Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 83598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 83598 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 418(@200wpm)___ 334(@250wpm)___ 279(@300wpm)
Thirty-Four
Fawn
Twenty Years Ago
The double-wide trailer was quiet when I stepped inside. That wasn’t normal. It was after four, and by now, Dave, Matt, and Tilly—the other kids that Billy and Carla Day fostered. Not that they did a good job at it. We were a monthly paycheck to them. Nothing more. But we knew to be thankful to have a roof over our heads. Kids our age weren’t what couples were looking to adopt.
I had been in the system for three years now.
My grandmother had raised me, and when she passed, there was no one else. My mother—her daughter—had overdosed on prescription drugs that she mixed with heroin and shot up her arm before I was six months old. Granny always told me that my mom had suffered from postpartum depression, but I knew the truth. She’d been an addict. The only reason I had been born a healthy baby was because Granny had kept her daughter clean and under her roof throughout the pregnancy. Once I was born, my mom had been free to live life again, only to turn right back to drugs.
I didn’t dwell on that though. Granny had been a good caregiver. We hadn’t had much, and she wasn’t always active in my life, but she took care of things. She was also old and tired. Raising me had been a lot to take on for her.
Besides, compared to the other kids in foster care, I’d had a great life. They’d all spent most of their lives bouncing around from home to home. I was the oldest, but they weren’t much younger. Dave was fourteen, Matt thirteen, and Tilly was ten.
I closed the door to the trailer and listened for any sound that someone else was home. Nothing. It was odd, and I considered going back outside to go look for the younger kids. They rode the school bus, unlike me, since their schools were farther away. I had to walk the three miles home, so they always beat me here.
Footsteps caught my attention, and I turned toward the sound as Billy came from the hallway. He gave me a creepy smile that he’d been doing since the day I had been placed here almost a year ago. I tried to keep my distance and never be alone with him. The cigarette hanging between his yellow teeth almost fell out before he could grab it. I cringed.
“ ’Bout time you got here,” he snapped. “Ain’t got no time for you staying out later than necessary. Spreading them pretty legs for a dick already?”
I swallowed and backed up a step as he walked in my direction. I shook my head. “No. This is the same time I get here every day. Where is everyone?”
He stalked toward me, his greasy hair slicked back and a determined look on his face. “Got tired of all the mouths to feed. Don’t need the money the state gives us for all them damn kids. Not when I got a moneymaker like you,” he said, and an evil chuckle followed.
He wanted me to get a job? I wasn’t sure I could get anything to pay me as much as they got for keeping the other kids from the state.
I backed up again, but he reached out and grabbed my arm forcefully.
“Stop trying to escape. You owe us. We gave your ass a place to live. Let you have your freedom. All because we knew this day was coming. The day those tits of yours developed. All we needed to go with that pretty face of yours was a body. Now, we got it, and there are men lined up, willing to pay me real good for a tight young cunt.”
Bile rose up in my throat as the panic that had started to stir in me escalated to a full-blown attack. I fought against his grip on me.
“NO! Let me GO!” I shouted.
He laughed manically. “Or what?” he asked, then began to pull me as I fought him.
His strength overpowered me, but I kicked and screamed. I dropped to the floor to stop his ability to drag me.
Billy turned his awful face to me, now curled up in a snarl. His palm connected hard with my cheek. “GET UP, BITCH!” he roared.
I shook my head, scrambling to get up and run. I was sure I could outrun him if I could just get to my feet fast enough. He moved to grab me, and I kicked him hard between the legs, then turned and sprang up while he cursed and grabbed his crotch.
My heart slammed frantically in my chest, and hope surged as the door to the trailer opened and Carla walked inside, carrying a grocery bag in her arms. She looked at me, then over my shoulder back at Billy.
“Help me!” I pleaded.