Hell And Back

by Natasha Madison

  Table of Contents

  HELL AND BACK

  Copyright

  Warning

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Epilogue

  Marissa & Mick

  Read Natasha Madison Debut Novel

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Hell And Back ©2016 Natasha Madison

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. This book contains material protected under International and Federal Copyright Laws and Treaties. Any unauthorized reprint or use of the material is prohibited. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted n any form or by any means, electronica or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without express written permission from the author/publisher, The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, alive or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  DISCLAIMER. This is a work of adult fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. The author does not endorse or condone any behavior enclosed within. The subject matter is not appropriate for minors. Please not this novel contains profanity and explicit sexual situations.

  Cover Design: Melissa Gill with MGBookCovers & Designs

  Photographer: Lindee Robinson with Lindee Robinson Photography

  Models: Daria Rottenberk and Garrett Pentcost

  Book formatting by CP Smith

  Editing done by Emily A. Lawrence at Lawrence Editing

  Proofing Julie Deaton Author Services by Julie Deaton

  Warning

  This content contains material that may be offensive to some readers.

  Including sexual abuse, graphic language, and adult situations.

  Dedication

  To my Nanny, who was the first person to read to me and show me love for books.

  This one is for you, and unlike the last one, it’s not dirty. You’re welcome!

  Prologue

  Walking into the bare room, I look around. A small dresser with three drawers sits up against the plain white wall.

  A couple of shorts, shirts, and some socks fill the drawers, but most are empty. The small toddler bed lies in the middle of the room.

  Two nails hold up a dusty sheet in the window to block out the light. It used to be navy, but the years of wear have turned it to baby blue.

  I look down at my three-year-old daughter curled up into a small ball. Almost like she is guarding or protecting herself from whatever evil is lurking around us. She’s seen enough blackness in her three years to last a lifetime.

  She cried enough tears and heard enough sobs to fill twenty years’ worth of scary movies.

  When the doctor placed her on my chest I vowed to love and protect her, but I’ve failed her. I’ve failed myself. But no more. From that fateful day I vowed to right all the wrongs I did to her.

  I’ve escaped the horror we’ve endured. The bruises are starting to fade. The black and blues have now turned into a greenish yellow.

  The scars will fade, too, but the terror, the memories…nothing will erase them.

  I wake my girl up and grab her from her bed. “Momma, we habe to leabe again?”

  “No, baby, I just want to show you the stars outside.” I tuck her into my chest and make my way to the porch.

  No one knows about this one-story house my grandmother left me. Which is why we are safe. For now.

  The yard is overcome with weeds. Something I plan to rectify tomorrow. We’ve been here for the last seven days, staying inside. Trying not to bring attention to us. I’ve done my best not to be too jumpy, but every time I hear a car door slam shut, I hold my breath, hoping no one is coming up the steps that lead to the front door.

  We haven’t even opened the windows. It is almost like we’re shuttering ourselves inside this temporary safe haven as if we don’t even exist.

  Opening up the screen door, the rusty springs make a loud squeaking noise in the dead of the night. Trying not to make it slam shut, I hold the handle till it shuts softly.

  The sounds outside are quiet. Serene. No car sounds, no horns honking, no rushing, just crickets. I settle into the swing I know my grandfather hung to make sure my grandmother had somewhere she could sit and watch the stars.

  For thirty-seven years, they did it all together until death came and took my grandfather in his sleep. Ten years later, he came and rescued her from the pain of ALS. Her knitting, cooking, cleaning, gardening, baking all came to a halt the minute her hands shook so badly she couldn’t hold not even a fork to feed herself.

  Settling myself into the swing, I fold one foot under me, pushing off with the other one.

  “So many stars, Momma.” My brown-eyed girl looks up, pointing to what looks like a million twinkling lights in the sky.

  The darkness of the sky makes them sparkle like diamonds. Some are small, some are blinking. All are beautiful. It’s peaceful. It’s everything I remember it to be.

  It’s hope, hope for change. Hope for the future. Hope for the end of the nightmare I have been living the last four years. “Look, baby, a shooting star. Make a wish.”

  She closes her eyes, and I see her lips move, but no sound comes out of her mouth. I lean down kissing her forehead, making my own wish.

  I do this for the next thirty minutes, maybe more, pushing myself on that swing with one foot. Once I know she is asleep in my arms, I get back up to go inside.

