Page 3 of Marked By the Dark Lord
“Then here. Have it.”
“I don’t have any money,” I said, shaking my head.
“You don’t need it. Not from me.” The woman suddenly seemed much older but also much younger. “Never from me, daughter. Here.”
Before I could ask her what she meant, she shoved the book into my hands, the thick leather cover and bound pages almost more than I could carry. A curious clasp held it shut. I reached up, fiddling with it, but it wouldn’t open.
“Is there a key?” I asked.
“Yes,” the woman said, smiling.
A wave of sleepiness came over me, and I yawned, closing my eyes …
Chapter Two
Mila
The present …
I shook my head, clearing away the memory of the weird bookstore as I ran by the building where it had once been, my shoulders hunched against the rain. The old house stood abandoned and empty, boarded up since the very next day. Nobody had ever returned to it. I knew. I’d returned every day for weeks until I realized nobody was coming.
I wanted to ask how I’d gotten home after touching the book, but I couldn’t remember. I must have been too excited over the free book and all but ran home in a daze. There was no other explanation.
Now there I was a second time, wishing the shop still existed so that I could run inside to escape my tormentors.
“Get back here, bitch!”
Some people changed as they grew up.
Sarabeth, Margo, Courtney, and Nicole did not. They still hung around in the same neighborhood, still picking on the same helpless little girl when they had a chance. Only now, I wasa homeless girl, and they were all either sporting babies on their hips or black eyes over split lips.
I just stank and was cold all the time. I’d take that trade every day. Today, however, I would be the one with a black eye and a split lip. For a little bit, at least, until they healed. I never seemed to suffer for as long as anyone else. My wounds just … healed fast.
Turning down an alley between two buildings, I made a run for it, legs churning as I splashed through puddles on the gravel roadway.
I misjudged one, however, and cried out as I rolled my ankle and fell, hitting the ground hard and scraping my face and arm as I bounced off the stony ground.
“Got you!” Margo cried as she delivered a vicious kick to my midsection.
I gasped and coughed as the air was driven from my lungs, just in time for another foot to hit me in the back.
“Hah! Take that, you stupid bitch,” Sarabeth spat from between her busted lips, courtesy of her husband. “That’ll teach you to make fun of us.”
“Y-you deserve it,” I managed to get out as the kicks rained down hard and fast. “Too s-stupid,urk, too stupid to leave a man who hits you!”
“You cunt!” the ringleader shrieked, kicking harder.
“My shoes are getting dirty just from kicking her,” Courtney said. “When was the last time you showered?”
“What do you think I was doing in the rain just now?” I countered, my arms now over my midsection.
A boot hit my forehead, splitting some skin and rocketing my head back. That one hurt. Warm blood mixed with the cold rainas the women continued to attack me. I went numb, my mind withdrawing from the pain.
There was no point in staying there. My insults fell on deaf ears, and nothing would change. The women would continue to take out the frustrations of their unfulfilling lives on me whenever they could. I didn’t need to suffer with them any longer.
Someone yanked my hair back, and a hand slapped my face, but I saw it coming from a mile away and rolled with it, easing the sting. Those women wouldn’t faze me.
Courtney kicked me hard in the stomach. I rolled over—just as Margo jumped on me with both feet.
