Total pages in book: 60
Estimated words: 72561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72561 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 363(@200wpm)___ 290(@250wpm)___ 242(@300wpm)
I was undercover for the Benton Police Department trying to take down Varian Strong. Strong was a ‘suspected’ rapist, and dealer in the area. I said ‘suspected’ very loosely. We all knew he did it, we just couldn’t prove it. The BPD had six women come forward with their suspicions, yet not one single shred of evidence could point towards him. He’d been questioned, warrants had been served, and wiretaps were put on his phone. Which had been monitored nearly 24/7 for three months before they made the decision to put someone undercover in his construction business.
What better way to do that than making someone look like a druggie wanting his next hit of Meth? Someone desperate. Someone who’d look the other way when their boss did something shady.
Yeah, that’s what I looked like. Long, shaggy hair down to my shoulders. Bruises and needle sticks from sterilized needles at the bends of my elbows and in the webbing of my fingers. Shitty clothes that hung off my form. I was big though, no doubt about it. I couldn’t hide the muscle with anything else but baggy clothes.
I looked like a vagrant.
Then her eyes locked on the scar on my neck. The one I’d gotten when I was sixteen, when a gang member from my hometown slit my throat for his initiation into a gang. A gang that I was trying to get out of. A gang that didn’t let people just leave.
I’d survived having my throat sliced open because of a police officer. The local gang officer that’d cruised the gang’s territory trying to keep gang activity to a minimum. He’d saved me with his quick thinking, and kept an eye on me for the duration of my high school years.
Oh, and married my single mother.
He was also now my stepfather.
Trying to do him proud, I’d joined the Coast Guard, and went to school to get my paramedic degree. After six years in the coast guard, I got out when my mom got sick, and got triple certified as a firefighter, paramedic, and police officer.
I moved to Benton because of its nearly nonexistent gang activity. I didn’t want to deal with gangs. But I did want to make the town, and the surrounding area, better.
Going undercover wasn’t my original goal; but, overtime, it was certainly a bonus. I became good at being a different person. Or maybe I was just that person, trying not to be me. I mean I was in a gang for five years. I lived on the streets while my mother worked her ass off at a diner, working the night shift. I was most definitely not supervised, which is what led to my destruction at the ripe old age of eleven.
“T-thank you,” She said after a while, finally finding her voice.
“No problem,” I said and walked away, leaving her there in the grass.
Her eyes were terror filled, and I knew she wouldn’t be able to walk with me that close.
She was in a vulnerable position: sick and scared. I gave her the only reassurance I could. My back.
Chapter 2
I don’t always find a series I like on Netflix. But when I do, I watch all twelve seasons in a row while living off of cookies and chips for three days straight.
-E-card
Channing
“I’ll be back by midnight,” I said to my brother, just in case he was listening to me and didn’t have his earphones all the way up. Although, most likely a useless statement, I wanted to think that he cared enough about me to be concerned about where I went. Though, I knew he didn’t.
When I said he could move in here for a couple of weeks, I never meant he could stay with me forever. It’d been six months since he’d moved in, and in that time he hadn’t once looked for alternate places to stay.
I should’ve known, but it was nice having someone around...even if they didn’t talk to me. Or help. Or pay for anything.
The neighborhood wasn’t a good one, and I liked the feeling of knowing my house wouldn’t be unoccupied when I came home. Especially with all the rapes that had been occurring during the night.
Who would have thought that a serial rapist would show up in this small town?
It all started about six months ago with a young teenager, arriving home after a night of partying with her friends. She’d pulled her car in the garage, shut it off, and got out before she closed the garage door. Then she set the alarm and went to bed. Which was a serious mistake.
According to the news feed from the security cameras, the man had bypassed the security system by unknown means, and rearmed it once he was inside. From there everything looked fine on the outside, while inside a young girl was getting her innocence stolen from her, and then drugged to make her forget.
Since then, there’ve been nearly nine other victims, and they can only remember that they were fine before they got home. The first one was the luckiest since they’d installed cameras after the home was built. The others hadn’t been so lucky. They only woke up confused, beaten, and raped with nothing to remember about how it happened.
Walking outside, I made it to my car, keeping my head down as I went.
It wouldn’t do to see my neighbor. My hot, sexy, drug using, badass neighbor.
It was inevitable though. I was drawn to the man like the crops need the rain. He was like an incandescent star in a pitch-black sky to me. No matter how hard I tried, my eyes always strayed his way. The way he watched me unnerved me, but it also set my blood on fire.
Hell, I was a 26-year-old woman. He was a hot male in his prime, despite the baggy gangster clothes that covered an extremely muscled body. His hair was about three inches too long and shaggy blonde. When he looked at me, he always had a couple strands in his steel blue eyes, only adding to the appeal.