Page 1 of His To Claim

Prologue

SCARLETT

Three years ago

“Scarlett! Get your ass out here child before I beat the shit out of your mother.”

Here we go again. Every Sunday morning like clockwork our landlord Mrs. Presley bangs on the front door of our small mobile home and shouts the same bogus phrase.

Stepping out onto the rotted, creaking porch, I see my mom lying sprawled on her ass across the front steps, a bottle of vodka barely hanging in her left hand. Her dark hair sits in a dirty, tangled mess upon her head and as always, she is well deserving of the beating Mrs. Presley threatens.

Dear Lord, give me strength.

“I swear, Scarlett, if she keeps pulling this shit, I’ll throw you guys out. I have a reputation to uphold and tenants drunk off their asses in the middle of the street is not acceptable.” The woman pouts, her graying curls bouncing as she speaks.

Right. The pristine reputation of Providence Mobile HomePark is going to be tarnished by the dirty alcoholic sprawled across my doorstep.

Providence is nothing but trash. Dubbed the Gotham City of the West Coast, it’s where the worst of the worst reside. Alcoholics, drug addicts, drug dealers, gang members, prostitutes, etcetera. Criminals line the streets and every corner.

Debauchery at its finest.

“Won’t happen again, Mrs. Presley,” I answer, mockingly waving the old hag off. Of course, it will happen again. Next Sunday morning just like it has for the past six years.

“Yeah, yeah, like I haven’t heard that before child,” she snarls angrily, shrugging her shoulders as she walks off back toward her home.

I roll my eyes exasperated as I walk over to my mother. Bending down to throw the empty bottle of vodka on the grass, I drape her left arm across my shoulders. I’d much rather drag her ass inside but in the state she’s in, I’m better off making this as quick as possible.

As we enter the mobile home, my stepsister Jade snickers from her place at the small folding table we used to eat.

“Did daddy leave you out there on your ass again, Mommy Dearest?” Jade mocks, taking a spoonful of cinnamon sugared cereal in her mouth. She chews loudly, giving me one of her, Itold you so,smirks.

God, I hate when she gets all sassy and sarcastic.

“Shut it, Jade,” I sneer, making her roll her eyes.

“You already know how this goes, Scar, don’t know why you still try. Every Saturday night mommy and daddy go out to party. Mommy gets a little handsy with daddy’s friends and he leaves her drunk off her ass at the bar. She’s dropped off the next morning, by who knows who, still drunk off her ass and you nurse her back to sobriety only to be lectured for being such a snob, and the story repeats. When will you learn?”

I ignore her even though I know she’s right. This has beengoing on for as long as I can remember. My mother always fucking up and me right behind her to pick up the pieces.

In the beginning it was just mom and me. She got knocked up at seventeen and ran away from home after her parents kicked her out. It was just us two for a while and she was working two jobs while I stayed with whatever sitter she could find, usually our next-door neighbor Mrs. Kay. She was trying, at least I thought she was.

That all stopped when I was about five and a half years old and she met my stepdad Chaz, a lowlife, alcoholic, drug dealer with anger issues and one too many priors. Providence’s most eligible bachelor of course.

Chaz had a five-year-old daughter Jade and an eight-year-old son Roman and after just two months, the two of us became five.

For the first two years things were semi-normal. Jade and I were the same age, so we were in the same class and got along relatively well. Roman was always sulking around but would be nice enough if we stayed out of his way.

But suddenly, on my eighth birthday, things took a downward spiral.

Chaz was arrested for nearly beating a man to death who got a little handsy with my mom at a bar. He spent almost three years in jail while we spent that time with a drugged up, drunk, and high-handed desolate woman.

Jade distanced herself from me blaming me for my mother’s temper and abusive tendencies, while Roman outright ignored me.

I was utterly alone.

Kids at school were cruel because Jade told them my mom was a lowlife drunk who preferred the company of strange men to that of her own daughter.

I mean it wasn’t a lie. My mom would take off four days out of the week and we never knew where she’d go. It only made sense.

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