Total pages in book: 43
Estimated words: 40275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 201(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40275 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 201(@200wpm)___ 161(@250wpm)___ 134(@300wpm)
He shoved me in through the driver’s side of the truck, never releasing his grip as his fingertips dug into the sensitive flesh on the inside of my arm, bellowing about how the devil was strong in me and how he’d find a way to beat him out of me.
“How did you find me?” I hiss, more angry than afraid. “How did you even know to come to that house?”
“I know things you do not.”
I smooth my dress as much as I can. I can’t wrap my mind around what’s happening. I can still feel Davis inside me, his cum wetting my thighs as the Jesus gang leers at me from the dashboard.
The preacher on the radio raises his voice. “In the same way, you who are younger, submit yourselves to your elders!”
“A-fucking-men!” Grandpa glares at me.
Thump-thump-thump on the steering wheel, and more bellowing, this time scripture from Deuteronomy. And that’s how I know he’s pissed. Really pissed.
Deuteronomy is the big guns.
I thought I was free of it. At least until Spring. A respite at least. Stupid, naïve me. All this time in the love haze had me thinking maybe, just maybe…
“All of you! Clothe yourselves with humility toward one another! Because God opposes the proud! He shows favor to the humble!”
Grandpa thumps the steering wheel. “Hallelujah! Where’s your humility, Marin? Where’s your respect for your elders?”
The preacher starts again. And I reach calmly forward and turn the radio off.
“Respect goes both ways,” I say, sitting up straight and shaking my arm loose from his prying grip. “Didn’t anybody ever teach you that?”
“That’s enough, young lady—”
“No. I don’t think it is. I am not a temptress, Grandpa. I am not impure. I am just me. I am an eighteen-year-old girl, who has all her life been policed and chided and made to believe that she is bad, through and through. Just because God created me in a way people seem to find me pretty. I’m eighteen, what you’re doing right now is against the law. Kidnapping. False imprisonment. Assault.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I’ve never assaulted anyone in my life.”
I glare, then reach one hand across and lift the torn sleeve of my dress, shaking it at him, showing him the bruises from his fingers underneath. “Assault.”
He scoffs. “You want to talk about assault? I could tell you a thing or two about that animal you’ve been spending time with.”
This?
I almost laugh. He thinks Davis is holding secrets from me. He has no idea.
“I know all about the accident,” I tell him with a note of triumph. “Davis was just taking care of his brother. Bad things happen. You think I care about that? You have no idea. He respects me, and I respect him back, that’s how it works. Maybe if you cared about someone other than yourself you’d understand that.”
He grins as he turns my way. “You don’t know anything, you stupid little girl. You don’t know the half of what Davis Ray is capable of.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means—” He falls silent as his eyes flick to the mirror. “Damn him!”
I hear the roar of an engine as I turn in my seat, my hair being swept out of the open window as I see the massive truck bearing down on us.
And the darkened face of Davis glaring from behind the wheel.
The front of his vehicle almost collides with the back of ours, but he swerves and mounts the bank to the left, his truck throwing dirt and melted snow in an arc behind. I scream in panic as Grandpa tries to turn into Davis, gunning the engine, but he doesn’t have the courage to maintain that course.
Davis’s truck careens back onto the road at a sharp angle, brakes squealing in protest, suspension barely hanging on as he pulls right across our path, missing the front of our vehicle by an inch. I scream again as his truck skids, barely holding onto the mountain path, almost toppling over the steep edge as the rear end fishtails then regains its hold.
Grandpa swears, slamming on his brakes as Davis slows in front, turning his truck to block the road.
Davis is out of his door in an instant, booted feet planted firmly in the dirt, a shotgun held loosely in his hands.
“Get the fuck out here, old man,” he demands, spitting at the ground at his feet.
“You wait here,” Grandpa tells me, but I no longer care about his orders. As he slides out of his seat, I open my door and bound onto the road. My slippers sink into the mud but I don’t care. I’ll go barefoot to Davis’s side if I have to, but I am going to his side.
“Baby, you okay?”
I don’t even look at Grandpa as I nod and squelch through the wet ground, pulling myself in beside Davis. “I am now.”