Lost
Page 17
I didn’t see my life ending up here…
All those dreams and possibilities, and now I would be remembered as just another statistic.
All the warnings from education, from Mom and my big sister, Winter, and yet I still find myself here… Stolen… Lost.
Will they even look for me?
I look at the young girl battered and bruised in the bathtub, slung in there like garbage, her body broken, used up and destroyed. Matted hair that was once soft to touch, scabby lips that were once plump and pink, bruised skin that was once flawless.
Violated in ways no girl of her age should ever have to suffer.
Eyes wide, glassed over. Dead.
This was my fate.
That girl is me.
Cole’s calls ring out around me but I can’t move.
I’ve dragged her cold body from the tub and I can’t let go of her lifeless body.
How can this be real?
I want to fucking die.
I want to take her place.
I’d do anything to make this a dream, a nightmare, but I feel her in my arms. I see her there and I know it’s not a nightmare, it’s reality, cruel, harsh fucking reality.
Was this my punishment for taking a life? A disgusting, unworthy life of a man who would have stolen her innocence.
Was this always her fate, torture, rape?
“Arghhhhhh!” I scream into the air hoping it will shatter the walls and bring the whole place down on top of me, burying me in my failure.
I brought this into her life, this was because of me.
Laying her body down, I stand and go back through to Cole.
Taking his gun, I point it at Jake.
“Is she there, Win. Is she in there?” Cole pleads with me on a desperate breath.
“It was easy to get you chasing that Angel killer,” Jake goads me. “I just suggested that website to your sister via anonymous email a few days before taking her, and there you went, following the breadcrumbs like you could fucking save her.”
I point the gun at his crotch and shoot four rounds into him. The shots ring out, shattering the air. His howls don’t bring me any comfort.
“Win?” Cole states calmly but nothing is saving this fucker’s life.
I wait for his eyes to collide with mine before I empty another bullet into him - this time right between his eyes.
I can’t face my adoptive parents. Summer’s funeral is the first time I’ve seen them since finding her body. I failed them.
Cole’s hand slips into mine as the heavens open, pouring the tears of God’s angels down on us.
People keep offering their condolences but it means nothing. I’m completely numb inside. Cole had informed our birth mother of Summer’s death and funeral but she married and started a new life for herself. She hadn’t told her new husband about her past, including the two children she birthed! It shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. The sick, screwed up bitch couldn’t even come to her own child’s funeral.
There were a lot of questions and interviews I had to sit through after everything that happened, but Cole told me to tell them that he killed Jake. I wish I could kill him over and over, I daydream about it.
Cole is a rock for me and he takes a lot of my bullshit when I have days where I hate him for loving me. I don’t feel worthy of it.
“Baby, come on.” His gentle tone brings me from the pain inside my chest.
I follow him to his car; he was taking me to see Maria, the girl I found at the cabin. Her and her parents wanted to see me, and although I told Cole repeatedly no, I finally caved when he told me Maria needed it as well as me.
Pulling up at her house, I grab hold of Cole’s hand to stop him from exiting the car. I just want to watch them be normal, be a family through the window. Cole was right, this girl got to live, her family got her back because of Angel’s fixation with me.
Marshall Reign that was his real name, The Angel Killer. It feels wrong that he had a normal name, was a man, flesh and bone, and yet could be so fucking evil. What did he see inside me that made him think I was like him?
“We should go in, Win. You can tell them that we caught Marlon. It’s all over. It will help them move on.”
Stepping out of the car, I inhale a deep breath.
‘It’s all over.’
‘It’s all over.’
Maybe seeing Maria live will help me face one more day. Maybe one day I can live too. Maybe, one day, I can think of my beautiful sister and smile again. And maybe, one day, I can finally allow her to rest as she deserves.
But not yet. For now, I just have to learn how to breathe again.
Damn, she is beautiful.
It has been two years since she made detective, only five years after she graduated. It has been nine years since Summer’s murder, and ever since my Winnie has made it her mission to catch the most depraved of criminals. This meant going undercover for stretches of time. It was hard for me to let her be the kickass detective she was. Leaving her to venture into dangerous situations was tough at first but if there was one thing about my girl, it was that she knew how to survive and take out the bad guys.
