Betraying Innocence

by Phoenix, Airicka

  Betraying Innocence

  ©2013 by Airicka Phoenix

  All rights reserved.

  This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical,

  photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner and/or the publisher of this book, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Editor & Formatter: Kris Atkinson

  Beta Readers: Kimberly Schaaf & Julia Hendrix

  Cover Designer: Airicka’s Mystical Creations

  Interior Design: Airicka Phoenix

  ISBN-13: 978-1493607945

  ISBN-10: 1493607944

  Published by Airicka Phoenix

  Also available in eBook and paperback publication

  Also by Airicka Phoenix

  Series

  Touch Saga

  Touching Smoke (Touch Series, Book #1)

  Touching Eternity (Touch Series, Book #1.5)

  Sons of Judgment Series

  Octavian’s Undoing (Sons of Judgment, Book #1)

  The Lost Girl Series

  Finding Kia (The Lost Girl Series, Book #1)

  Standalone

  Games of Fire

  Anthologies

  Whispered Beginnings: A Clever Fiction Anthology

  Midnight Surrender Anthology

  Snowed In Anthology (Written under Morgana Phoenix)

  Dedication

  Kimmie,

  Sister, Friend, P.A.,

  Acknowledgement

  Another month. Another book. Another amazing experience. It doesn’t seem to matter how many books I release, I am always humbled and moved by the continuous show of support in my small community of indie authors and readers. This part of every book is the hardest for me because there are so many people that deserve to be listed. I will do my best.

  As always, first and foremost, my family. My beautiful little muses who inspire me daily to keep doing what I love to do. Thank you for always being there with a smile to brighten an otherwise gloomy day.

  Kris, for doing so much. I know I’m not the easiest person to work with. I’m demanding and pushy and I have the worst jokes, yet you always seem to want to keep being there. Thank you for always believing in me and in my characters.

  Kimmie, thank you for always standing by me, even when some of my ideas are crazy and impossible. Thank you for believing in me and for being the best PA the world has ever seen.

  My Street Team, other authors may claim to have the best team on their side. They might even claim their team will rule the world. Well, they clearly don’t know what we know, right? Not only are you guys the best in the world, but our world domination device is nearly complete. We’ll show them.

  My Unduplicable Readers, there are a billion books in the world, possibly even more authors. Thank you for picking me and believing in my work. I appreciate you, your thoughts and your time. Happy Reading!

  Love you all!

  ~Airicka

  Prologue

  October 31, 1983

  Forgiveness.

  His mother always told him to forgive. It was what a good person — a good Christian — did, he forgave those who wronged him. Still, he didn’t think he had it in him as yet another blow snapped the delicate curve of his ribs. Fingers of pain curled into his heaving gut, bringing with it the urge to vomit, but the energy to follow through evaded him. Instead, he prayed for the black arms of death to wrap around him and take him from the torment stifling his soul. He prayed for eternal sleep.

  He prayed … he prayed for revenge. He prayed for the day when he would be the one bathed in their blood. Nothing short of their death would satisfy him. He clung to that desire like a child to a favorite blanket, even as the curved blade sunk home into his flesh.

  Chapter One

  Ana

  Roseanna unceremoniously dropped the box of junk she carried. Her arms ached and she no longer cared if someone tripped over it coming in. She left it abandoned in the middle of the foyer along with the others and exhaled. A cloud of dust puffed into the air, clinging to the spikes of light breaking through the skylight. They hovered in the streams, glittering like pixie dust. Several pieces found new homes on boxes and plastic covered furniture. Ana left them where they landed.

  “Beep, beep!”

  Ana leapt out of the way just as her father rolled into the foyer, pushing a dolly ahead of him, piled high with even more boxes. Most she noted had no label, which meant they were miscellaneous, which meant they were the dead remains of her father’s ever obsessive collection of hobbies, which also meant … they would never see the light of day again.

  “Where did we get all this stuff?” he muttered, dumping the load in the corner next to a tall tower of other unlabeled boxes. He swiped the back of his forearm across the sheen on his brow. He shook his arm, sending beads of sweat flying in all directions.

  Ana discreetly shifted aside to avoid getting speckled. “I’m guessing it’s all the stuff you don’t want to throw away.”

  A half-sulk, half-frown turned down the corners of his mouth. “It’s not that I don’t want to throw anything away,” he said defensively. “I just don’t like the thought of throwing something out and then needing it later.”

  Which is basically everything! Ana thought, biting back the grin turning up the corners of her mouth.

  “No! That isn’t what we discussed!” While the rest of them were left peeling their sweat-soaked clothes off their skin, Caroline French stalked into the house in a snappy pearl-gray suit and heels that may have been chopsticks in a past life. She had one manicured hand on her curved hip and the other wielding a cell phone the way some moms wielded butcher knives. She didn’t glance at Ana, or her husband, as she glared at something at the top of the stairs. Ana knew there was nothing up there. The source of her mother’s wrath lay back in Ontario. “Well, of course I wouldn’t sign off on something so ridiculously childish! My cat could write a better column than that.”

