way to her, and squatted down behind her. She was wearing the same boots and skirt. Her socks were white and pulled up above her knees to the mid thigh. Her shirt was baby blue with a lacy collar. It looked like a little girl's shirt, and fit her like one too, tight and not even reaching the bottom of her rib cage.

He reached out and put his hand on the tattoo on her upper arm and shook gently. "Hey." She didn't stir. "Hey," he said, shaking her a little harder. "You still alive?" He smiled at his joke, but when she still didn't respond he became concerned. He shook her harder, and spoke louder. "Hey there. Are you OK?"

He let out the breath he was holding when she finally stirred. She rolled over onto her back with a groan. Her eyes were still closed, her face contorted in pain.

"Oh my God," Don said. He dropped to his knees next to her. Her cheek was badly bruised. There was a nasty gash in the middle of the bruise that had bled quite a lot. Most of the blood had run down her cheek and dripped off into the grass. Don realized that she'd been punched and knocked out and had lay here like this ever since. He wondered how long that had been. "Are you OK?"

"Do I look OK, dipshit?" the girl retorted. She pulled a hand up to her cheek, but didn't touch it. She hissed sharply between her teeth. "What the fuck?" she asked nobody in particular.

"It looks like you were punched in the face, pretty hard," Don explained.

"How bad does it look?"

"Pretty bad," Don told her. "It looks like it hurts."

"No shit, Schrödinger!" she spat at him. "You're a real fucking genius." She opened her eyes and looked at him. "Oh, it's the perv. Great."

Don tried to ignore her hostility and insults. He'd probably feel the same way if he woke up like this. "Here," he said. "Have some water." He reached out and handed her her panties. She looked skeptically at him. "Oh, sorry." He pulled the panties back and handed her his bottle of water. Then he handed her the panties again. "I found these over there."

She took both of them from him and threw the panties back in the direction he'd indicated with his head.

'Fair enough,' he thought. 'She didn't really need those right now.'

She tried to sit up, but fell back in a grimace of pain. "Fuck!"

"Let me help," Don said. He reached out a hand, which she took reluctantly.

Once sitting, the girl took a long drink of water. When she was done she dropped her head grimacing again. She put a hand on her forehead. "Fucking hell. What the fuck happened?"

"It looks like somebody knocked you out," Don explained. "Your cheek is pretty swollen. It's cut, and you've been bleeding. It looks like you might have a bit of a black eye too. I have my phone this time. Still no cops?"

The girl shook her head 'no'.

"What about an ambulance? You might have a concussion."

She shook her head 'no' again.

"Can I drive you to the hospital?"

The girl took another painful drink of water. "I'm not getting into a perv's car."

Again, Don tried not to take offense. "That's surprisingly sensible for a girl I've found naked and unconscious in a park twice in four days." Don was proud of his return snark, but also felt a little bad about it, given her condition.

The girl looked up at him angrily.

"I have a first aid kit in my car. Will you at least let me clean you up a bit? There should be some tylenol in there too. That'll help with the headache."

"Fine," she said bitterly, before taking another drink.

"Can you get up and walk on your own?" Don asked.

She started to roll to the side to pick herself up, but stopped with another grimace and hiss of pain. "Fuck. I don't think so."

"Can I help?" he asked patiently.

She didn't respond right away, but finally nodded yes.

Don took the water from her and stood up. He straddled her, and took both her hands in his. They were small and delicate, but dirty. "OK, here we go. You ready?"

The girl closed her eyes and nodded her assent.

Don stepped back slowly, pulling her up as gently as he could. On her feet, the girl grimaced with her eyes closed tightly. He continued to hold one hand to steady her as she put the other on her forehead. "Can you walk?"

She was unsteady on her feet. "Nuh-uh," she said shakily.

"Can I help?" he asked again.

"OK," her tone was now one of acceptance rather than defiance.

Don moved in close next to her, side-to-side. He held her by a hand over his shoulder, and put his arm around her waist. She was light. "OK?" he checked.

"Watch that hand, perv," she replied weakly.

"Good," he smiled. "It's this way. Step with me, OK?" Don turned the girl around and headed towards the car. After a few steps he stopped. "Just a sec." He bent over to pick up her panties again and stuffed them into his pocket. She seemed a bit steadier than when she first stood up. After a few more steps she became more confident. Don tried not to think about his hand on the girl's waist. Her skin was smooth and warm, her muscles were taught against his hand. She was thin and his fingers wrapped around her so that his fingertips touched the edge of her flat stomach. Don tried not to think about it.