  The whole time I never realized that the neighbor across the street has been sitting in his living room with the lights off just staring out the window at two broken girls sitting across the street.

  Chapter One

  I wake slowly, the sun trying to fight its way through the sheet. I look down to see that we haven’t moved since coming in from outside last night.

  Stretching carefully, I lean down to kiss her head, makin
g sure I don’t wake her. I take a second to breathe in the moment, thinking about how I got to this point in my life.

  They say you never know hell until you lived in it. I can assure you I know it. I’ve lived in it. I’ve asked to die in it.

  I know that you might look at me and wonder what I’m talking about. How can a twenty-four-year-old, who is also a mother, know what hell is?

  I can say it didn’t happen overnight. It happened gradually, slowly. So slow, in fact, I didn’t even know it was happening until I was sitting in the middle of it.

  My parents dumped me off on my grandparents when I was eight. It seems partying and parenting don’t go hand in hand. Something they thankfully figured out before I ended up dead with the two of them.

  They were on the road, following their favorite band from state to state when their car was hit head-on by a semi whose driver fell asleep at the wheel.

  I know I should have been sad, but I wasn’t. Maybe this is why God is punishing me. I really didn’t know my parents. All I knew was my grandmother, who loved me unconditionally. She made it possible for me to grow up being a normal kid. And like any normal kid, I was ready to leave home the minute I hit eighteen. Ready to be my own person. Ready to take on the world.

  I was your typical college student trying to better myself. Trying to do things on my own.

  Not only did I move away from Nan, I went to a community college some four states over.

  It all started like any other Saturday morning. I was doing the breakfast shift at the diner in town.

  The diner was filled with early rising families and truckers passing through town. What made this day different was the party of four guys who looked like they hadn’t slept yet. Chances are this was the last step before hitting the hay.

  I didn’t give them a second thought till they sat in my section. I went to their table, asking for their order.

  It took a second for my eyes to meet his. It took me a second more to fall for that lopsided smile and lone dimple. That second I fell for him will always be the one moment I wish I could go back and change.

  Because from that second on, I was under Adam Fletcher’s spell.

  Were things perfect? No. I found out he had no job and wasn’t attending college either. Instead, he was just living day by day, as if it was his life’s goal to do so.

  Not every single eighteen-year-old has goals. I was not in it for money. I was in it for love. Boy, was I fucking naïve.

  It started with coffee dates. Oh, those sweet first dates, where he just held my hand. Talking about the future he wanted to have, or was trying to have, I should say. He never really achieved anything to make it his goal.

  I should have seen the signs in the beginning as well. The times he missed dates, saying, “Sorry, babe, I lost track of time.”

  The times he didn’t call when he said he would call. “Sorry, babe, my phone died.”

  The fact he always started out the day energetic and hyper, only to end it looking ragged and sleepy. “Sorry, babe, was up late.”

  A junkie. That is what he was. Something I knew nothing about. Something I would spend the rest of my life fighting or, better yet, running from.

  A small voice and little fingers bring me out of the fog of the past and back into the present. I look down at my little girl, who smiles up at me.

  “Morning, Momma,” she whispers, leaning in to kiss me.

  “Morning, baby, are you hungry?”

  She doesn’t answer me. Instead, she just nods.

  “Let’s go downstairs and get you some food.” I pull myself from the bed. I don’t have to turn around to know she is right behind me.

  “Momma, can I have more cereal with milk?” Her voice is barely a whisper, a soft voice she learned early to use so as not to wake the monster who was living with us.

  “Yes, you can, angel.” I fill up her second bowl and add a heaping amount of milk. It’s finally time she gets to eat what a normal kid should eat.

  We both look malnourished. I’m maybe a hundred and three pounds of skin and bones, and my little girl doesn’t look any better. Forced to survive on maybe a meal a day.

  I often didn’t eat just to make sure she had enough so her tummy wouldn’t hurt.

  I look around the sparse house. The curtains downstairs are in dire need of replacement, but they keep the sun out, making it feel like we are invisible. Nothing about this place has changed from when I moved in or from when I moved out.

  The house was a gift from above. It was our ticket out. I lost contact with Nan when Adam and I got together. The phone calls home became fewer and farther in between.

  Most of the time he didn’t want me to call her because she was a ‘nosy bitch’ according to him.

  I mean, I suppose if you base it on the fact she cared and worried about me, then yes, she was definitely a nosy bitch.

