He nods, and the motorcycle revs as he races out of the parking lot.
After the cashier places the two bottles of liquor in the bag, I pay her and leave. Outside, I pull out my phone. “Hi, it’s Sophie. Can you pick me up from the liquor store in town and take me to wherever my father is?”
“I’m on my way,” the chauffeur answers. “I’ll be twenty minutes.”
“Thank you,” I say and put my phone back in my pocket.
I hear a whistle and a round of laughter coming from the group of people outside the house. I inwardly groan and don’t acknowledge them; instead, I look at the ground and pretend I don’t hear them making vulgar comments. The sense of them getting closer makes me raise my head. It’s Candy, followed by two guys and a woman. I knew I saw Candy outside that day.
My pulse races as I glance back at the doors to the store. I have a knot in my stomach when I think of Candy moving out because of me and ending up here. When I see her up close, the guilt hits me hard. She’s skinnier now, with deep hollow eyes and sores on her skin. She must have hit the drugs. When she reaches me, she searches around me.
“Are you okay? Do you need some help?” I ask her.
She laughs, so I take a step back while cautiously looking at her friends as they circle around me. My heartbeat is frantic as worry cloaks me.
“What… you care about me now?” Candy asks while scratching her arm. She points a finger at my chest. “You took away the one thing I had… I was going to be Viper’s ol’ lady until you turned up.” Her voice is a mix of anger and hurt.
The bag is ripped from my hand. “What’s this?” a man asks. I turn to him as he looks in the bag. “Score! These are mine now.”
I gulp. “You can have them.” I clear my throat. “My ride will be here soon,” I say while trying to step between the man and the woman.
The woman pushes me back. Her feral eyes are on me. “So, this is the bitch that took your man?” she asks. Candy nods, frowning.
My breath is uneven and deafening in my ears. I urgently look around, searching for the limousine.
“This is payback,” her friend says, right before she punches me in the face. Pain radiates, and the force pushes me back into the guys behind me, who throw me to the ground. My body hits the ground hard. A scream tears from my mouth.
Fists rain down on me. Pain ricochets through me. I squeeze my eyes shut and curl into a ball, instinctively covering my face with my arms. Then it’s kicks from different angles, to my head, stomach, legs, and back. Punishing blow after blow. “We better go before the cops show up,” a man says.
I force my swollen eyes open. Spit lands on me. When they run away, I gasp for air. I can taste blood, and I feel wetness over me.
The sound of footsteps comes closer, and relief floods me that someone is here to help. A woman’s head comes into view. “Oh my,” she chokes out, frowning. “Quick, someone call an ambulance!” she yells.
“Who did this?” a man asks.
“I saw a group of people running away from her.” She peers back down at me, gently patting me. “We’re going to get you some help, honey. The ambulance won’t be long.”
Everything blurs as I attempt to open my eyes. I’m struggling. The sirens wail in the background. At least the strangers saw me and called for help. The pain is overwhelming, and tears fall, stinging as they glide past the cuts on my face.
The ambulance arrives. When the paramedics roll me onto the stretcher, shooting pain fires through me, especially my ribs. As they wheel me away, the air nips at my sores, and the last thing I see is the roof of the ambulance before I lose consciousness.
EIGHTEEN
GUILT GUTS ME
Viper
I pullinto their street and as I get to their home, the curtain moves. The coward comes running out and jumps in his car before I can park my bike. He tears out of their driveway, and the car’s tires screech as he takes off.
I’m in Pearl Bay, the town next to ours, where there’s more domestic violence. It always churns my gut. Every time I’ve turned up to escort a woman and her children to safety, I have to stop myself from beating the scum that laid a hand on them. It’s painful, but we try to focus on the victims. We don’t want to scare them with more violence, but it isn’t without some serious self-control.
I knock on the front door, which is already open wide. “Hello.” I take two steps inside. “He’s gone. You called the Misty’s Safe Haven hotline. I’m here to help you.” There’s no response, so I walk down the hallway. “I have the Safe Haven ID here in my wallet if you want to check.”
A door to my left clicks, and the handle moves. A woman opens the door an inch and peeps through. I pull my wallet out of my pocket, slide the ID out of the card section, and show it to her. “See, it’s safe,” I say in a reassuring tone.
Her eyes go to my ID, to my face, and back again. She slowly steps out so I can see her. She has a bruised eye and purple bruises around the nape of her neck. Tears stream down her face. “Thank you,” she sobs. “Lucas,” she calls out. “You can come out.” A young boy dashes to her and wraps his arms around her legs, and it tears me to shreds to see a kid so scared.
I was bounced from one foster home to the next, and I remember feeling scared. I never felt safe during those early years.
