Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 107118 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 536(@200wpm)___ 428(@250wpm)___ 357(@300wpm)
The next picture showed the fire. The faces of those igniting the wooden porch were unclear. Then the blood drained from my face. The next page showed all the perpetrators. I ran my finger over the faces of all who had been there that fucking night. Men I knew from the town. The mechanic. The diner owner. Even the police . . . the list went on.
White-hot fury settled over me like a blanket when I saw who had been initiated that night: Jase, Pierre, Stan, and Davide.
Jase had lit the fire. We’d seen them at the rodeo. A realization dawned. He’d known what he was about to do that night, as he looked me straight in the eye. As he’d fought me until I’d had a seizure. He’d known that, that very night, he was going to kill me.
I wasn’t sure I could keep going, but there was one page left. I took another swig of whiskey and read on. My grandfather’s face peered up at me from the paper. Betrayal like nothing I’d ever felt fucking took over every part of me. That prick. That motherfucking cunt. My hands shook. My body fucking vibrated as the words jumped off the page. He had ordered the fire. My grandfather. My mamma’s daddy had ordered the fucking attack on her home . . . on us. He paid the local Grand Wizard to kill me and my daddy. Aubin’s daddy had called him away that night to meet his mama, so he’d have been out of the house . . . I choked on fucking air. How could he do that to his daughter? To his fucking family?
And, fuck! Aubin’s folks had known too.
But it’d all gone wrong.
Because of me . . . because I’d had the seizure.
Throwing the folder across the room, I got to my feet. I looked around the apartment, not knowing where the fuck to go or what to do. My legs were weak as I visualized those pictures in my mind: the torches, the hoods . . . and my mamma looking out of the window, seeing them on her lawn, all there for her.
She should have been gone. Out of the house . . . but I’d had a fucking seizure. A pained fucking gurgling sound cut from my throat as I crossed the room and gathered up the folder. I ran out of the apartment and outside to what had to be Crow’s truck.
Letting adrenaline and hate fucking fuel me, I gunned out of the parking lot. It took five minutes to figure out where I was. The rain hammered down like a sheet of water falling from the sky. The road ahead blurred as the tears ran down my face. Horns beeped and brakes screeched as I cut through the streets and freeways.
I drove and drove until I passed the welcome sign for the town that I wanted to tear to the fucking ground. I cut through the streets that housed the men who murdered my family, took everyone the fuck away at a stroke.
By the time I neared my old home, I noticed there were no fucking birds in the trees. I always noticed that birds never sang when death hovered near. The only sound was the roar of the truck’s engine.
My heart beat too fast as I rounded the corner and the remnants of my childhood appeared. Pain, like nothing I’d ever felt before, smashed into my chest. It carried the weight of a wrecking ball as it shattered my ribs and flattened my heart. I skidded to a stop, the tires slipping on the wet mud. Pools of rainwater spread into puddles on what used to be the path to the porch. The rain snatched the view out of the windshield all too quickly. Hands shaking, I opened the door and stepped into the storm. Thunder cracked up ahead. Lightning forked in the distance. Storm clouds rolled above, and as I looked at the violent sky, all I could think was why couldn’t it have rained that night?
My feet stumbled on the slippery ground as I made my way to the rotting woodpile—all that was left of my house. The rain and wind slapped at my face, lashing my broken skin like leather whips. I barely kept my balance as I climbed over the rough ground. I struggled to see ahead, my view of the house blurring. I wasn’t sure if it was from the storm or the tears flooding my eyes.
I didn’t know where I was walking to, or where I would stop, but that choice was taken from me when I slipped and my knees crashed into the ground.
My body fell forward. My hands sank into the earth, my fingers a sieve for the mud mixed with ash. I closed my eyes, breathing. Just fucking breathing as memory after memory zipped through my head. Of happier times. Of the sad times, and of the night this place burned like a hell on earth. A hell filled with hatred of the unknown—the different and the misunderstood.