“You look…”
“Ridiculous, I know.” She scrunches up her nose in distaste.
“Actually, I was going to say beautiful.” I grin.
“White’s not really my color.”
“That’s a damn shame.” I bite my lip and gauge her reaction as I drop to one knee.
“Cole?” she breathes, putting her hand to her mouth.
“I’ve always loved you. I’ll always love you. Love me back and make me the happiest man alive.”
She gasps and slips onto my knee, wrapping her arms around my neck. “I do love you.”
“Is that a yes?” I ask against her lips.
“Yes… Yes”
Four years later
“I hate you!” she bellows as sweat beads on her head and her face strains in pain.
“You love me,” I remind her. “Now push.”
She makes some angry grunting sound as she gives her body the strength it needs to deliver our baby.
“Well done, Winter. That’s it, here she is,” the doctor tells her, holding up our screaming, but very perfect and gorgeous, and stunning, and beautiful child.
“Her?” Winter pants, her eyes widening.
“Yes, a beautiful baby girl.”
Tears burn my eyes as I look down at the two most astonishing things to ever happen to me.
“We have a girl baby, a daughter.”
“I love you.” She sobs, and I grin.
“I told you that you did.”
She laughs a little, exhaustion making her sound weak and croaky.
“So do we have a name?” the doctor asks.
I stroke my thumb down Winnie’s cheek, nodding for her to say our babies name.
“Summer, her name is Summer.”
The End
Out Now
Ten years old I fell in love
Ten years was the price of that love
Ten years later our world’s re-collide
My brother Jonah was possessive when it came to the things he owned; this unfortunately included the people in his life. The forbidden love between his best friend and me was just that… forbidden.
Our families were from different walks of life and as a sheriff’s daughter being with a Moore’s kid would never be tolerated. To my parents their son and Dalton Moore were on different paths and their friendship would end as soon as college began but it was my brother who had a craving for trouble. He was always looking for danger, committing petty crimes and getting away with it because Dalton would take the fall, blackening his already stained name. When Jonah found out we broke the rules by loving each other, his consequences impacted us all with immeasurable suffering.
Betrayal comes with a debt and it would be paid by all of us.
One with their heart,
one with their mind
and one
would pay in blood.
The Devil visited me three times in my life; albeit, my short life. Not in the physical sense, you must understand, but very much literally.
He was persistent, resolute and tenacious. His ruthless greed to annihilate me was utterly disturbing. I am sure if he had hierarchy, the man at the top would have dragged his arse into Hell’s prison for his unscrupulous methods.
I was just fifteen when I first became aware of what he was capable of. This initial taste of him set the playing field for how my life was to be lived – for want of a better word.
He mocked me, showed me mercilessly how he played the game and how he liked to cheat at said game. He ridiculed and taunted me until, six months later, he won and took something of so much importance from me that I would never be the same again.
His second visit was, in my eyes, so much crueller and heartless. I know we’re talking about the Devil here, and yes, you have a right to say he had no heart but even then, even when I was so utterly broken, I begged to differ and hoped – no, prayed – that somewhere deep in the caverns of his black, tortured soul there was something that beat and confused his emotions once in a while.
The third visit was somewhat different than the other two. He tried, and at first succeeded to bring me to my knees once and for all, but then something happened. God finally intervened and altered Satan’s intention; he sent hope and morphed the Devil’s minion into an Angel, hoping to break and shatter the anguish and suffering. He gave the ability for me to feel pleasure in pain, order in the chaos and light in the darkness.
But in giving me a reprieve, he also gave me something that would finally and ultimately obliterate me. He gave me the capability to love, therefore giving me the ability to be destroyed.
And Satan made sure that I was destroyed. Cruelly, viciously and sadistically.
I am Mae Swift, and this is the story of my decimation.
People who make it happen
Cover design: Amy Queau
Proof reader: Jillian Crouson-Toth
Formatter: Champagne Formats
Beta readers: Vicki Leaf, Charlie Chrisholm
Release host: Just Another Book Bitch Blog
Ker Dukey
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D.H. Sidebottom
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