Page 5 of Acts of Contrition

Chapter Four

Diana

I DON’T KNOWwhat to do. There wasn’t even a funeral. Mike claimed Mom didn’t want one, and Mom has — had — no next of kin except me, and I’m too young to make these decisions.

So now my mother is rotting in the ground in a shitty casket and I’m … I assume I will go to, like, foster care?

I hope.

But hope, to me, really is the last evil in Pandora’s box.

All I can be grateful for is that Mom isn’t suffering anymore. She’s free, finally. Honestly, I’m jealous.

On Monday after Mom passed, I get up and get ready for school, only for Mike to stop me at the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” he asks.

“School,” I reply warily. “Like every weekday.”

“Not anymore. Your legal guardian pulled you out in favor of … learning from home.” That smile on his face makes me sick.

“Who?” I ask, hoping that means I’ll be moving out soon.

“Me. Now, get back in that bedroom and don’t come out unless I give you permission. And leave your uniform on,” he commands.

My mouth drops. “No, how can you be—”

“I can be anything I want to be with the right connections, money, and favors. Now get thefuckin your room.” He slaps me so hard my head tilts and hair flies. “I planned all this for a longfucking time, and now it’s time to get the rewards of my work. You’re going to make me even richer.”

Planned … what? He’s not saying…

I lunge at him, getting one good punch to his flabby face. “You killed my mother!That was no accident, you bastard!”

He laughs and catches me, carrying me like a sack of potatoes into my room. He drops me on the bed and I try to get up but he hits me in the gut so hard I lose air and fall back.

“She was of good use to me, but you? You are a fucking gold mine. But you’re going to have to lose some of that fat to look younger, smaller, for longer. Maybe I can pass you off as fourteen or even thirteen.”

“I will get to the cops somehow,” I say. “You’re not getting away with this!”

“Do you think even if I let you out, you’d escape me? The police are in my pocket, you stupid cunt.” He smiles and shuts the door. I hear a lock turning, sealing me in with my fate.

I sob for a while, anger and grief and fear taking over my mind.

Sometime in the afternoon, I hear the lock on the door jingle.

“Get up, bitch,” Mike says. “Your first client is here, and he’s waited a long, long time to have a piece of you.”

He leaves and his bulk is replaced with a familiar face.

Principal Faulkner.

I knew he was a creep! I knew it! I made sure I was never alone with him because he weirded me out so much.

“Now that your generous guardian has you out of school and living up to your full potential, I felt it was only right I be the first to break you in,” he says, closing the door behind him.

“Fuck you,” I snap.

He clucks his tongue. “Looks like I need to shut that smart mouth up.” He grabs me by the hair with one hand andundoes his pants with the other, bringing out his old, wrinkly, hard cock.

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