Total pages in book: 73
Estimated words: 69777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69777 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 349(@200wpm)___ 279(@250wpm)___ 233(@300wpm)
She held the board out to me again.
5 day. Mom werks at the gas stashon.
I looked back up at her. “You’ve been here alone for five days?”
She nodded.
“When did the electricity get cut off?”
She held up seven fingers.
It had been cut off before they abandoned her. Maybe I needed to kill Netta too. No. I shook my head. I didn’t know the woman. She might suck as a mother, but that didn’t make her a monster that needed to be destroyed.
The girl tucked a strand of oily hair behind her ear.
“Do you have food here?” I asked.
She dropped her gaze to the floor and shook her head.
I slowly looked over the horror that she had been left in, and I knew. I knew without asking her that Roger had been abusing her. My chest ached so badly that it was hard to breathe.
“Do you want to live here? With your mom?”
She shook her head without having to even think about her answer.
I already knew what I was about to do, but I needed to ask. If I didn’t ask, then I’d question this decision later.
“Does Roger … touch you … do things he shouldn’t to you?”
Her eyes told me what I needed to know. The fear that flickered in them as her entire body tensed was my answer. Then, she nodded.
Another reason he deserved to die. He had to die. To save others, that man needed to be put down. Like a rabid animal. But today, that wasn’t going to happen. I’d come here to save other girls from my nightmare. I wouldn’t save them all, but I was about to take this one from experiencing any more of it. I had no idea how or what this would mean with the guy I was dating since he had just put me up in a fancy apartment. But if he didn’t like it, we would move. Leave. Find us a place to live. I’d hide her. We could run, like I had been doing for the past six years. Whatever I had to do to protect her, I would.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
She took the board, erased the words, then wrote Dovie.
I held out my hand to her. “Dovie, I’m Briar, and I’m here to get you out of this hellhole. Do you want to go with me?” I had to ask even if I wasn’t going to be able to leave her here if she didn’t.
Her eyes widened, and the shocked look on her face worried me. Was she scared of me? What if she refused? How would I get her out of here?
She nodded her head, then looked back at the board in her hands and wrote another word.
Please.
• One •
“I’m a rule breaker.”
Briar
Fighting my own battles was something I excelled at. I’d been doing it since I had been a kid. There had never been a day when I didn’t face a hurdle I had to conquer. Allowing myself to relax and assume that I wouldn’t have to find a solution to a major problem today was foolish. I’d done that before, and it was a mistake I’d sworn I’d never do again. When life had never proven to be on your side, you woke up, prepared to face a new set of demons every morning.
Just because I was sitting on a swinging bed on the back porch of one of the most beautiful homes I’d ever been inside with the sweet smell of the peach trees surrounding me and a cup of delicious coffee in my hand did not mean I was letting my guard down. I was just allowing myself to soak in the moment, knowing that it was fleeting. This was always just out of my grasp. This life. The one where everything was handled and I didn’t have to constantly be ready to pick up and run at the drop of a hat.
It was these brief tastes of the life I’d never have that got me through the bad. And the bad came all the time. I’d heard that bad things came in three, and it always made me laugh. If they only came in three, then I’d be freaking relieved. I could come up for air on a regular basis.
Sure, every once in a while, I had a break.
This morning was my every once in a while.
Inhaling deeply, I sighed, content, then took another sip from my cup. Waking up in Storm’s bed with his arm wrapped around me, like he was never going to let me go, was a perfect memory that I’d tucked away immediately. Whatever we were doing right now was going to mark me. I’d never come out of this the same. I knew it, yet here I sat, on his back porch, drinking the coffee he’d made me and pretending like I wouldn’t be leaving him one day soon. Not because I wanted to, but because he’d tire of me. Or simply remember all the reasons he hated me.