  Ana exchanged amused glances with her father, both smart enough to stifle their grins.

  “Where is Mitzy?” her father asked, resting an elbow on the handle of the dolly and leaning into the device.

  Ana jerked a thumb over her shoulder towards the stairs leading to the second floor. “Locked in the bathroom. He doesn’t like it, but he keeps trying to run outside and I’m afraid whatever’s been hibernating in those weeds will eat him.”

  Her father nodded just as her mother stabbed the phone off with a frustrated poke of her finger on the screen. She turned narrowed gray eyes on them, her dainty eyebrows tangled together.

  “I work with idiots!” she declared, shoving her phone into the tiny pocket of her blazer. “I could run that company singlehandedly if we hadn’t…” She trailed off, cleared her throat and backpedaled. “If I could just find my fax machine.”

  That wasn’t what she’d been about to say and everyone in that foyer knew it. That whole issue had been the main topic of so many arguments of late that no one dared bring it up for fear of causing another war.

  Her mother was the co-founder of a major publishing company that specialized in distributing some of the top best-sellers. They published everything from self-help and children’s books, to magazines. Most of her work could have been done anywhere in the world, but Mom was a city girl, born and bred. She looked out of place in a small town like Chipawaha Creek, Britis
h Columbia. The town was so small and so remote that even their GPS couldn’t pick it up. There was one stoplight in the middle of downtown and it was broken. Before they left Toronto, Ana had tried to do a Google search of the place, but all she got was a faded, bronze-colored picture of a boy wearing a straw hat, giant overall shorts and no shirt. He was grinning into the camera, around a stick of straw stuck through the gap in his teeth. Next to him were three words: website coming soon! It had not been very encouraging, but Ana had made a timid sort of peace with their new situation. Her mother not so much. Only Dad’s promise that yes, Chipawaha Creek did have fax service, internet and cell phone reception had appeased her — and Ana, but Ana kept her relief to herself.

  Being forced to leave her friends, the boy she liked, the people she knew and the places she loved seemed a little less dramatic if she still possessed a link to the outside world, if she didn’t feel completely cut off from everything. The move may just not be so bad … if she didn’t think about the fact that all the kids in Chipawaha Creek had grown up together, and had a sturdy relationship platform already built. But she wouldn’t think about that. She would never make it if she let her doubts and worries choke her. She was here now; making the best of it was all she had.

  “Is everything here?” Mom asked, breaking the tense silence. She turned on her ice pick stilettos, doing a slow scan of the chaos spilling through the foyer and staking claim on the sitting room and dining room like a plague.

  Dad shrugged, doing his own scan of their worldly possessions. “There’s nothing else in the truck, if that’s what you mean.”

  Mom turned, opened her mouth only to be interrupted by a loud buzz. She held up one French-tipped finger while fishing into her blazer pocket with her other hand. She came up with her phone. With her finger still giving them the one-second gesture, she shoved her lifeline against her ear.

  “Caroline French.” Her face puckered into what may have either been annoyance or deep deliberation. It was hard to tell sometimes. “No, I will not accept such a half-brained excuse! You put that monkey’s a … hello? Hello?” For a moment, no one spoke out of sheer shock. Ana was too stunned to even realize her jaw had dropped. Whoever was stupid enough to hang up on her mother was about to wish they’d never been born. “Hell …” Mom dragged the phone away from her ear and blinked at the screen.

  Stared. Blinked. Stared. Like if she did it enough times it would change or cease to be true. Her wide, gray eyes snapped up to her husband. “I have no connection…” Disbelief colored her soft, slow murmur. “Richard?” Ice crackled in her tone. “Why don’t I have cell reception?”

  Richard French had the decency to wince as though he’d been struck. Ana watched as he hurried over to take the device from his wife and stared at it himself, seemingly willing it to work before his flesh was torn into strips.

  “Maybe this is just a dead spot,” he decided, moving quickly away from the fierce woman glowering at him, holding the phone up towards the ceiling.

  The dead spot apparently ran throughout the entire house, except the front porch and about five feet into the foyer. Ana went into hiding before the fireworks started. She hurried up the stairs to the fourth door on the left, which was officially her room.

  It was the second largest of the four bedrooms, but the only one with a window seat overlooking the sprawling wilderness of the backyard, including the cute little pond. She stood there now, staring past the hip-high grass, the massive population of weeds, wildflowers and random pieces of garbage. Most of the fence surrounding the property — the usual brown planks hammered into the ground — had been knocked over at the back. The boards flattened the grass, joining the yard on the other side with theirs. Ana wondered who lived in the other house, and why they hadn’t bothered fixing the fence. Whoever they were, the grass was neatly mowed on that side. Flowers bloomed in neat little boxes and beds. A vegetable garden thrived in one corner and a playground set was situated in the other. From all the dolls, trucks, skipping ropes and balls littering the yard, Ana guessed there was a boy and a girl living there. Then, she wondered if they needed a babysitter. Back in Toronto, she had babysat for four different families. It had been a good source of income even though she still got a weekly allowance from her parents. It had kept her in music, clothes and books quite comfortably. She couldn’t see why she couldn’t keep up that business in Chipawaha Creek. There had to be children somewhere in that town. Hell, she’d even walk dogs if she had to just to make a little extra cash.

