Total pages in book: 78
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 75616 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 378(@200wpm)___ 302(@250wpm)___ 252(@300wpm)
I lived in absolute terror, day and night. I might do a good job pretending I wasn’t for Judah, who deserved a happy mom, and in front of Warren, because I wouldn’t let him see my fear.
But I was afraid.
All the time.
My room was much like the rest of the house. Oversized. All white. From the walls, floor, window treatments, and bedding, to the dressers and the bathroom. Though, I rarely ever went in there. I chose to shower in Judah’s bathroom. Close to him. Safe with him.
It was a sad state of affairs when you only felt safe because of your toddler child.
It wasn’t forever, I reminded myself as I slipped into my shoes, and made my way into the bathroom.
I wouldn’t make him wait long, but I would make him wait. A game, of sorts, that I knew I wasn’t likely to win with each passing day, but one I still played. To let him know that he hadn’t completely cowed me, that my spirit wasn’t broken.
I washed my hands, scrubbing at a bit of marker from the coloring we’d been doing before we’d been interrupted. Judah, mostly just bright slashes of color all over the pages. Me, images of a smaller house. Where we would both be safe. Before I colored over the whole thing with black, removing any traces of my hopes, of my plans.
My gaze flicked up to the mirror.
I was still me.
Kind of on the tall side, with my lob of brown hair around my square face with my full lips and slightly golden undertone to my skin. Makeup wasn’t accessible to me, since I refused to have to ask for it, so there was no mascara to darken the lashes around my brown eyes, no lipstick to make my lips stand out more.
It was me.
Yet… not the same one I’d been looking at before meeting Warren.
It was there in the tightness around my eyes.
In the weight I’d lost because I was often too nauseated to eat. Especially now that Judah was weaned, and I wasn’t being force-fed by Warren to produce the exact right ratio of nutrients for the baby.
I was a shell of my former self.
And I was looking forward to a day when I could look in the mirror and see the old me.
Or, rather, the new me—because I could never go back now—but happier, less stressed.
My son deserved that version of me.
And I was going to give it to him.
I was just biding my time.
Casting a glance toward the door, I reached into my drawer in the sink cabinet, finding the little razor blade I’d carefully pulled out of my disposable razor before disposing of it in an old tampon box.
I had two of them.
One in my bathroom.
And one in Judah’s.
Carefully hidden, but easy to grab.
For exactly this purpose.
Grabbing and tucking it in a pocket on days when Warren was taking me somewhere with him. To use on him, if this was it. The end. The day he was going to finally get rid of me because I’d outlived my usefulness.
I’d just managed to pull my hand back out of the pocket when the door flew open.
“I don’t have all fucking day, Claire.”
God, I hated how my name sounded in his voice.
I was starting to hate my name, period, because of him. Enough that I would find myself sitting and fantasizing about new names.
Carmen.
Clara.
Cassidy.
I figured C names would be the best bet. Familiar. Easier to remember.
I bit back a retort, knowing he wasn’t above smacking me, grabbing me, choking me. All sorts of punishments for anything he saw as an offense. And as much as a part of me liked pushing back at him, I knew that he took pleasure in hurting me. I didn’t want him to get that.
So I moved through my room, snagging a sweater off of the chair in the process, then silently following behind him as we walked out of the front door, two of his henchmen right behind me.
They would sit with me in the backseat on the drive as well, meaty arms and shoulders taking up all the room, making me need to squeeze into myself to avoid brushing against them the entire drive.
Still, when the car turned suddenly, I would find myself plastered against one of them, and would have to watch the sneers they would shoot each other because of it.
Warren was in the passenger seat, clicking away on his phone as Denny, his second-in-command, a man only slightly less vile than Warren himself, drove.
I had to force my gaze down to my own hands in my lap to keep from glaring at either of them, knowing Denny would see it in the rearview, then relay it to Warren.
Better to just play the part of the demure baby mama. Sitting in the backseat, flanked by heavily armed men as they ran goddamn errands.