Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 95765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 479(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95765 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 479(@200wpm)___ 383(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
I’m already wet through my knickers. I whimper into his open mouth as he rubs me through the lace.
He’s rough. Unskilled. His fingers press so hard it aches.
“Dirty bitch for such a pretty little thing,” he grunts.
“Fuck me,” I hiss. “I like it rough.”
He yanks my head back by my hair. “Is that right?”
The darkness is inside me already, adrenaline pumping at the thought of taking his filthy cock.
He’s lean but muscular. Tall and wiry. And fast.
I’m sure he’ll be fast.
I palm his dick through his jeans and loosen his belt, sucking his tongue into my mouth for one more kiss before I push myself well clear of him.
He stares at me with dark eyes as I back away a few paces.
“What’s the fucking deal?” he grunts, but I keep on walking.
My skin prickles as he follows. His footsteps are heavy. Hard.
Fast.
“Hey, bitch. What’s the fucking deal here?”
I shoot him a look over my shoulder but keep on going.
I quicken up as he closes the distance, breaking into a jog as I reach the entrance to the river path.
And then he grabs me. His hand closes around my arm and hauls me back to him, his breath hot in my face as we stare at each other.
I moan as he squeezes my tit through my blouse. It feels good enough that I hitch myself against his thigh and grind my pussy through my knickers.
“Gonna fuck all your holes, you filthy bitch,” he rasps.
For a second I contemplate if I should let him.
I wonder if the adrenaline in my veins really is worth all this.
If feeling alive is worth all this.
But feeling alive is all I have left. Passing moments are the only things that keep me going.
He grunts in anger as I push myself off him for the second time. I barely make it ten paces before he’s back on me and my heart is thumping in my temples.
Monster.
His breath on my neck.
His hands on me.
But no.
It isn’t him.
It never is.
“Do you want to fuck or not, you crazy bitch, huh?!” I’m glad I can’t see his eyes in the darkness. “Make up your fucking mind!”
And I have.
“No,” I tell him. “I don’t.”
I stare into the darkness of the river path, adrenaline subsiding as he curses under his breath and heads back the way he came.
“You’re fucking tapped!” he yells before he reaches his truck and bleeps the alarm.
I hear the truck pull away and I’m glad I didn’t end up trussed up in his trunk. He’s too drunk to be driving anywhere.
I might be fucked up, but even I have sensibilities.
I stare at the glow of the city across the meadows, listening to the hiss of the river as I picture my tiny little apartment in the distance. The lights will be off. The room sparse and cold, decorated with only the handful of trinkets I brought along from my old life.
My tears of shame are quiet. The numb ones are always the most pitiful.
But it’s not the grubby finger marks on my knickers, or the taste of whisky on my lips that make me cry tonight.
These aren’t the tears of someone who is ashamed of wanting a monster in the darkness. Of wanting to be taken without mercy. Of wanting the promise of relief that comes through being on the edge of something truly petrifying.
They’re the tears of someone who’s grieving her lost life.
Her old friends. Her old job. Her old apartment with the green hallway and the dreamcatcher in the living room window.
The baby they stole before he even took a breath.
And the man who put him inside her.
The man who destroyed me.
Two
Monsters are real, and ghosts are real too. They live inside us, and sometimes, they win.
Stephen King
Phoenix
There’s something about pounding the hillside with misty breath and my pulse in my ears that lends the illusion I’m getting somewhere. Sometimes I feel that if I could just run fast enough I’d outrun all my mistakes.
Dawn is breaking over the ridge as I power on up toward the beacon at the top of the Malvern Hills, lights twinkling below as people begin their Friday morning. It’s bittersweet to think of the early risers down there crammed around the breakfast table. Chatter and laughter and arguments. Songs on the radio. Music in the car.
That Friday feeling.
Family.
Once upon a time I thought that would be me.
If Mariana was still here, she’d laugh. Sometimes when I close my eyes I still feel her ahead of me, as though she’s still running and I’m still chasing. Sometimes I’d swear I hear the ghost of her breath along with mine. Sometimes her memory feels close enough to touch – her breaths ragged as I caught her, her mouth hot and hungry. Her nails on my back.
Her wildness as she fought me.
The darkness in her eyes.