Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 145942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 730(@200wpm)___ 584(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145942 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 730(@200wpm)___ 584(@250wpm)___ 486(@300wpm)
I was tortured, bullied by my own fucking parents, made to believe that I wasn’t worth the air I was breathing, not unless I learned how to become someone in this fucked up world, and in order to survive, that’s exactly what I did.
All these years, I thought that was my father’s influence, but I was wrong—it was her too.
Ida Fucking Carver.
I’ve always hated her, ever since I was four years old and first learned what the word ‘hate’ truly meant. She was a pitiful excuse of a mother, but with my father in the picture, I hardly gave it any notice because he was the one to watch out for. It’s hard to believe it, but even back then, I had no choice but to look at my mother as my safety net.
I would watch my friends with their doting parents, always wanting them to be the best version of themselves while I was going home to get beaten for not getting the best grades or for getting into fights at school. I always wanted what they had and it wasn’t until I was much older that I realized it was never going to happen. I had to create my own light in a dark world. It was the only way to survive and that’s exactly what I did.
My only relief came when my sisters were born and they took the attention off me. I was a screw up, I was weak, and every chance they got, they let me know it, and because of that, I always vowed to prove them wrong. I just hate that Winter got the chance to do it before I could, but never again. From here on out, I deal with my problems, they don’t get swept under the rug, even if it means taking my own mother’s life to do it.
The months at a time when they would disappear used to be the best times of my childhood. I raised myself and I fucking loved it, but then they’d come home and demand to see how I’d improved while they were gone, and the torture would start all over again. I was never good enough, never strong enough, never worthy, even up until my father’s last day on earth, he would remind me that I’d never be the kind of head of family that he was, and he was never so right. I was never going to be like him and that’s the best goddamn thing about it.
When those words came out of Ember’s mouth, I felt fucking sick. I had to do something about it, and honestly, I haven’t even thought this through, but I can guarantee that after a lifetime of abuse, I won't be thinking it through calmly. Perhaps Winter’s recklessness is rubbing off on me. All I know is that it feels fucking great.
Adrenaline pulses through my veins at the very thought of taking Ida’s life. She can rot in hell with her husband, and one day I’ll join them there, and that’s when the fun is really going to start.
The alarm continues screeching and any normal person would have shut it up the moment they could, but not Ida. She knows better than that. She would be using the noise of the alarm to mask her movements around my house, but while she’s had all sorts of training and could kill a motherfucker without hesitation, I’m better, I always have been. Mother and father dearest made sure that I was.
Even through the screeching alarm, I hear my sisters upstairs, running through their bedroom, terrified of who’s storming into their home in the middle of the night, but they would have been prepared for shit like this. My parents would have taught them to hide and shut their mouths until it was over, just as they taught me.
I hate that they’re scared, but soon enough, it’ll all be better. I’ll make sure of it. They’ll never have to fear again.
I creep through the main foyer, stopping at the bottom of the stairs and listening intently, trying to ignore the alarm as I listen for every other little sound coming from within the house. The girls have settled into their hiding spots, meaning that the only creaks coming from upstairs are those of my mother’s.
She walks through the master bedroom and I pause, tracking her movements as she darts across the room to the small dresser and takes the gun out of the drawer. She then hurries across to her massive walk-in closet and pulls the door closed, only leaving it open just a crack. She’s too fucking obvious.
Knowing that apart from my sisters, there’s not another soul in the house, I make my way up the stairs. My feet ease over the old wood, avoiding every creak and moan that years of sneaking around has burned into my memory.