Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63445 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 254(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
The lobby smelled like stale cigarette smoke. If she closed her eyes, she could almost convince herself she was standing in the middle of the double-wide with the orange shag carpet and the lumpy, brown couch pushed up against the wall, but the lobby of the motel had a dingy tile floor and a counter instead, and it was marred with deep-set scratches.
An old woman sat perched on a stool and gave Daisy a cool-eyed assessment as she stepped through the door. Daisy straightened her shoulders. She was no stranger to that look. Though, frankly, what the old woman had to feel superior about was anyone’s guess with her stained shirt and her leathered face. The woman looked like she’d been rode hard and put away wet a few too many times. Daisy was only 24, and though she was aware of what people often thought of her appearance, she had a clean shirt on and a smooth face.
Daisy slid half of her only remaining cash across the counter.
“Do much entertaining?” the woman asked.
Daisy bristled at her tone. At first, she was a mixture of embarrassed and incensed, but then she remembered she was new in town. This woman didn’t know shit about shit and had no basis to form such a low opinion of Daisy.
The woman sighed and eyed the TV she’d obviously rather be watching. “You bring any johns back to your room,” she told Daisy, “I get ten bucks.”
Daisy glared at her. For a moment she almost reached out and cracked the woman’s jaw. The woman turned back to her and eyeballed her again. “Don’t imagine you’d have that many takers, what with all that ink and that nail in your nose.”
Daisy, irritated but not cowed, put her tattooed arms on the counter, leaned in close enough so the woman could see it was a stud and not a nail. “I’m not a whore,” she seethed.
The woman merely shrugged. “Don’t care what you call yourself, if you sell yourself, I get a cut.”
Daisy snatched the room key off the counter and walked away. It wasn’t until she was safely in her room that she threw her backpack at the wall. It thudded and then bounced onto the bed. She looked around the room with a grimace, but shrugged it off. It was just temporary. Things would get better; they always did.
She checked to see that her pencils hadn’t broken and laid them gingerly on the small, wobbly table alongside her sketchbook. She had a little more than twenty bucks and three changes of clothes. It wasn’t much to build a life on, but you had to start somewhere.
Chapter 2
Jimmy “Easy” Turnbull walked into the one-bedroom house he rented from his former lieutenant, now boss, Chris “Shooter” Sullivan. He shed his grease-stained shirt, tossed it directly into the washing machine, and headed down the hall. In the small bathroom, he unzipped his black cargo pants and yanked them down his hips as he settled onto the crapper. He was practically vibrating from excitement; he had business to take care of, and it had nothing to do with the porcelain throne. He slid off the work boot on his right and tossed it onto the floor, but still within reach.
He pressed the pin on the ankle of his prosthetic and detached it. A year and a half ago, he could barely get it on and off, mostly because he’d refused to try. In the VA hospital, he’d been surrounded by artificially cheerful physical therapists who never stopped telling him how lucky he was that he survived and how quickly he’d learn to walk again if he gave it some effort. But Easy hadn’t wanted to learn how to walk again. He hadn’t even wanted to be alive, and he definitely could not see how getting ambushed by a roadside bomb in Iraq was in any way ‘lucky.’ A slightly-above-the-knee amputation was nothing to celebrate.
He rolled down the neoprene sleeve and the comfort sock around his thigh and tossed them into the sink. The redness and swelling had taken over a year to go away as he’d struggled with learning how to negotiate what he still thought of as the bane of his existence. It was still a temporary prosthesis. He’d gone through three different socket types already in an attempt to find the right fit. Once they had it figured out, he could get a custom leg made, but having a leg made seemed so... permanent... so accepting, like losing another battle, the biggest battle. He could learn to live as an amputee, but he didn’t have to fucking like it.
He heaved himself up and reached into the shower to turn on the water. He frowned as he negotiated his way into the stall and lowered himself onto the small, white, plastic stool. He’d forgotten about the shower. He’d cleaned the place up from top to bottom, but he hadn’t thought about the stupid stool. He cursed himself as he lathered up with the soap. The bedroom was fine. He could leave the lights off, and with Brenda a little bit tipsy she’d barely notice his leg- hopefully. However, the bathroom was a problem he hadn’t thought of. If she spent the night, and he actually was hoping she would, she’d need to use the shower. Though Easy had come to terms with the fact that his life would never be what he envisioned, he’d be damned if he’d hang out a huge fucking banner that said “Handicapped” on it.