Page 2 of We Are Yours

Chapter

One

Isla

The beginning of all that truly mattered.

* * *

“You ungrateful little shit!” Mr. Bates seethed, slamming his fist down on the wooden table beside him.

The flimsy wood rattled wildly, and for a few seconds, I let it provide a false sense of security, like the soothing sound of your favorite lullaby. I took comfort in knowing what would happen next, so when he gripped the collar of the only jean jacket I owned and instantly jerked me toward him, I was expecting it.

“I’m done with your bullshit!” he spat too close to my mouth. “Do you understand me?”

He reeked of vodka. It seeped out of his sweaty pores. He’d been on a bender for the past two days, a strict liquor diet that he and his wife loved to live by. Staying out of their way was just a typical day for us. By now, I was used to this nasty treatment, and I knew he wouldn’t grant me any mercy. He never granted anyone mercy.

Especially us foster kids.

I hated him. Her. All of them. All the houses were the same, just with different faces. It all blended. All mean. All violent. Barking orders left and right. Most of the time, it was a living, breathing nightmare that held us hostage against our will. Where we could never escape, never fully wake up, never get a moment of peace unless we were left alone, and even then, that wasn’t very peaceful.

I experienced it all.

Every vicious word.

Every blow to my body.

Every whimper I heard.

Every sob.

Every time someone begged, surrendered, or gave up, they prayed to God to make them stop.

Someone should have done something, though no one ever did.

I braced for the painful impact that would inevitably come, and still, it hurt like hell when he hurled me onto the same unsteady table that hadn’t stopped rattling. This time, it wasn’t my body that broke my fall. No, it was my face that slammed into the corner of the table first, slicing my eyebrow before the top of my body crashed into splintered wood.

My eyebrow didn’t just nick. It cut in half with this familiar steady and pulsing ache, this throbbing that beat directly into my right eye, where I was suddenly blind.

By fear.

By hate.

By blood.

“Get up!” he roared, looming from what sounded like above me.

Instinctively, my fingers reached for my face as I tasted the metallic blood in my mouth. With the back of my shaky hand, I tried to wipe away the blood gushing down my eye and cheek, but it was no use. I’d need stitches.

“I said…” he impatiently stressed through a clenched jaw into my ear from above me. “Get the fuck up!”

Since I knew it never ended here, I lifted my arms to guard my face while trying to scramble to my feet, but between the blood in my eye and the disorientation of trying to find my bearings and balance, I couldn’t get up fast enough for him.

The whooshing sound of his combat boot whizzing through the air was the only warning I had before an explosive shock wave rocked through my core from one of his brutal kicks to my stomach.

“Ooofff,” I loudly groaned while my whole body seized up on me.

My breath was violently ripped out of my lungs with such force that I instantly sucked in the air that wasn’t there. I gasped, fighting for my next breath. The wind completely knocked me over.