Chapter 3

Theo Konstantopoulos was walking from the library to his frat house. He had some big tests coming and he needed to do some cramming. He had a number of things on his mind, not one of them had to do with the rape of a girl at a party a few weeks ago. He had fucked several girls since then and none of them rose to a level of his personal concern.

The black vehicle that followed him went unnoticed until the two large men that jumped out of the SUV demanded his attention. The black bag that suddenly covered his head was noticed by him, but no one else. A third man picked up Theo’s books, leaving no evidence that he had been there. The SUV pulled away slowly, invisible in it normalcy, with someone sitting on either side of a very scared and hooded Theo Konstantopoulos.

Theo had tried to struggle, but the men, he assumed they were men, had been so strong that whenever he tried to get loose, the response was very violent, immediate, and silent. Feeling the blood coming out of his nose and the throbbing in his face, he decided that sitting still was the best choice. The vehicle was moving along, the ride was smooth, so he surmised that it was on a smooth road.

Why had he been grabbed? His parents were not rich, so a ransom situation did not make sense. He was a senior, so this was not a hazing situation. He had made no enemies that would have gone to this extent to get his attention. His thoughts returned to his immediate environment.

After quite a time the ride became more rough and a lot louder. The vehicle was off of a paved road now. From the amount of time that seemed to have passed, he surmised that they were well out of the city. The vehicle stopped, and the door opened allowing a burst of fresh air. The smell of country was strong.

Two strong hands pulled him from his seat and dragged him across a surface that was not paved. He heard a door open and he was carried in through a door. He knew this because he hit his knee on the door frame. The hands lifted him and dropped him in a chair. The chair was pushed forward to some table like surface. His hands were placed onto that surface and some sort of restraints clamped down on his wrists and held him into place.

His ankles were likewise restrained to the legs of the chair. Then the room went quiet.

“Hello?”

He called out and a hard impact on his head told him that he was not alone and that he should not speak. He sat quietly for a long time. After some time he felt the urge to urinate. He tried to move around to release the building pressure, until he judged that the urge was stronger than the need to not be struck again.

“I have to pee.”

An immediate strike to the side of his head, along his ear, was so disorienting that he relieved himself on the spot. He began to whimper as he sat in a warm pool of his own urine. His ear was ringing and the pain was growing. After a very long time, he heard a door open.

There was a shuffling sound around him, then a voice came from directly in front of him.

“You will speak only when you are spoken to. You will answer any questions directly and immediately or you will be punished. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Is your name Theo Konstantopoulos?”

“Yes.”

“Three weeks ago did you drug and rape a girl at a party at your frat house?”

“No.”

An immediate shock of pain as something very hard and heavy hit his left hand. He let out a scream and was immediately struck on the side of his head.

“Answer the questions truthfully or be punished. Speak only when spoken to or be punished.”

“Three weeks ago did you drug and rape a girl at a party at your frat house?”

“I don’t remember.”

There were two more immediate impacts on his left hand. This time there was intense pain that remained letting him know that his hand had just been badly broken. He let out a scream and was immediately struck twice on the side of his head. The pain was intense, and he could feel something running out of his ear.

“Answer the questions truthfully or be punished. Speak only when spoken to or be punished.”

“Three weeks ago did you drug and rape a girl at a party at your frat house?”

“Yes.”

“Were you the only one that raped the girl?”

“Yes.”

There were three immediate impacts, this time on his right hand. There was intense pain and that told him that this time his hand had been broken on the first impact. He stopped himself from making a sound more than a weak whimper.

“Answer the questions truthfully or be punished.”

“Were you the only one that raped the girl?”

“No.”

“What were the names of the others?”

“Please don’t hit me, but what night are you taking about three weeks ago?”

“Are you implying that you have done this more than once?”

“Yes.”

Theo was now whimpering and sniffling.

“This girl was a virgin at the time.”

“Shit.”

There were three hard impacts onto each side of his head. He blanked out for an instant.

“Answer the questions truthfully or be punished. Speak only when spoken to or be punished.”

“Do you remember which girl it was?”

“Yes.”

He was now crying from the accumulated pain and the realization that he was going to be held responsible, this time, for what he had done.

“Were you the only one that raped the girl?”

“No.”

“What were the names of the others?”

“Brad, Bill, and Warren.”

“Last names?”

“Brad Fix, Bill Thomas, and Warren Pouts.”

“Where did you get the drug that you used?”

“I am in the vet med school and I took it from one of the labs.”

“Theo you WILL go to the police. You WILL ask for Detective Reeley. You WILL confess to him. You WILL tell the others to turn themselves in immediately and confess as well. Do you understand?”

“Yes.”

“Take him back to his frat house.”

