Property of Lunatic (Kings of Anarchy MC #3)

Chapter One

The Past

“I’m hungry.” I tug on the back of my dad’s coat for the third time.

“Later, Hopee.” He smacks my hand away, and I want to cry.

My stomach hurts. I’ve not eaten anything since yesterday or the day before. I can’t be sure. The days are all starting to run together. Since we came to New York City, things have only gotten worse for us. My dad promised when we came here that things would change. That he would change.

He’s a liar.

I hate him.

He makes everything harder than it should be.

He’s selfish.

Just like Momma.

No one ever asks me what I want or what I think or what I need.

“Dad.”

“Quiet, Hopee.”

“Dad!” I tug the sleeve of his coat.

He whirls around with his fist pulled back as though he’s about to make good on his threats to send me into next week. I shrink back, tears filling the brims of my eyes. His gaze softens at the sight of my tears. “I said later.”

“That’s what you always say,” I mutter, but he’s already back to ignoring me.

Sometimes I think he only keeps me around because people are more inclined to help a man with a child than they are one without one.

He doesn’t love me.

Blames me for Momma leaving.

I want to run away, but I’m a chicken and afraid of what would happen to me if I were to go off on my own.

Charlie tells me I’d do better on my own, now that I’m developing boobs.

Charlie is a guy we met on our first day in the city.

He took us under his wing and showed us how the transient world works.

I’m well aware of what he’s hinting at, and the thought scares me.

I don’t want anyone touching me or looking at my body. Especially not gross men.

I’m not stupid. I see how men look at my chest with lust in their eyes.

It’s disgusting.

They look at me like my dad does when he’s had too much to drink and he’s lonely.

He touched me one time, and I threw up all over him.

He smacked me and made me clean it up.

We’ve never spoken about it again, but sometimes it is all I can think about.

Because it makes me sick, and when I feel sick, I don’t want food.

Tonight it’s not working.

My stomach rumbles. Snot drips from my nose and I cough, which makes my belly hurt even more. Charlie says I need to see a doctor, but we can’t pay and they will ask too many questions, so Dad says no.

We were staying at a homeless shelter, but last night we were turned away. We didn’t get there early enough to get a bed. Whatever belongings I had tucked away there are now long gone.

I should have crammed my stuff into my backpack, but it’s already ripping at the seams.

Life didn’t use to be this way.

Hard.

Unbearable.

My dad always had a job. He worked in the coal mines until they went bankrupt. When he couldn’t get a new job, he turned to the bottle. The drink made him mean, and him and Momma would fight. He’d knock her around, and she’d call him ugly names.

She’d say mean things like my little brother wasn’t his kid.

That she wished they’d never met.

She wished my existence away.

They’d fight and make up.

Then fight some more.

Momma would lie in bed and cry, and I would stroke her hair to soothe her. I hated when Momma cried.

She tried so hard to make things better, but her idea of making things work was like putting a bandage on an amputated limb.

One day I came home from school, and she was sitting at the kitchen table of our double-wide eating chocolate cake straight from the container with my little brother, Jacob.

She had gotten a job at a bar downtown. Was celebrating her first paycheck.

Some of the light in her eyes had returned.

I foolishly thought this meant things would be better.

Daddy didn’t look so happy as he sat in his recliner drinking his beer.

Momma didn’t let me have any cake. Said I shoulda ate at school.

I did, but I wanted cake.

She always loved Jacob more than me.

Momma would work all hours of the night.

She’d be going to bed as I’d be going to school.

Eventually she came home less often until one day she didn’t come home at all.

One day all her and my brother’s things were gone.

She had left us, but more importantly, she had left me.

No goodbye. There was no note saying, ‘I will be back for you soon, Hope.’

I don’t know what I did wrong. I tried so hard to be a good girl. I made good grades and never got into trouble. I never raised my voice. Why didn’t Momma want me? Why wasn’t I good enough?

Daddy just sat in his chair and drank some more. Eventually, all our utilities were shut off without Momma paying the bills. Then we were evicted and moved in with one of Daddy’s friends. That didn’t last long when he caught Daddy in bed with his wife.

