Page 1 of Free to Live

Prologue

Holly

Death.

I’m not afraid of it. Not anymore.

Not after the life I’ve been forced to endure.

I never realized how much my mother sheltered me when I was little until she wasn’t there any longer. Now, I miss her occasional lucidness. It’s hard to admit that I don’t fault her for being so high in order to take all those random bastards into her bed.

She did it for me.

And she did it to protect me from him.

From the earliest moment I could comprehend, my mother warned me over and over about respecting my father’s gun. It wasn’t a toy like the kids at school might have to play with. He used it for something else; I didn’t want to know what.

All it took was the sound of it firing and my mother’s accompanying screams waking me from a dead slumber when I was around four? Five? My father yelling, “Now git, you varmint! You’ll get your money when I have it, not a second more.” I shiver in fear as I heard him repeatedly slap my mother, loud cracks that could be heard reverberating throughout the thin walls of our shoddy trailer that even in her drug-induced haze, she still tries to make a home for me. Curled in the farthest corner of my room, I wet myself in fear, drenching my hole-ridden blanket. But I’m not ever to leave my room no matter the reason after six at night. All it took was the one time for Papa’s hands to crack across my face, slamming me into the wall, to teach me that lesson. Helpless, tears course down my face as I listen to his brutality and her screams until I drift off, still frightened but too exhausted to stay awake any more. My heart and mind collapsed from the stress of blocking out the sounds coming from my parents’ room.

The next morning, Mama didn’t come out of her room. Papa said to get my own breakfast while he went out on the porch for some smokes and to make a few calls. Soon, I was picked up for school by his sister.

By the time I left, Mama still hadn’t woken up. No matter what, she always waved from the window. I stood by Aunt Sheilia’s car waiting until she impatiently snapped, “Let’s go, brat.” I know something is wrong, but I also know better than to ask.

By the time I get home, a strange woman is in the room kissing Papa. My lips began to tremble, and a funny feeling crawls up in my belly. I hate her on sight. “Papa?” My fingers tangle up in each other anxiously.

“Noelle, come here,” my father barks sharply. I scramble across the room to do as he demands. “This is Maria. She now lives here now. You will listen to everything she says as if I ordered it. Is that clear?”

The woman next to him offers me a bitter smile but doesn’t say a word.

“Where’s…” I stop myself from asking.

My father reaches out and grabs my thin arm. Even as he jerks it, I know the pressure he applied would leave bruises. It wasn’t the first time. “Your mother is gone, Noelle. Maria will be staying with us from now on. Do you understand?”

My head lowers, I nod. My red hair flops forward in braids from the day before. Because Mama often asked me to take care of her since she had so many cuts and bruises on her arms, her legs, and face, it was a labor of love for her to braid my hair. I left them in for days before my head began to itch so badly I’d have to wash my hair.

Sparing a glance at the cold, dark-haired woman in front of me, I wondered who was going to do my braids? Who was going to make me banana pudding on my birthday? This woman? My lips began to tremble before I firmed them up. Papa released me with a jerk.

I slowly backed away before his voice lashed out as hard as a slap.

“Noelle?”

I freeze in place.

“Your other rules still apply. In your bedroom by six; don’t come out before seven in the mornin’ no matter the reason. Ya hear?”

“Yes Papa,” I whisper. Turning, I run to my room and slam the door to the dark laughter behind me before the first tear falls.

Mama’s gone. She wasn’t coming back, and there wasn’t any way to get to her.

How was I going to survive?

* * *

“Tomorrow, I’m tellin’ya, Ria. That bitch has got to earn her keep around here. You were younger than she was when you started spreadin’ those legs to take your first man.”

A dark laugh accompanies my stepmother’s words. “It’ll be nice to not have to be the one doin’ all the work ’round here. She might be needin’ some trainin’ though.”

“Did you have any trainin’?” my father demands.