"You doing better?" he asked gently.

"I think so."

"Is your head swimming?"

"Yeah," she answered, "but not as much."

"That's probably good," he assured her. "You're doing great. We're almost there."

"Thanks, coach Perv." Even woozy and in pain, snark was her main mode of communication.

Don couldn't help but laugh. Her dedication to her defiance was admirable, even if self-destructive.

At the car, Don popped the trunk and sat her down on the edge. He rummaged around behind her as she took another drink of water. He pulled out an old zippered hoodie and shook it out. "Here, put this on," he said as he wrapped it around her shoulders. "It's a little dirty, but it's dry and warm. He dove back into the depths of the trunk and finally emerged with the first-aid kit. He opened it up and pulled out some ibuprofen, which he handed to the girl. "Take these." Next he found some antiseptic wipes and a bandaid. Tearing open one of the wipes, he warned her, "This is going to sting."

She replied by raising her face and turning her busted cheek towards him. He started by gently wiping away the dried blood, working slowly closer to the actual wound. Other than a slight flinch when he first touched the cut, she did not react.

Tough or stubborn, he wondered. Maybe they were the same thing, or at least closely related.

As Don cleaned away the blood he began to see an indentation in her skin around the cut. "Hmmm," he mused. "It looks like whoever hit you was wearing a ring. Something round and flat maybe. It looks like there's a pattern, but I can't make it out."

The girl jumped, causing her cheek to bump against Don's hand. "Ow!" she winced. "Motherfucker!"

"Hold still," he warned. "You recognize the ring?"

"Fucking Richie," the girl spat. "That's his ring. Fucker blind-sided me. That's it. I'm going to cut his balls off and stuff them down his throat."

"Well, I'd say you probably have a concussion. So maybe wait a week before you cut his balls off?" He finished cleaning the wound, and got out the band-aid." This might leave a scar," he told her as he applied the band-aid as gently as he could. "Maybe a doctor could give you some stitches. That might help." He shrugged, pulling back to look at his handiwork. "That's better. How does it feel?"

She reached up and gingerly touched her cheek. "OK, I guess. No doctors."

"How's your head?"

"I don't know. Better, maybe?"

Don heard the girl's stomach rumble loudly. He looked more closely at her. Her clothes were old and frayed around the edges. Like her, her clothes were disheveled and dirty. "When was the last time you ate?"

She shrugged indifferently. "I don't know." She rubbed her forehead.

Was she still woozy, or did she just not want to tell him the truth? "Can I buy you some breakfast?"

The girl looked at him wearily.

"I know. You still think I'm a perv?"

"I don't know you're not a perv," she replied without hostility.

"I tell you what." Don reached into his pocket for his phone, but instead felt the frilly delicateness of her damp panties. "Oooh," he winced. "This probably won't help, but..." he pulled her panties out and handed them to her. "...these are yours."

She snatched them out of his hand, glaring at him.

"I did try to give them to you earlier," he reminded her. Her eyes softened a little. Don reached into his other pocket and pulled his phone out. "Here's my cell phone," he said, turning it to face her. "Here's how you dial 911 while it's locked. OK? You hold on to that until we get there." He stood up. "Do you like pancakes?"

She looked at the phone in her hand and then at Don, studying him. "OK."

"Great," Don smiled. "Can you get up?"

The girl stood up gingerly, but quickly found her balance. She put her arms into the sleeves of the hoodie around her shoulders. Don walked with her to the passenger door and watched her get in, making sure she didn't need help.

As he got into the driver's seat he saw her putting her panties back on, catching a glimpse of her dark pubic lips. His crotch tingled and he tried to ignore it. "Seatbelts," he chimed, starting up the car. The girl gave him a look like he was a nagging mom, but put her seatbelt on.

It took less than ten minutes to get to the pancake house. They rode in silence. The day was brightening and traffic had picked up. The girl stared out her side window as they drove. Her defiant anger was gone. She seemed reachable, vulnerable now.

Don didn't try to talk to her. He thought she probably needed a moment to gather her thoughts after everything that happened. It must have been jarring, to say the least, to wake up that way. She stared out the window as they drove.

'Maybe there's hope for her,' he thought to himself.