After that, we slept in the car. Every day I woke up somewhere new until we found ourselves here in the city that never sleeps.

I follow my dad down the alley, foolishly believing he is taking me to get food.

All my optimism is dashed when I see him pulling out the last of our money for a little yellow rock. Tears burn at the corners of my eyes as I bite my lip, tasting the metallic flavor of my blood as my teeth cut through the chapped skin.

I worked for that money. Picking pockets. Begging. I earned it and he just takes and takes and never gives.

We’re supposed to be saving for a place to stay. To eat.

I can’t remember the last time I showered.

The last time I slept in an actual bed in a room with four walls.

I want to hit him. I want to take that stupid rock and toss it into the burning barrel nearby.

I don’t do that though. I stare at the flames as the heat licks my face, wishing I could float away just like the ashes from the burning newspapers as they float into the winter air.

Burning embers slowly fading to nothing.

I wish I could disappear too. A tear slides down my cheek as my dad sinks down to the ground and him and Charlie share that stupid rock.

They melt it on a spoon with a lighter.

The cold air bites at my cheeks as my stomach continues to growl and hurt.

Maybe if Dad and Charlie would share that rock with me, I wouldn’t feel these hunger pains any longer.

Neither of them ever seems to be hungry much.

My dad no longer even looks like the man I once knew.

The man who’d come home from work with a blackened face from being underground all night.

A man who worked hard to provide.

A man who loved and cared for me.

Who bought me dolls and dresses.

Now I’m down to a few shirts and three pairs of underwear and the jeans I’m wearing.

My sweatshirt is too tight in the armpits. I need a bra.

I stare at my father, and I hate him more than I hate my mother.

Now his jaws are sunken in, and his once vibrant eyes appear to have been hollowed out with a spoon. Black circles rim them, and the lines of his face remind me of the skin of a rotting onion. Thin and papery. Wrinkled.

I dig around in my backpack looking for the half of a granola bar I tucked back for desperate times.

Tonight I’m beyond desperate.

“Hey,” I hear a voice whisper.

Looking to my right, I see a man peering at me from the corner. I turn back to my dad as Charlie ties off his arm. I know what comes next. The needle.

“Girl. Come here,” I hear the man call out again. This time he is shaking a sandwich at me. My stomach burns at the sight. I’m so hungry my feet carry me forward at their own will. “You want this food?” He smiles a toothless grin at me.

I nod my head. A hushed, “Uh huh,” leaves my throat. I steal a glance back at my dad. He’s too fixated on getting high to worry about me. Charlie too. I am hardly a foot from the man.

“Don’t be shy.”

I know I am being stupid, but I am too hungry to care. All I can think about is that sandwich in his hands. I’d do just about anything for the crust right now.

I lick my chapped, cracked lips.

“You thirsty?” He holds up a brown paper bag with a bottle sticking out of the top.

I am thirsty. My mouth waters at the prospect. Somewhere deep inside, a voice is telling me to run and never look back. That this is dangerous. I take a step back.

“It’s okay. I won’t hurt you,” he tells me softly. His skin is worn and reminds me of my scuffed-up leather shoes.

I want to believe him.

I’m also too parched to care.

I stare into his dark eyes, unable to read him, but at this point, what do I have to lose?

He extends the paper bag to me. The brown paper makes a crinkling sound under my tight grasp.

I take a big gulp. The clear liquid sets my throat on fire, but warms me down to my toes.

I return the bag and he tears me off a piece of the sandwich.

Greedily, I practically swallow my serving in one bite.

“You gotta be smart out here, kid. Nothing in this world is free. I did something for you. Now you’ve gotta do something for me.”

I swallow the last bit of crumbs on my tongue and go still when his hand goes to his zipper. I knew better.

Now look at me, being shoved down on my knees where no one will hear my screams. Where no one will care even if they do.

“I’ll give you another taste.” With a shaky hand, I accept the drink once more, eagerly taking another big sip. I’m too scared to feel the burn this time. “Open that pretty mouth wide for me,” he commands.

I clamp my lips shut and shake my head. I know what he wants, and I will die before I give it to him.

I’ve seen Charlie do it for money. I’ve seen people do a lot of things to survive.