  It was that phone call three weeks ago, the one that gave me hope and showed me there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

  I sat there battered and bruised, one of my eyes swollen shut while my little girl sat next to me, making sure she didn’t touch my ouchies, and there were many.

  I dialed the number I hadn’t called in a while. A number he isolated me from. It wasn’t her who answered, though, and when I asked for Nan, I was given the news she had passed but had left strict instructions her phone number was to be transferred to her lawyer in case I called and was ready to come back home.

  This was the worst beating he had ever given me. But he didn’t do all this damage himself. It was more when his dealer took his turn with me.

  Each time he would strike me first, right before he had his way with me. I may have been Adam’s, but he was more than happy to share me—and my body—if it meant he could keep his high going longer.

  That time was the worse it’s ever been. My baby girl was thrown in a closet with a pillow and a blanket. The last thing she saw was Adam tying my hands to the bedposts above my head. My last look at her was with tears running down my face. The light in those brown eyes never shone. She was almost as empty as I was.

  They left me there, bleeding, one of my ribs broken for sure. My body covered in fingerprint-sized bruises, raised red welts, and caked with dried blood. They at least untied my hands so I could crawl over to the closet to rescue Lilah.

  I couldn’t breathe as I winced with each movement my body made, but I managed a sigh of relief as I made it to the door, only to painfully gasp when I opened it and found her curled up in a ball and soaked with her own urine. She crawled over to me carefully, making sure not to touch me, but still getting close enough to me so we could protect each other.

  A knock on the door has me holding my breath, while Lilah squeezes her eyes shut. No one knows we’re here. No one knows where this house is. As the panic begins to rise in me, my only thought is how did he find us?

  Chapter Two

  I don’t even know why I’ve come over here. I woke up at the ass crack of dawn, something on my mind, something I couldn’t even explain. But then my thoughts went to that scene I watched last night. My mind was running with questions.

  Not knowing what to do with myself, I went downstairs to my weight room where I spent the next two hours sweating my ass off as I pounded out a few miles on my treadmill and worked my muscles till they burned and begged me to stop with a punishing lift session.

  I stood under my rain shower, the water set on cold, the pressure of the water feeling like ice pellets on my tired and sore muscles. Towel drying my short blond hair, I’m glad it’s just long enough on top to be pushed back. My day-old beard is not bothering me enough to take the time to shave it this morning.

  I make my way downstairs and fill my travel mug with coffee to go. Looking over at the house across the street, I make a decision I’m not even sure is right.

  My feet are moving before my head can comprehend what is going on.

  She obviously doesn’t want anyone to know she’s here since I’ve only se
en them outside at night.

  Before she came, the house had been abandoned, the old lady passing away right on the porch. But I know enough about that girl inside to know she needs help. I’m just not sure I’m the help she needs.

  When I moved in, the lady across the street would always wave when I came or went, then she started making me cookies. God, did I fucking love those chocolate chip cookies. Crispy on the outside, soft and chewy on the inside, she always brought them to me warm, so I wound up licking the chocolate off my hands. Fuck, but those were good cookies.

  She was always outside on the swing. Lonely is the word that comes to mind. She was fucking lonely, looking for anyone to talk to. Her stories could go on for hours. She did hang with the other neighbor next to her in the last four years.

  It was during one of those talks when she raved about her granddaughter. She said they grew apart. But the pain in her eyes said something else. I wasn’t good at my job if I didn’t know how to read people, and she was one of them.

  In exchange for her baked goods, I mowed her lawn. Before she passed, I was doing it at least once a week, but lately I’d been slacking. The house looked abandoned, and it was my fault. Something I vowed to rectify the minute I saw that lady rocking her kid outside.

  Which is why I’m standing here, way too fucking early in the morning. Hoping to talk to her and let her know.

  I knock one more time, knowing she is in there, but also not hearing anything else. The shadow darkens underneath the door, so she must be up.

  “Is anyone in there?” I ask, knowing full well she’s right behind the door. Probably with her ear pressed to the door, holding her breath.

  “I’m Jackson.” I lean in so I don’t have to yell. “I live across the street. I cut your grandmother’s grass.” I stop when I hear movement from behind the door. The lock flicks open, the door creaking open just enough so I can see one of her eyes, the rest of her body hidden behind the door.

  “Hi,” she says, almost in a whisper. “I’m just waking up.”

  I know right away she’s lying because while there are dark circles under her eyes, they aren’t squinting at the light that has just invaded her face.