You Deserve Better (Book 1)

Chapter 2 - The Maiden

" I spoke to the maiden
She hasn't said a word
I told her I wasn't coming home. "

'The Maiden' -  Bury Tomorrow

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The bright winter sun flooded in through the blinds hitting Emily's sleeping form with its rays. Almost like a bear awakening from hibernation she gradually stirred as the warmth from the sunbeams flooded her bones and warmed her body. She rolled over onto her back and realised the space beside her was empty, which must have meant that Jason hadn't come home last night. She strained to hear if she could hear movement coming from elsewhere in the apartment, but couldn't. Yep. He definitely hadn't come home last night.

She stretched, wincing as she had forgotten about her bruised ribs, courtesy of Jason. The shouting match when she had got in his car after work last night had only been the prequel of what was about to come and had ended in the Grande Finale of Jason kicking her in the ribs calling her a 'useless whore' and storming out of the apartment to make his way over to Travis's for his weekly Poker Night.

Lifting up her arm and hesitantly running her fingers over her ribs she looked down to see some lovely red and blue bruising starting to form there. No doubt there would be an array of colours from the rainbow to follow. At least it would be easy to hide with clothes to avoid the barrage of questions that would be thrown her way. Turning her head to glance at the alarm clock by the side of the bed she saw its luminous red digits flashing back 8:05am to her.

She sighed a deep sigh and reached out to turn off the alarm that was due to go off in five minutes time to signify that it was time to get up and go to work and resume life as per normal. Swinging her legs gingerly round to the side of the bed and planting her feet firmly on the floor, she pushed herself up off of the bed, grimacing and made her way to their en-suite bathroom to take her morning shower and get dressed ready for work. She was on the early morning shift for half of the week and the later shift towards the end of the week.

Emily didn't mind working the late shift. It was usually slow and relatively uneventful which gave her some time to herself. Her place of work was her sanctuary, she felt safe there and knew Jason wouldn't be able to hurt her, not if he didn't want hundreds of pairs of eyes on him bearing witness. Plus, it usually meant that he was either asleep by the time she clocked off or out. Somewhere.

It was about mid-morning and there had been a steady flow of customers who had trickled in off the wet and windy streets for their usual coffee orders. Emily was out the back in the stockroom grabbing some more paper cups for the takeaway orders when she managed to catch a glimpse of someone stood waiting at the counter.

"I'll be with you in just a second!" She called out to them from picking up a cardboard box of creamer off a shelf as that seemed to be getting low as well.

"It's fine. Take your time there's no rush." The person called back to her.

She frowned to herself as she picked up the box. That wasn't an American accent they had spoken with. She made her way back out to the front racking her brain to try and place it. They didn't get all that many foreigners in the café, especially in the Winter which wasn't the most popular time of year to tourists.

"Woah! Hey, here let me help you." The person with the strange voice offered when they saw her trying to accomplish a balancing act between the creamer and paper cups. She felt the load lighten slightly as they took the stack of paper cups from on top of the box.