To make it one more day. I spare one last look at my father, hoping he sees what he has done to me.

What he has reduced me to. His eyes are closed, and the man hits me in the side of the head with the liquor bottle.

My head snaps sideways and boomerangs back while all I can think is I am going to die for half of a sandwich.

My eyes roll back as I fall over, hitting the uneven pavement.

I hear a shout as Charlie charges the man and stabs him in the side of the neck with the empty syringe.

The man’s eyes go wide as I scramble backwards, crawling on my hands.

A sharp piece of glass stabs me in the middle of my left palm.

My father’s arms wrap around me as Charlie fights with the man who is now brandishing a pocketknife.

My father takes one look at my bleeding hand, tears the corner of his flannel off, and wraps it securely around my wound. “We need to go.”

“What about Charlie!” I feel panicky as anxiety bubbles in my chest. My heart lodges itself in my throat. I’m going to puke up that bite of bread.

“He can handle himself.” My father pulls me away from the scene, cursing under his musty breath as we go, leaving our only friend to fend for himself.

We end up outside of a church that is known to sometimes open its doors on colder nights to people like us.

Worry for Charlie dances on the edge of my mind as I stress over where we will sleep tonight. The church is closed. The temperature isn’t low enough for them to open tonight. “Dad, where will we go?”

“The subway,” he tells me with a grim expression.

Things could be worse, but they could also be better.

We end up on the E train with around fifty other homeless people, looking to rest their eyes. I read once in a pamphlet that there is an estimated sixty thousand and growing population of homeless people in New York City alone.

Sometimes the police patrol the cars to make sure we aren’t sleeping, but they don’t generally bother us or make us get off since we aren’t doing anything illegal.

My dad and I sit next to each other, taking turns napping on one another’s shoulder, keeping watch, but tonight I think everyone is as equally exhausted.

But not the rats.

They never sleep.

I kick one away as it tries to crawl up my dad’s leg, then pull my feet onto the seat.

We spend two days wandering the streets aimlessly looking for Charlie.

On the third day, my dad finds out from this trick named Cookie, that he is in the hospital with multiple stab wounds.

He’s not doing so hot. Guilt washes over me.

He was protecting me because I was being stupid.

Charlie could die all because I wanted that sandwich.

Cookie takes one look at me and my dad and invites us to rest in her room until she gets her next customer.

She lives in a shit building owned by her pimp.

The walls are dingy and filled with holes. The flooring is peeling up at the corners, and it reeks of mold in here, but it’s warm. Warmer than being out in the street.

Cookie is a beautiful woman with the darkest skin I have ever seen. Her hair is in braids that are rolled close to her scalp in a zigzag pattern. I asked her once if she could braid my hair to look like hers, and she laughed.

Her red fingernail presses into my rosy cheek from being out in the cold air.

“Get yourself a shower. I’ll warm you up some soup for you.

” I nod my head, fighting the urge to cry.

I don’t know why Cookie is good to us, but she is.

We don’t come by her place often, but when we do, she always feeds me and washes my clothes.

My dad pulls me to the side. “You do as Cookie says. I’m going to the hospital to see about Charlie. I’ll be back later, Hopee.”

I can only nod my head. I’m exhausted. My feet are cold and dragging from all the walking. My toes are numb and feel ready to fall off.

I take a shower and put on clean clothes.

I stare out the window, watching and waiting for my dad.

Three days blur into a week.

A week turns into a month.

Later never comes.

My dad never comes back.

Cookie takes me under her wing. Starts calling me Daisy. Tells me I can’t be Hope anymore. Teaches me to survive.

Teaches me how to use what I got to earn my keep.

Says if I do a good job, I’ll be given my own apartment someday.

Some day never comes.

A few weeks later I’m put into a van with five other girls and taken to a warehouse. Then I’m on a small plane with only two of the girls I started this trip with.

After the plane ride, I’m forced into the trunk of a car.

I’m the only girl left.

The next time I see daylight, I’m in another country and I can’t understand what anyone is saying.

I should have run away when I had the chance.

The second I get a chance, I’m running off to some place far where men don’t hit.

Men don’t take.

Where there is always food and girls have their own beds.