LITMIR.BIZ

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The school’s attempt at intervention had backfired. Reverend Thorne…no, he was more warped than Palmer.

      Regardless of what they claimed, she knew she wasn’t evil. She didn’t deserve them. She didn’t deserve any of it.

      As if in slow motion, her doorknob turned, tightening her panic and calming it at the same time. She’d reached her limit. She would not be a victim anymore.

      As she slowly turned her head to watch the door, hot tears tracked her face. Blindly, she reached out for the nightstand and her icy fingers knocked against the small glass lamp. Before it could fall, she clenched it in her fist and scooted up in her bed, curling her legs under her, prepared to lunge.

      Resolve weighed heavy in her chest, forming a lump, agonizing but solid. She’d planned this scenario many times. She knew the lamp was solid enough, and her determination would carry her through. The alternative was unthinkable.

      Without further warning, the door swung open and banged against the wall. Palmer often did that, hoping to take her by surprise, to terrorize her. He liked it when she screamed, when she tried to run. This time she didn’t move, not even to draw breath.

      He stood there, a looming, imposing shadow against the cracked wallpaper. She knew he’d be smiling in gleeful menace and she knew his rheumy eyes would be alight with excitement.

      Sick bastard.

      He started to say something in his coarse, mean way. Accusations, insults, warped justifications. The words meant nothing to Cynthia now. They couldn’t hurt her anymore.

      She waited until he moved, then rage brought her off the bed with a surge of incredible power. Taken by surprise, Palmer lurched back and banged into the doorframe.

      Satisfaction roared through her. For once, Cynthia didn’t feel helpless. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, giving her awesome strength. She was in charge, she was almighty.

      The lamp struck his face and shattered, sending razor-sharp glass shards into his flesh and around the room. She relished the raw shriek of stunned pain that gurgled from deep in his throat. He held up his hands, turned his face half away from her as if to protect it.

      Using the base of the now broken lamp, Cyn landed a solid thunk against his temple. His hands batted at her, but they were ineffectual against her fierce vengeance.

      Unable to stop herself, her blows occurring without her mind’s input, Cyn struck him again, and again, then once more. His corpulent body slumped to the floor, but she didn’t register what it meant. Panting, she stood just out of his reach, gulping air, crying silently, her nightgown twisted around her body, her short, curly hair half hanging in her eyes. The now broken lamp was still held aloft with both fists. Ready.

      Cynthia waited for his curses, for his fists, for anything…but nothing happened.

      She sucked air so hard, she felt light-headed, her chest heaved, her throat burned. Oh, God. The seconds ticked by, each one reverberating with her frantic heartbeat—one, two, three…and finally, with new fear she crept closer, slowly, so very slowly.

      She expected to be grabbed at any second, pulled to the floor, punished…touched. She tried to stay prepared, but her legs were shaking horribly and her eyes blurred, her lungs hurt. Palmer was a large, terrifying lump on the floor. Unmoving. Silent.

      Too silent. She couldn’t hear him breathing, when usually his weight made him wheeze.

      How long Cynthia stood there, she couldn’t say, and then she heard her mother fumbling with the front door. As a barmaid, Arlene Potter worked late, and played even later. She’d be drunk and even if she weren’t, she’d be no help. “It’s for your own good,” Arlene always said, and Cyn knew she believed it. That’s what made it all the more frightening.

      Galvanized into action, Cynthia turned on her dim overhead light and surveyed the damage done to the man her mother had brought into their ramshackle home two years ago. Stripped clean of emotion, she took in his mangled, unrecognizable face. There was so much blood, so much swelling and bruising, she couldn’t make out his hated features.

      She felt no remorse—she didn’t. She felt only a sense of being very, very alone.

      Knuckling aside the useless tears, she forced herself to think. She knew nothing of first aid, but it didn’t take a genius to see he wasn’t breathing. And there was so much blood—on him, on the floor, and on her. Using the bare toes of her left foot, Cyn nudged him.

      Nothing.

      Not a sound, not a movement. Her arms curled around herself and she bent double in pain. Not for him, but for herself.

      She’d killed him.

      Pity became an acrid taste in her mouth—pity for herself and for what she’d been forced to become. It worked its way up her throat until she sobbed, but she immediately stuck her fist against her quivering mouth to silence herself.

      She could hear her mother in the kitchen, pouring another drink, singing to herself in her drunken slur, as oblivious, as uncaring of her daughter’s welfare as ever.

      God, how Cyn hated her.

      At least, that’s what she tried to tell herself as her heart shattered into small pieces, causing so much hurt it was a wonder it didn’t kill her, too. In her mind, she was dead, dead and buried so that a new Cynthia could be born. After tonight, the pain would go away.

      She’d make it go away.

      She drew a deep breath to calm herself. The future opened up before her with warm, colorful possibilities.

      Pushing aside the revulsion, Cynthia dropped to her knees and dug in Palmer’s pants pockets until she located his wallet. It held a hundred dollars. To Cyn, it seemed like a fortune.

      Thanks to the recent driver’s education classes at her school, she had her birth certificate and social security card in the top drawer of her dresser. No one had been more surprised than Cynthia when her mother agreed to let her take the classes—until Arlene explained that it’d make her life easier when Cynthia could do all the shopping.

      Within two minutes, she’d dressed in her warmest clothes and gathered a few necessities. At the last moment, she dug beneath her mattress and pulled out the notebook she’d kept hidden there. With trembling hands, she laid it atop the rumpled blankets, knowing it told everything, all the things she didn’t dare tell while she was still living with him.

      Maybe someone would understand. Maybe, when they found his body, she wouldn’t be blamed.

      As she climbed out her bedroom window into the damp, cold spring night, she glanced back at the cramped room, at what she was leaving behind, and at the body on her floor.

      He was dead and good riddance. She wouldn’t, couldn’t care. As far as she was concerned, Cynthia Potter died with him. The scared young woman was gone, and a new, free woman had emerged. A better life awaited her. It might not be great, but no way could it be worse.

      Chapter One

      As the vivid dream faded, Cyn stretched awake on the narrow, lumpy mattress. A spring rain pattered against the window, and for a brief moment, a sense of déjà vu settled over her. She turned her head to stare out the window. This soft, late-April rain smelled fresh and held numerous possibilities. She waited, yet there was no sense of danger, no threat, and her heart swelled with relief, with honest happiness.

      She sat up and shoved the window all the way open, letting the cold air blow in, dissipating the scent of stale sex.

      Thanks to the compelling dream that had filled her sleep for the past month, she’d made some decisions. As of last night, she’d turned her last trick, and knowing that sent a bounty of energy surging through her. Perched on the side of the bed, she flipped her head forward and gathered her impossibly long hair in her hands. After retrieving a cloth-covered band from her nightstand, she secured the unruly mass into a high ponytail, then left the bed to take a shower.

      She

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