Haven's Knight (Sample of Published Book)

Chapter 3 - Part 1

Haven

The next morning, I woke with a start. I was drenched in sweat and breathing hard. The brightness of the sun that streamed through the curtains lifted the dark memories. Nightmares had caused me to toss and turn for most of the night. I'd been dreaming about Grant. I tried to take a deep breath to calm my erratic breathing. My heart was still pounding in my chest. I sat up and rubbed my hands over my face, trying to shake off the remainder of the nightmare. I buried the memories of my nightmare deep inside.

That night, I'd dreamed of the first time Grant had hit me. I was ten at the time, and it was a couple of months after he had moved in with us. It was not the severity of beating that had made me suppress the memory. It was the fact that it had been the first time he had ever hit me, and the first time I'd seen the evil inside him. It had happened over something trivial. I'd knocked over a glass of juice onto the carpet. He'd stood over me while I'd tried to clean it up. When I'd looked up at him, his jaw had twitched as he'd fisted both of his hands. I hadn't seen it coming. He had hit my face. I'd looked up at him in stunned shock, holding on to my aching cheek when I saw the face of evil for the very first time.

During that time, I'd been trying to deal with the loss of my father and being ignored by my mother while she dealt with her grief. I'd held so much hope that Grant would be able to make everything right. Up until that point I'd trusted him, and I'd thought he'd be able to fix my broken family.

I realized that day that he had every intention of breaking me. And over the years, he had. I was broken. Even if I did escape from his brutality, the physical pain would stop, but the emotional pain would live with me forever.

I drew in another ragged breath to calm down my pounding heart, and I reached under my mattress. I pulled out an old photo. The emotions that flooded through me every time I looked at the photo were overwhelming. It was a photo of my father and me. It had been taken a few months before he had died. In the photo, I was so happy as my father had held me lovingly in his arms. We were both smiling as we looked into the camera. I still missed him, and what he'd symbolized. He was last person who'd loved me, and when I looked at the photo I could remember what it felt like. When I was tempted to give up, I would look at the photo and remember that feeling. It would give me the strength to get through another day. Someday I would find someone to love me again, and for that reason I couldn't give up.

After I calmed down, I leaned over to return the photo to its hiding place under my bed. I got up and got dressed. I stopped abruptly when I heard a noise in the apartment. With my ear against my bedroom door, I listened, but it was quiet. A feeling of dread began to build up inside of me. My mom rarely came out of her room, so that meant that Grant was the one downstairs making the noise I was hearing. I would have to go past him to get out of the house.

I prayed that he was not in a foul mood today so that I wouldn't have a couple of fists flying my way. I wanted to stay hidden safely in my room, but I couldn't miss my second day of school. A nervous knot joined the dread inside me when I left my bedroom and headed to the bathroom. I hastily brushed my hair and my teeth before I walked into the living room.

Immediately, I knew that the noises were coming from the kitchen. I anxiously clutched the strap of my school bag tighter as I entered the living room. I held my breath when I got closer to the kitchen.

Suddenly, the noise stopped. I took a tentative step and peered through the kitchen doorway. My eyes settled on the source of the noise, and it was my mom searching through the cupboards. I sighed with relief when I walked into the kitchen. My mom didn't notice that I was in the kitchen while she continued her search through the cupboards.

"What are you looking for?" I asked her. I knew her well enough to know that she was looking for alcohol or cigarettes, her two vices.

"Wine," she muttered as she continued to search.

I walked to the cupboard where the wine was and got a bottle out. I handed it to her. She was probably drunk already, and that was why she couldn't find what she needed. As she turned to take the bottle from me I got a strong whiff of alcohol. No matter how many times I saw her in this state, it still shocked me. My beautiful, loving mother had disintegrated into the complete stranger standing in front of me.

Once, she'd been beautiful. Her dark-blond hair had once been smooth and silky, but was now greasy and messy. Her once flawless skin was hollow and wrinkled. Her toffee-colored eyes had once sparkled with promise; now they were a dull brown color, and glazed over with the effects of the alcohol. She looked ten years older than she actually was. The alcohol was literally sucking the life right out of her. She didn't look at me or say anything. She just left the kitchen with the bottle of wine tightly clutched in her hand. Her indifference hurt me more than the physical abuse. I gulped down the emotion it pulled from me and grabbed some bread and shoved it into my bag.

The bus ride to school was uneventful. When I got to school, I walked inside. I made a quick stop at my locker to get the books I needed. There was still time for me to eat my breakfast before school started, so I looked for a quiet place where I could eat my bread without prying eyes.

I found a quiet spot in between two school buildings. I sat down and ate the bread I'd shoved in my bag earlier. One thing I had promised myself was that when I finally escaped the clutches of evil I would never eat plain bread again. I tried to disappear into the background, but I got some curious looks from some of the students when I made my way to my first class of the day. I had nearly made it to my classroom when I spotted Damien out of the corner of my eye.

He had some cheerleader pushed up against the locker and their hands were all over each other. I couldn't take my eyes off of the two of them. I'd never seen two people go at it like that out in the open for everyone to see. I thought about what Chris had told me. From the physical evidence in front of me, I knew what Chris had told me about Damien Knight was true.

Not that it really mattered. I didn't know Damien Knight and I didn't want to know him. I pulled my gaze from him and the cheerleader, and continued to my class while I ignored everyone around me.