  A soft knock interrupted her moneymaking scheme. She turned just as the doorknob did and her dad poked his head in through the crack in the door.

  “Hey.” He slipped into the room and quietly and carefully shut the door. “Listen, I’m going to run into town and see what’s going on with the cell service. Did you want to come?”

  Ana grinned. “Mom on the war path?”

  Her dad rubbed a hand over the back of his neck, staring a little too hard at the far wall. “She’s a little upset…”

  Ana laughed. “Yeah, I’ll come.”

  Ten minutes later, they were driving through the well-maintained streets of Chipawaha Creek. The main road that lead in and out of town was split into two with a cul-de-sac in the center of town square and shops sitting colorfully around it. Ana had never seen such clean sidewalks, well painted buildings or cheerful people in her life. Complete strangers waved as they drove past. When they pulled up in front of City Hall—a large, barn-shaped building painted a fire engine red—and got out, people actually called hello. It was all a little too Pleasantville in Ana’s mind, but she forced a smile, hoping it wasn’t too tight or awkward, and waved back.

  “Cool, right?” her dad said gesturing with a nod of his head to the cul-de-sac where a brightly colored jungle gym had been erected and surrounded by a cute picket fence. Children were all over it, laughing and squealing. Moms sat on white benches, chatting amongst themselves. Older kids rode their bikes up and down the sidewalks. A small huddle of girls, roughly her age, sat on a picnic table, giggling and talking. Then, because the scene wasn’t postcardy enough, the air smelled of roses, warm blueberry pie and freshly baked bread. Ana frowned a little at the flawless blue sky and made a silent promise that if anyone, even one person, said gee, golly, or gosh, she was packing up and hitchhiking her way back to Ontario. There was only so much creepy one person could handle.

  “Cool,” she muttered, stuffing her hands into the pockets of her black, skinny jeans. She dared another glance at the cluster of girls and glowered at their pretty sundresses. Did she even own a sundress?

  “Well, good afternoon, folks!” A tall, thin man in his late seventies beamed at them from behind a glass case enclosing rows of … things; old, antique things. More antique things hung from the walls. It was like stepping into a very small museum.

  Luckily, her father looked as confused as she felt, because he glanced at the muskets, oil lanterns, rusted scythes and old photographs mounted on the walls and said, “Hi! We’re, uh, the Frenchs. We just moved into—”

  The man beamed, baring incredibly straight, white teeth — dentures, Ana mused. “I know who you are!” the man said with great enthusiasm, like only stupid people wouldn’t know the answer. “We’ve all been expecting you folks for days now!”

  That is not creepy! That. Is. Not. Creepy! Ana told herself sternly when images of The Village flashed through her mind. This is a small town, she went on to reassure herself. You moved to a small town. That means people know stuff about you. It’s normal! Man, she missed the city.

  “Oh … great!” her father said with a bright smile, but she could hear the hesitation in the words. “So, listen, we’re having some connection problems up at the house. The cell reception doesn’t seem to be working. Now, I was told—”

  “Oh well, you need to talk to Jacob Whiley about that I’m afraid!” He jerked a thumb back over his stooped shoulders towards a set of wooden stairs leading up to a landing, then a door in the
wall. “He’s the town technician. Knows all about them new age thingamabobs. Just go on up.”

  Her dad thanked the man and started between two of the counters. Ana didn’t follow. She stood with her hands at her back and studied the display cases forming a blocky U around the room. Each case was long and glossy like the cases found in jewelry shops. But there were no gems here, just rusty daggers, old pocket watches, engraved flasks, the odd brass bracelet, pistols and bronzed baby booties. She wondered if this was their historical society or town museum.

  “Ana?” Her father stared at her from the bottom of the stairs, hand braced on the railing, one foot already on the first step. “Coming?”

  Ana shook her head. “I’m going to check this stuff out.” She hesitated, glancing at the old man. “If that’s all right?”

  The man gave her a blinding smile. “Well, sure it is!” he said. “That’s what this is all here for. You go on then. Let me know if you see something you like.”

  Ana’s eyebrows shot up. “Something I like? You mean this isn’t a museum?”

  The man made a raspy, wheezy sound that she assumed was laughter. “Heavens no! This here is the town pawn shop.”

  A pawn shop and electrician … inside City Hall. Yup. She was convinced. She was not in the city anymore.

  Whatever her dad talked to Jacob Whiley about lasted fifteen minutes, in which time Ana had made a full circle around the room. She glanced up when her father ambled down the creaking stairs and knew immediately things had not gone well when she spotted the annoyed pinch in his lips.

  “Didn’t go so well?” she asked as they left the shop with the old man’s farewell ringing after them.