Chapter One
Hadley
My whole bodytenses up as I hear the soft opening of my bedroom door. I peek over my covers to see Randal’s form outlined in the darkness. My heart speeds up as he stumbles over to my bed, and I sit up, scooting back against the headboard.
“What are you doing in here, Randal?” I whisper frantically, panic gripping my chest. He’s drunk—again. My stepdad is a real piece of shit. He’s always been a sleazeball, but he’s been getting drunk more often lately.
I’ve been afraid something like this might happen. He’s been finding little ways to touch me more and more lately. A hand on my hip as he reaches around me in the kitchen to grab the cereal box out of the cabinet. A touch on the knee when we’re watching TV. I always find a way to leave the room when he does that, his touch making me shiver with dread and disgust.
Of course, my mom doesn’t notice. She doesn’t know where she is half the time. She stays doped up on pills. That’s all she cares about anymore. I think she might have loved me at some point. Maybe she still does in her own way, but she’s never lucid enough to talk to me or tell her sleazy husband to keep his hands off her daughter.
“Hadley,” he slurs my name as he sits down on the edge of my bed. “I came to see you, babygirl.” My mind revolts at the way he calls me babygirl.
“I’m sleeping, and you need to leave,” I try to reason with him.
“Aw, don’t be like that, babygirl,” he says leaning down over me, pinning me to the bed. I feel panic starting to rise within me when I feel a certain part of his anatomy pressing against my thigh. I almost retch when I realize what it is and that he’s turned on.
I push against his chest, but he’s so much bigger than me. Randal isn’t a small man by any means. His beer belly alone is enough to pin me to the mattress, and I feel a scream bubbling up in my throat.
This is not happening. This is not happening. My drunk stepdad is not fixing to rape me.
I know I should have left two days ago when I turned eighteen, but I was scared. I have no money, no job. I have nowhere to go. I figured I’d take my chances here until I found a job—that way I wouldn’t be sleeping on the streets.
I’m starting to think the streets might have been a better option, though.
“Dammit,” he curses, slapping a hand over my mouth, as I scream and twist underneath him, desperately trying to throw him off me.
“Be quiet you little bitch,” he hisses at me, pressing harder against me. “Don’t act like you don’t want this. Walking around this house in those tight little shorts of yours. Goddamn little cock tease.”
He raises his hips for just a moment as he tries to undo his pants, and I take the opportunity. Acting on instinct, I bring my knee up and ram it into him—hard.
He gasps in pain, his hands going down to grasp between his thighs as I slip out from under him, running toward the door.
“Hadley!” he screams. “You get your ass back here!”
I don’t know how long my kick will have him down, and I’m running off pure adrenaline, my only thought to get out of there as fast as I can, so I run out the front door and take off down the sidewalk, not taking the time to stop to put on shoes.
We live just a block from downtown. If I can make it to a business that’s open, I can slip inside long enough to get my bearings and figure out what I’m going to do.
I hazard a glance back and see Randal coming out of the door to the house, looking pissed as hell. My mother is nowhere in sight. She probably didn’t even wake up amidst all the commotion.
I redouble my efforts and turn to the left to get out of his line of sight, running into the first lit-up business I see, not even stopping to check what it is.
* * *
Damon
I lift my shot of whiskey to my lips, but before I ever take the drink, a commotion at the front of the bar draws my eyes.
I lay the untouched shot down and glance over at the girl who’s just burst through the door like the hounds of hell are nipping at her heels.
My eyes trail down her lithe frame. She’s wearing butt-hugging shorts that don’t leave much to the imagination the way they grip her juicy little ass and a form-fitting tank top that shows off a pair of perfectly pert little breasts. Hair as dark and thick as a raven’s wing cascades around her shoulders. Her chest is heaving, and I notice that her feet are bare. I frown. She looks like a scared little rabbit.
From the hoots and whistles that come from a table of drunken fools near the front of the bar, I realize I’m not the only one who’s noticed her haphazard entrance.
She ignores the catcalls and attempts to walk over to an empty table to sit down, but one of the pricks gets up and follows her.
“Hey, babe, you looking for some company?” he slurs. I can hear him all the way over here.