“I was already planning that, Brother.”
Chapter Five
The dream always startedwith happiness.
He said all the pretty things she wanted to hear.Made her believe in happily ever after.That she was the princess in their love story.Until he revealed his true intention.Crushing her youthful hopes and dreams into dust.Her happiness morphed into despair, and pulled her into the ebony darkness of fear and unimaginable pain.
So much pain.
Helpless as men ravaged her body.Each atrocity stealing a piece of her soul.Why couldn’t she have died?Death was preferable to this never-ending nightmare where the specter of self-harm waited patiently.
Kira sat up, drenched in sweat and tears.Perhaps they were one and the same.It took a moment to extradite herself from the horrors of her mind.Unfortunately, they lingered on the fringe, dancing upon the sharpened edge of the Grim Reaper’s scythe.Ready to slay her once more the next time she fell asleep.
God, she hated the night.
Knowing she’d never get back to sleep, she rose and headed to her balcony.Grabbing a throw blanket along the way to wrap around her shoulders before settling on a cheap deck chair.That time of night, or perhaps early morning, there wasn’t much to see.Still, it was better than closing her eyes.Or remembering.The cool air iced away the fever of her cutthroat memories.Her torment held back only long enough to grant her three hours of sleep.Impressive.That’s the most she’d gotten consecutively in several weeks.
Cocooned in the blanket, she glanced at the small table where a bottle of whiskey, an unopened baggie with white pills, and a joint rested upon it.An altar of promised forgetfulness, the temptation beckoned, waiting to see if she would slip and slide back into the terrifying past.She longed to lose herself in any of the vices, and had to remind herself how hard she had worked to get away from that shit.They stood as a reminder of the wagon she’d fall off if her memories became nooses.
In the stillness of the morning, she allowed the tears to fall for the life she lost and the future that held nothing.It shouldn’t be this hard, and while crying released the bitterness that helped her confront one more day, the poison continued to burn.
Eventually, the tears dried up.As she recovered from her emotional distress, a prickling sensation rippled across her skin, causing goose bumps to raise the hair on her arms.Standing, she walked to the balcony and searched but saw nothing.As she stepped inside her apartment, she heard the distant rumble of a motorcycle coming to life before speeding away.
****
“You look like shit,” her boss, Joe, said as she stepped through the back door of the diner.He had cooked in the Navy and even resembled an older Popeye, complete with one eye half shut.When she showed up for a job two years ago, he hadn’t even asked if she knew how to wait tables.He’d taken one look at her threadbare clothes and hired her immediately.She would be forever grateful for him taking a chance on her.
“Thanks,” she replied dryly.“I’m trying this new thing out called ‘I can’t pay for shit so viola.’”
“Didn’t sleep again?”
She sighed as she put her personal items in her locker.“Three hours.Best this week.”
“That why you came in on your day off?”
“I have days off?When did this happen?”
