Chapter 1
CHAPTER
ONE
ISLA
The beginning of all that truly mattered.
“You ungrateful little shit!” Mr. Bates seethed, slamming his fist down on the wooden table beside him.
The flimsy wood rattled wildly, and for a few seconds, I let it provide a false sense of security, like the soothing sound of your favorite lullaby.
I took comfort in knowing what would happen next, so when he gripped the collar of the only jean jacket I owned and instantly jerked me toward him, I was expecting it.
“I’m done with your bullshit!” he spat too close to my mouth. “Do you understand me?”
He reeked of vodka. It seeped out of his sweaty pores.
He’d been on a bender for the past two days, a strict liquor diet that he and his wife loved to live by.
Staying out of their way was just a typical day for us.
By now, I was used to this nasty treatment, and I knew he wouldn’t grant me any mercy. He never granted anyone mercy.
Especially us foster kids.
I hated him. Her. All of them. All the houses were the same, just with different faces.
It all blended. All mean. All violent. Barking orders left and right.
Most of the time, it was a living, breathing nightmare that held us hostage against our will.
Where we could never escape, never fully wake up, never get a moment of peace unless we were left alone, and even then, that wasn’t very peaceful.
I experienced it all.
Every vicious word.
Every blow to my body.
Every whimper I heard.
Every sob.
Every time someone begged, surrendered, or gave up, they prayed to God to make them stop.
Someone should have done something, though no one ever did.
I braced for the painful impact that would inevitably come, and still, it hurt like hell when he hurled me onto the same unsteady table that hadn’t stopped rattling.
This time, it wasn’t my body that broke my fall.
No, it was my face that slammed into the corner of the table first, slicing my eyebrow before the top of my body crashed into splintered wood.
My eyebrow didn’t just nick. It cut in half with this familiar steady and pulsing ache, this throbbing that beat directly into my right eye, where I was suddenly blind.
By fear.
By hate.
By blood.
“Get up!” he roared, looming from what sounded like above me.
Instinctively, my fingers reached for my face as I tasted the metallic blood in my mouth. With the back of my shaky hand, I tried to wipe away the blood gushing down my eye and cheek, but it was no use. I’d need stitches.
“I said…” he impatiently stressed through a clenched jaw into my ear from above me. “Get the fuck up!”
Since I knew it never ended here, I lifted my arms to guard my face while trying to scramble to my feet, but between the blood in my eye and the disorientation of trying to find my bearings and balance, I couldn’t get up fast enough for him.
The whooshing sound of his combat boot whizzing through the air was the only warning I had before an explosive shock wave rocked through my core from one of his brutal kicks to my stomach.
“Ooofff,” I loudly groaned while my whole body seized up on me.
My breath was violently ripped out of my lungs with such force that I instantly sucked in the air that wasn’t there. I gasped, fighting for my next breath. The wind completely knocked me over.
I hit the ground harder than before, rolling onto the filthy floor that always smelled like stale cigarettes.
Yet right now I couldn’t smell a thing. The irony was not lost on me.
Except for the frantic hammering of my heart, my world went utterly silent.
I couldn’t draw a breath, no matter how badly my body begged for it.
I was a fish out of water, flopping around with an imaginary hook on my lip.
But I didn’t grit my teeth in terror.
I didn’t shed a tear in defeat.
I didn’t even beg for mercy.
I never did.
Making it easier for my survival instincts to overcome, I watched way too many kids get the shit beat out of them, and defeat never did them any good either. This was a sick game of cat and mouse, and through the years, my mind learned how to protect itself.
I didn’t know what it was at first… how I was able to dissociate so easily.
I didn’t even know it was an actual thing, a defense mechanism I’d been using for as long as I could remember.
I just figured it was a natural reaction to the suffering that occurred all around me at any given point in time.
It wasn’t until a group home kid shared with me that a therapist once told him our minds had the power to seek shelter within ourselves.
It was called self-preservation.
A fight or flight or freeze response.
Our way of coping.
The best way I could describe it was having a bizarre, unsettling out-of-body experience.
