Unexpectedly, Yours.

WARNING: THIS PROLOGUE CONTAINS GRAPHIC PHYSICAL ASSULT. IF YOU ARE EASILY TRIGGERED, I RECOMMEND SKIPPING THIS AND DIVING RIGHT INTO THE FIRST CHAPTER. I WILL GLADLY GIVE YOU A SUMMARY OF THE PROLOGUE WITHOUT THE VIOLENCE IF YOU LET ME KNOW <3

The phone alarm vibration echoed through Rainey’s pillow. It was set to wake her although she hadn’t slept at all. She pulled it out, shut the alarm off, and climbed out of bed.

Derek, or ‘lefty’ to his nasty thug friends, lay passed out on the bed beside her, and she paused to make sure that he didn’t wake. She’d pretended to be asleep until the drunken stupor claimed him.

Now was her time to run.

She slid her pants up her waist, grabbed her hoodie, and crept out of the bedroom. Still holding her breath, she crossed the room and stopped at the kitchen, taking the wad of cash she kept taped to the back of the fridge in a ziplock baggie.

She froze halfway through the living room, noticing the coffee table had straps of hundreds laying in thick layers. They were surrounded by the bands laying freely after being sorted. She could just take some–it would hold her over long enough to get her shit together.

With her heart pounding in her ears and sweaty palms, she grabbed a handful of them. She rushed to the closet by the front door for her tote of clothes, tossed the money in, and zipped it shut.

As she opened the door, Derek grabbed a handful of hair, knuckles digging at her scalp, tightening his grip until she screamed. He pulled her back in, kicked the door shut, then grabbed her jaw and squeezed her cheeks to shut her up.

“You fucking bitch!”

She cried out, clawing at his arms while he held her head between his hands and dragged her to the middle of the living room.

“Where the fuck do you think you’re going?”

Derek tossed her to the floor as hard as he could, and the tote bag landed on top of her, hitting her in the face.

“I’m leaving you, you piece of shit!” She spat at him to emphasize her disgust.

Laughing, he kicked her in the side, forcing the air from her lungs in a loud dry cough that echoed, then jerked the bag off of her body.

“You aren’t doing shit unless I say you can.” His fingers slipped as he tried to unzip her bag. The second attempt he gripped it, dumping everything out over her–including the money she took. “Taking my money….” He kicked her again and stumbled, throwing the bag to the side. This time the blow landed higher in her ribs. Lowering himself down to her level, he grabbed her hair again, pulling her head up to look at him. “I should kill you for trying to take what doesn’t belong to you and for trying to leave me.”

Gasping and crying, she grabbed at his hand that had her hair. “Let me go!” Her voice was hoarse, and she swore she could taste blood in her mouth, but she had to get away.

“If you’re smart, you won’t get up.”

Rainey ignored his warning as he threw her head back, letting her go. She shot up as fast as she could, which felt like it wasn’t fast at all, and scrambled to get away. “I’m not afraid of you anymore.”

“We’ll see about that.” Catching her leg and standing, he pulled her back to him, forcing her on her back.

Rainey raised to push him away, but as her hands went out to fight him, he slapped her across the face, forcing her down on her back again, this time with his hands around her throat.

Dropping over her with one leg on each side, his grip tightened. She could feel his fingers making her skin burn under the force of his grip. She clawed at his throat, face–anything she could reach–something her fingers could purchase, kicking and wishing she could scream for help.

She tried hitting him in the chest, but he slapped her hand away as she gasped and rasped out pleas to let her go. Her vision started to darken around the edges, tears slid down her face, and her lungs screamed for a breath of the air he was stealing from her.

In a last attempt to fight him off, she reached out in every direction she could for something in reach that would break his death grip on her throat. Her hand found a beer bottle laying barely within reach.

With another breathless second, she stuck the tip of her middle finger into the mouthpiece, pulling it into the grip of her other hand faster than his drunk ass could register.

When she slammed it hard into his head, the bottle shattered, and he fell to the floor. His grip loosened, and a rush of blood and air hit her so fast that her vision went black for a couple of seconds.

She gasped and coughed harder than she ever had, pushing him away as fast as she could. He groaned behind her and came toward her again.

“You’re gonna fucking pay for that, you fucking cunt!”

A new level of fear rushed through her, and before she knew what happened, she grabbed the glass ashtray off the table and hit him so hard that he stopped and looked at her before dropping to the floor.

Not giving a fuck whether he was dead or not, she shoved everything, including the money, back into her tote bag and took off running out the front door.

The air was cool on her flushed and aching face. The smell of the city could be summed up in three categories: metal, dirt, and bad choices–the third one was changeable at least–or so she hoped.

She was going to go to jail if Derek was dead, and if he was just knocked out cold, he’d kill her for sure if he caught her this time. There was no going back.

When she reached the curb, her sobs of horror echoed loudly in the quiet, she tucked her bag under her arm and ran. Her lungs hurt like hell and her teeth and gums burned from the exertion, but she pushed through it and kept running.

Breathing heavily, her feet pounded the ground harder as she dodged corners and crossed streets between cars in the busy city.

By the time she made it to Union Station, bought her Greyhound ticket to Vegas, and boarded the bus, she finally released the breath she’d been holding since packing her bag a week ago. The fear of Derek catching her now was slim to none, and that alone gave her the best feeling she’d had in a long time.

Chills of her body adjusting to the freedom flushed ice cold through her arms and back as she lifted her bag up to her shoulder, tucking it between her head and the window. She wasn’t sure what she was going to do in Vegas, but it didn’t matter.

She spent her whole life drifting from foster home to foster home, to her adult life matching just as pathetically.

Her druggy mom was somewhere in Vegas, strip dancing last she’d heard from her, and her deadbeat dad was in New York. Neither one was a destination, but she needed to run away from Derek and LA.

Running had been all she’d ever known.

So, she ran again, like her family used to every time they couldn’t pay the bills, ran like she always had to when her mom skipped rent and shot it up her arm, ran like she’d wanted to do for the last five years she’d been stuck in the grasp of Derek and his criminal lifestyle.