 by Pepper Winters.jpg)
Total pages in book: 208
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 207002 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1035(@200wpm)___ 828(@250wpm)___ 690(@300wpm)
I let love and fear destroy everything I ever wanted, and now I have a choice to make.
Run and hide, or stay and face the consequences.
I'd always known I wasn't allowed to love her.
I'd always accepted that I wasn't allowed to keep her.
But that didn't stop me.
I broke every rule and choked on every secret to have her.
The only problem is, those secrets aren't just hunting me anymore, they've found me.
I can't run.
I can't hide.
For a moment, I had it all. I had all my dreams and the girl I would kill for.
But now, I have to pay the price.
I have to pay...
And I won't survive.
A true coming-of-age story that spans a lifetime. This book deals with heavy subjects and is advised you check the Content Warnings on the Author's website.
*************FULL BOOK START HERE*************
Prologue
*
Nerida
*
(Love in Latin: Amare)
I’VE KNOWN PAIN.
Exquisite pain. Devastating pain. Ravaging pain.
But no matter the abuse on my body or the torment in my mind, nothing could’ve prepared me for the savaging of my heart.
They say a heart needs love to survive, and love needs a heart to exist.
But what if both are stolen?
What if both are broken?
What if, by the end of everything, all that’s left are fragments and pieces, hope and unhappiness...an emptiness that swallows everything?
Chapter One
*
Nerida
AGE: 17 YRS OLD
*
(Love in Welsh: Cariad)
I DIDN’T TURN AROUND AS THE TWO policemen tumbled into my room.
I didn’t look back at my unconscious father on my favourite cream rug. I had no interest in those men when the only man I wanted, the only boy I would live and die for, tripped and stumble-sprinted out of our garden and down the street.
The coral pink sunset etched Aslan in glowing warm splashes, staining the ridiculous Hawaiian shirt Dad had made us wear for Christmas. I’d worn a matching shirt, before the strain of the day’s festivities and the haunting in my mind made me lock myself in the bathroom.
I’d hurt myself.
I’d put on makeup to hide that hurt and tried to dress up my pain with a little black dress.
Both my attempts had failed at healing me.
But Aslan?
God, him?
He’d given me the perfect brand of medicine.
Not quite a cure but enough of an antidote that I felt stronger than I had in so very, very long. More myself. More brave. More accepting than ever before.
In an act of love wrapped up in violence, he’d proven to me that I didn’t have to be afraid of the world.
The world needs to be afraid of me.
I clung to that conviction as Aslan vanished into suburbia, running from the police my parents had called, bolting from a rape charge that wasn’t his to bear.
Balling my hands, I turned from the window with my teeth bared and fury flowing swiftly in my veins.
It burned so bright, so hot, so sharp that I pitied anyone who got in my way.
My attention fell on the two policemen.
The slender, leaner one with short brown hair tripped to my father. Speaking into the radio hooked to his chest pocket, he barked, “Unconscious male. Requesting ambulance immediately.”
Guilt panged. My hand still throbbed from the vibration of hitting my beloved dad over the head with the very same mermaid lamp he’d bought me for my thirteenth birthday.
Tears pricked but then my hackles rose as the other cop, the shorter, stockier one with black hair, marched into me and shoved me away from the window. “Where is he?” Folding himself over the windowsill, he peered at the garden with its ferns, boulders, and sandy-bottomed pool.
Using his radio, he barked, “Male running on foot. Requesting a unit to patrol the streets around Helmet and Reef.” His gaze lingered on the sala-bedroom where Aslan had hidden for almost six years.
With a huff, he pushed back into the room. “You let him go? After what he did to you?”
My chin tipped up. “He didn’t do anything to me.”
Crackle of radio chatter as the cop tending to my father checked his vitals.
My mother stepped into the room, wringing her delicate hands, her pretty pink dress dancing around her calves.
I stiffened as our eyes met.
The guilt inside me swarmed thicker.
And then she noticed why I was guilty as her dark blue gaze landed on my father.
“Jack?” Her eyes popped wide in horror. “Oh my God, Jack!” Running to his side, she dropped to her knees and grabbed my father’s suit lapels. “Jack. Honey. Wake up!”
“Mrs Taylor, I must request that you don’t shake him,” the taller officer muttered. “He might have spinal injuries that we’re unaware of—”
“What?” Tears streamed from her eyes. “Spinal injuries. W-What happened? H-How could Aslan do this? After everything we did for him!” Rage thickened her voice. Her fingers clawed at my father. “Get out there and find Aslan Avci, right now!”
I winced at the hate in her tone. At the awful, awful belief that the boy she’d welcomed into our family wasn’t the kind, loyal, and hardworking illegal immigrant she’d grown to love as her own, but was somehow a complete stranger. A stranger who’d become a daughter molester, father hitter, and criminal.
He’s none of those things.
How could she believe them when she knew him?
How could she question his loyalty after he’d given every part of himself to us?
Another gush of anger heated my blood, followed by panic rippling down my spine.
I’d ruined everything.
Every mistake and consequence was my fault, and I refused to let Aslan pay.
Not even for a second.
My kneecaps bounced as I stepped around the shorter cop. “It wasn’t Aslan, Mum.”
Her frantic stare ripped to mine. With her hands still on Dad’s chest, she narrowed her eyes. “Of course, it was him. He hurt you, and then he hurt Jack to get away. We had him so wrong.” More tears coursed over her cheeks. “We didn’t know him at all—”