Like I could physically see the situation I was in from outside of myself, through an outsider’s perspective, I guess.
Sometimes I’d see myself from below, other times I’d see myself from above, then there were moments like these when I couldn’t see anything at all.
When my mind would become my gaze, and my feet represented the only way I could escape. Except it wasn’t me. At least not conscious me. My feet always fled on their own, chasing safety, which was far from the outside world, but it was the only choice I ever had, and that day wasn’t any different.
This wasn’t the first time I experienced abuse, and deep down, I was fully aware that it wouldn’t be the last I’d live through.
In the haze of my flight response, time seemed to stall for me, and one right after the other, my feet pushed off the ground. Within seconds, my heavy footsteps echoed off the nicotine-stained walls and through the thick, infested air that breathlessly clung to my chest like a vise.
My stagnant breaths lulled the pounding of my heart as I heard him snap from behind me, “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”
This wasn’t my fault.
It was never my fault.
It was their own rage driven by the booze, or it was the drugs inflicting pain despite the numbness they endlessly pursued, day after day, night after night.
I wasn’t the problem.
I was just there.
And that was all that mattered.
It was the only motive they needed. Whether it stemmed from the resentment of their lives or the bitterness of their pasts or maybe even their own trauma they once endured.
None of it mattered because hurt people hurt people, and I learned that very early on.
At the end of their self-destructive days, the only therapy they ever sought came in the form of adding yet another emotional or physical scar to whoever the person was closest to.
Usually, it was a foster.
“Loyd!” his belligerent wife shouted from somewhere in their run-down, three-story brick house.
From the second I was forced to step into this place, I despised it. The Bates played nice when social services were around, but once my case manager was gone, so was the dog and pony show they’d perfected down to an art.
As my feet flew with reckless abandon, taking two steps at a time, Mrs. Bates yelled out, “Loyd, get her before she leaves!”
I sprinted down those rickety stairs. Each creak made more noise than the afternoon train rumbling down the road, getting ready to leave the station. But nothing compared to the drunk and high man stumbling behind me.
Mr. Bates clumsily hunted after me as if I were nothing more than his prey. With each of his fumbling steps, I began to worry he was going to tumble onto me. Thankfully, my panic simply fueled me, and I was able to beat him to the front door.
However, as soon as I grabbed the metal knob, I barely got it open an inch before he was able to catch up to me. In one hasty shove, he easily shut the door from behind me while my trembling hand remained on the handle.
After he slammed it closed, I could feel the weight of his demanding and intimidating presence. It burned a hole in my back, and he was barely touching me.
In one swift movement, he roughly whirled me back around to face him, and for a brief second, our eyes locked.
The intensity in his stare was palpable before he warned, “There isn’t a chance in hell you’re getting away from me again…”
Something in his chilling tone made my blood run cold, sending a shiver down my spine.
The moment was crystal clear when his gritty hands lunged for my neck, and I ducked out of the way, just in time.
In the blink of my bloody eye, my feet were already hauling ass on the old, dingy floor, racing toward the back door. It was the only other exit.
The blood from my eyebrow wouldn’t let up, making it hard to see. Using the sleeve of my jean jacket, I tried wiping it away.
It must have slowed me down because Mrs. Bates was able to block my path, jumping out in front of me. “Not so fast,” she exclaimed, making me almost crash into her, but at the last second, I veered to the right and darted toward the basement.
There was nowhere else to run. This was my last chance to get out. Luckily, my backpack was near the basement door, and I was able to snatch it up off the floor and toss it over my shoulder. All I had were the clothes I was wearing and what I stored in my black bag.
“You little shit!” Mr. Bates spewed, bringing my attention back to him. “Get back here!”
He sounded out of breath, and I didn’t turn around. I didn’t listen, not for a single second.
Once I was close enough to the basement door, I flung it open, and it collided against the wall behind it, loudly crashing plaster onto the floor.
My legs flew down those hard concrete stairs, feeling like my combat boots barely skimmed the surface.
I was floating above the steps while the ground was sinking beneath me.
Nine steps left.
Five steps.
Two steps.
One…