Page 5

Chapter One

Jayden

Six Years Earlier

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“Boy, you best comeout.” Lurking around the front of the house, my father's eyes kept shifting side to side. “Make this easy on yourself, don't make it worse than it has to be.” His voice was a growl, not a yell, not a scream, but a full blown growl.

There was a tempered layer to his voice, a subtle urgency to tear me limb from limb, maybe nibble away on my fingers, while smiling down on me with each bite.

He loved seeing my fear, feeling my fear, breathing in my fear. That's the man he was. He had become a solitary force, one who held no remorse or care for anyone else. He lived for himself, he worked for himself, and he drank to avoid himself.

When you don't give a shit about anyone else; why not just drink until your soul feels satisfied with its own reflection?

The devil lives in my house, and I call him dad.

The term hate should never be used lightly, and trust me when I say—I don't.He wasn't kind. He wasn't loving. He wasn't a father. And for that, I hated him.

He was just a person to me, nothing more, nothing less. And even that was giving him more credit than he deserved.

“Where you at boy?!” The anger in his voice was sharp, ready to slice me to pieces once he found me. “Boy!”

I had gotten pretty good at hiding from him. New spots seemed to scream at me, calling me in to harbor me and cradle me with some form of safety.

Diving into the thick elderberry bush beside the front window of our farm house, I crouched low, folding the branches around my body. Quietly, I sat and waited, listening to him call for me, demanding I show myself and take my punishment like a man.

Because being a man meant taking a licking for nothing. Because being a man meant having bruises that weren't mine to own.

Fuck being a man, I just wanted to be a kid. I deserved that much—if nothing else—I deserved being a kid.

“You just wait till I find you, boy, I'm going to make you regret hiding!” His heavy boots thudded by the bush as he walked around the house towards the pen in the back. The ground bounced with each step, making my small frame vibrate. “You think you can hide from me? You think you can run from me? You'll never get away, I'll find you, you know I will.” His voice faded as he went further behind the house, further and further from my safe little nook.

I lived on what used to be a farm, but not now, not anymore. There were no more chickens, no more cows or pigs. The goats were all buried up on the hill, and the rooster hadn't crowed in years. It was all gone, all except the corn crops.

The farm had been in my mother's family for generations, passed down until it traded hands from my grandparents to my mother, and sadly, from her to my father.

My father took this safe haven and turned it into a graveyard. It didn't look anything like the pictures in the attic, they were just faded images of something that used to be grand. When I looked at our home now, I saw nothing but sadness.

I didn't remember my grandparents. My grandfather died when I was two, and according to my mother, my grandmother died of a broken heart not long after.

A broken heart—You know I actually believed that lie for years. I was foolish enough to think if you truly loved someone and they died, your heart would shatter, sending you straight into the ground.

Then my mom passed away, and I hurt, I ached. I can still feel it in my chest when I take a breath. It was like a giant thorn bush was wrapped around my lungs, digging its sharp spikes into the muscle of my heart.