Total pages in book: 157
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 155900 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 780(@200wpm)___ 624(@250wpm)___ 520(@300wpm)
Hard.
Again and again.
Blow after blow.
With each, Kane gasped and choked and tried to keep on his feet, while his mother wailed and begged, “Leave him alone! Leave him alone! This isn’t about him.”
Didn’t she get it?
He was a part of her.
How could she count him out of her life? As if it didn’t affect him? As if he wouldn’t care?
“I’m gonna teach this little punk a lesson. It’s time he learned his place,” Justin growled, never ceasing with the blows.
One after another.
Kane tried to fight back, though his arms had gone weak, his spirit faltering as quickly as his bruised and crushed body.
A brutal fist landed on his right cheek.
Blackness vibrated, and he was so, so close to being sucked into it.
“No, Kane,” his mother cried. So quiet. But he could feel it. Could feel her turmoil.
The rush of her energy.
Her love.
He didn’t even realize she’d run out of the room before she was back, the glint of metal flashing in the bare moonlight that flowed in through the open window.
A knife.
“Leave him alone!”
She didn’t even break into Justin’s wrath.
He just kept punching, hammering fist after fist into Kane’s broken body.
Then Justin howled. Howled as he released Kane and whirled around.
Kane slumped to the floor, nearly unconscious.
But the fury in Justin’s voice kept him pinned to the horrors of this reality.
“You motherfuckin’ bitch. Did you just cut me?”
Through tears and blood, Kane watched his mother hold the knife between two shaking hands.
A vision so similar to the one that had been embedded in his darkest memories from years before. When his mother had begun to succumb to that darkness. When somewhere through the years she’d begun to believe that she wasn’t worthy of the love that she deserved.
When she’d been manipulated and brainwashed and led astray.
Or maybe she’d just been stuck.
Imprisoned by what she didn’t believe she had a choice in breaking free of.
“Leave him alone. Leave me alone.” Her words were brittle, broken pieces that fell off her tongue.
Justin took a step toward her, and she took one back.
“I mean it, get out.”
Justin laughed, that horrifying, disgusting sound.
Right before he jumped on her and took her to the ground.
“Get up. Get up. Get up,” Kane begged himself from somewhere inside the swimming of his mind. He had to get up and help her.
But he couldn’t do anything.
He could only listen to the grunts and kicks then a piercing scream.
One second later, Justin climbed to his feet.
The silhouette of a beast in the night.
Staring down at Kane’s mother who writhed on the ground, before the man dropped the knife that hung from his hand to the ground.
It clattered on the hardwood floor before he turned and ran for the front door. It banged against the interior wall as he threw it open and fled.
The sound of his truck roared as it was turned over before it sped into the night.
While Kane struggled to crawl to his mother.
Terror gripped him when he saw the front of her shirt was completely soaked with blood.
“No. Mom. No.” It poured out of him on a prayer.
No, no, no, no.
She blinked up at him, the emerald of her eyes too bright and glassy in the night.
“You’re such a good boy, Kane. Such a good, good boy. My favorite boy.” His mother garbled the words, and a smile flickered at the edges of her bloodied mouth. “Don’t ever change. Don’t ever let that beautiful light fade. Fight for love and what’s right. I know you will…because it’s who you are. And always, always take care of the ones you love most.”
A moan pulled from the depths. “No, Mom, no.”
He pressed his hands to the hot wound on her abdomen. Pressing hard. Tears burned and bled, and he begged, “No. You’re going to be okay. You’re going to be okay.”
Her fingertips fluttered to his face, brushing soft and slow. “Take care of the ones you love most. I’m sorry I didn’t return it.”
“Mom…” He gulped, then he shouted at the open door, “Help! Someone help! Please!”
On his knees, he gathered her up in his arms, grief clogging his throat as he begged, “Please,” as the last petal wilted and fell from the rose.
TWENTY-SEVEN
EMERY
Dragon
Is she asleep?
I was propped up in bed with the lamp on the nightstand glowing, the candles on the shelves flickering and dancing to the quiet sounds of the night.
Kane had left this afternoon on his work trip.
I didn’t know what it was that unsettled me about it. What set me so off kilter when he’d packed his duffel and promised he’d be back in two days.
When he’d told me again and again how thankful he was that I was here to be with Maci, all while he’d posted his friend Theo out front.
A terrifying, menacing security guard.
One who refused to come inside but had insisted that he was going to sleep out under the stars.