Page 1

1
REBEL
The nightmares always came.
Fingers on my skin, biting and tearing, taking what hadn’t been offered. Taunts in my ears, reminding me I deserved this because I was trailer-park trash.
Darkness wrapped itself around me, pulling me down, stealing everything good, until there was nothing left except the shell of a woman who woke in twisted, sweaty, fear-soaked sheets.
I had no tears left. For days after, I’d lain in this bed, crying for everything they’d stolen from me. Sniffling while texting my boss to tell her I was sick and couldn’t come into the club. Sobbing in pain while I sat in the shower, water running over the filth I couldn’t scrub clean.
They hadn’t killed me, but they may as well have.
I was dead inside. Used. My spirit broken.
How many days would it be until my body just gave up too?
It was taking too long.
I dragged myself from bed, wobbling on unsteady legs in the dark. For the first time since I’d been dumped back in Saint View and forced to stumble my way home or lie in the gutter and die, I left my apartment. The filthy carpeted stairs in the hallway reeked of piss and left a sticky residue on the bottoms of my bare feet. It was two in the morning, but music still played from behind the door of my downstairs neighbor, and I slumped against the frame to bang my fist against the wall. “Robbie!”
The music paused, and a second later, the door swung open, my neighbor blinking at me through squinty, bloodshot eyes.
“I need a gun.”
Robbie leaned on the doorway, crossing his arms over his chest in suspicion, but not particularly surprised by my demand. “Do you know what time it is? Also, what the fuck happened to you?”
I could guess at what he saw. Short hair wild. Bare legs and arms scratched and torn with half-healed injuries. Eyes black with bruises. “Doesn’t matter. Do you have a gun or not?”
“Depends on if you’re gonna pay?”
I had no money. Nothing more than the few dollars left in my bank account at the end of the pay week. I had no property of any value, nothing to sell or trade for, and there was an eviction notice pinned to my door because my rent was overdue. I shook my head desperately. “Please, Robbie. Just give me one.”
“You can pay in other ways.” He leered at me, running his disgusting, thick tongue over chapped lips.
I backed off so quick my hip hit the railing of the staircase behind me.
For half a second, I imagined toppling over it. Free-falling through the air. Snapping my neck on impact with the ground-level floor.
Seemed like bliss compared to the pain and fear that had plagued me since that night.
Robbie held his hands up. “Whoa, shit. Settle down. I didn’t mean it. What do you want a gun for?”
I didn’t answer his question and deflected with a comment of my own. “I could tell the cops all about what you’re growing in there. I saw you bringing in another set of lights last weekend.”
His eyes widened. “I need those lights for tanning!”
I snorted. “Yeah, and I need a gun so I can use it as a flower vase. Just give me one.” I held my hand out, palm up, waiting.
Robbie scowled but disappeared into his home. I peeked around the corner of the doorframe and raised an eyebrow at the hydroponic setup he had going on in his living room. There was a small farm of mid-size marijuana plants growing happily in the middle of it. “Seriously, Rob? Not even in a bedroom?”
He reappeared and flipped me the bird with one hand, the other clutching a small black handgun. “It’s a loan, Rebel. I want it back.”
I snatched it from his fingers before he could change his mind and hightailed it back up the stairs, hugging it to my chest and hoping none of our other neighbors would decide to take a late-night stroll and catch me with it.
“Hey,” Robbie called after me. “If you kill someone, can you at least wipe my fingerprints off it?”
I shut the door behind me, double-checking it was locked, and then leaned back against it, breathing harder than necessary after the short sprint up the stairs.