His legs and hands were released. He was roughly lifted to his feet and dragged out the door and back to the vehicle. Even though he was limp, dead weight, the men carried him like he weighed nothing. They placed him in the back seat and they returned to their position on either side of him. After some time, the vehicle was back on the smooth road again and after what seemed like a very long time the vehicle stopped.

No one spoke as the door opened and he was summarily dragged out of the vehicle and thrown on the ground. The bag on his head was pulled off, blinding him with the early morning sunshine. He had been gone all night. The two men in all black, including hoods, that released him threw his books at him and returned to the large black SUV and he never saw their faces. The SUV drove away, but it had no license plate for him to remember, even if he had been able to remember anything through the pain.

He was lying in the circular driveway in front of his fraternity house. His head hurt as he rose to his feet and upon reaching the door, he found that he could not open it, so he began to violently kick it. One of his frat brothers opened the door and looked at him in shock. He was bleeding from both ears and his fingers were all pointing in different directions.

“Shit Theo. Did somebody’s boyfriend find you?”

“Fuck off. Call 9-1-1.”

He spoke weakly and fell down onto the floor.

The ambulance arrived about 15 minutes later along with the campus police. The EMT’s examined him and told him they needed to transport him to the hospital. The police kept asking how this happened. He did not know how to answer.

“I don’t know. I was walking home from the library and I was grabbed. They put a bag over my head and took me someplace and started beating on me.”

“Any idea of who it was?”

“Yeah, it was the boyfriend of a bitch that my friends and I raped a few weeks ago” he thought.

“No idea.” He said.

At the hospital, his head was examined, and a CT scan was done. His hands were badly broken and had to be reset and then cast. He was given a general anesthetic after he screamed like a little girl when the first finger was straightened. They kept him until the scans had been checked out and he was released. The doctor that set and cast his hands was nice enough to put a pencil like probe into the cast of his right hand. He could use that to do basic typing or texting on his phone.

He called a number and got Davey Loinson.

“Davey, come and get me at the ER. Yeah, I had an accident. We need to talk. Get a hold of Jamie and Steve and have them meet in my room.”

Davey Loinson pulled up to the ER exit and waited for Theo to walk out. He looked like shit. His ears were bandaged, and his hands were in casts. He looked a lot whiter than he had yesterday.

“What the fuck?”

“I’ll tell you all about it when we get with the guys in my room.”

Davey closed the driver side door of his truck after strapping Theo in the seatbelt. They drove home in silence. Davey not knowing what to say, Theo too scared and pissed to speak.

Jamie Billings and Steve Hoight were in Theo’s room when he arrived. He sat on the bed as the guys took in the sight of his hand and head wrappings.

“I was going to ask if this was so important that I could miss class. I guess it might be.”

“Yeah. OK, this does not leave this room, OK?”

“I guess. What the fuck!”

“Last night I was walking home from the library and got grabbed. They took me to some place way out of town and started asking questions about that cherry we did a few weeks ago, when I lied, they broke my hands. When I screamed, they ruptured both of my ear drums. I finally had to admit that I did the bitch and they forced me to tell them who did her with me.”

“You did what? You fucking snitch!”

“Shut the fuck up. I didn’t give them the real names. I gave them names of guys from the intramural basketball league. Let them go beat the shit out of those guys.”

“But we have a problem. These guys were serious. They wasted no breath, they kept everything very formal. They wanted me to turn myself in and then to tell the other guys to do the same. They know me, and they will come back for me if I don’t do that. So, I am leaving town.”

“But you are in your last year of school before you start the formal vet program.”

“I know, but that bitch ain’t worth dying for. They don’t know you guys, so you should be OK. But they do know me and, when they find out the names I gave them were wrong, they will be back for me.”

“But how are you going to do anything with those hands?”

“I’ll figure something out. In the meantime, you don’t know anything.”

Walt Workowski woke in the morning. The room was different due to the natural light. The clock on the nightstand told him that he had been asleep for almost 9 hours. The travel and stress had really taken its toll on him. He sat up and looked around at the simply decorated guest room. It was fairly generic but comfortable.

He stood and stretched and made his way to the bathroom and then the shower. After washing and shaving and dressing, he felt like a new man, until he really remembered why he was here. Today was the day he would have to take Tina home and watch the look on his wife’s face when they got home.

Today was the day that Tina’s mother would have to deal with a daughter that was no longer a virgin, not by her own choice, but by her own actions. He was sure that she would take Tina in her arms and love her like before, but sometimes major events change people in unexpected ways.

Walt opened the bedroom door and the smell of coffee hit him right in the face. He walked down the stairs and followed his nose into the huge country kitchen. Deb O’Dell was sitting at the table reading and having a cup of coffee.