Ours to Have: Dark MxMxF Romance (A Lovers Triad Book 1)

Warning: this chapter deals with scenes of domestic abuse.

Paige - POV

Song Choice: Broken Shadow, Karen Elson

Ten weeks earlier:

The pain in my head is excruciating when it ricochets off the wooden floor. Bells go off in my ears as I try to stand and regain my balance from being struck so unexpectedly. But there is no time to react.

A searing pain burns at the back of my scalp when Uncle Darin drags me up from the floor by the hair and pins my back to the wall. I can feel the rough texture of it dig into my skin through the thin t-shirt on my body.

He snarls; his heated breath hits my face and reeks with the stench of cheap beer. “Where did you go today?!” The icy fingers of his other hand curl around my neck, and panic seizes my chest.

“He always thinks the worst of me, and suspects I’m up to no good.”

I’m quick to give him my truthful answer. “For a walk…Honestly, I swear that is all I did.” My hands are held up in surrender. “I was on the Ocean Beach pier just enjoying the sea breeze.”

He quizzes angrily, “On the pier? Instead of being here in the house doing your work? You’re out walking around the beach wasting time when you’re supposed to help Patty get my dinner ready?”

His wife, Patty, lingers in the doorway of my bedroom, observing him assault me. As usual, She remains silent, smoking her cigarette and doing nothing to help. I know I shouldn’t expect her to intervene, Because sadly, he will turn on her, too, and do the same thing if she tries.

Darin spits at my explanation in a drunken rage. “LIAR!” I feel his massive fingers flex while his steely fist closes tighter around my neck. I see the anger fuming in his dark orbs, telling me I am in for a long night of torment.

I beg, “Please… Uncle—let me go.” My entire body trembles with fear, waiting to see what he will do. His temper is so unpredictable when he drinks, that I can never read what will come next. I sense his other hand release my tangled hair with clumps of it still wrapped in his fingers…

“SMACK!!”

His heavy palm collides with the side of my face, and my right cheek is set on fire.

He accuses, “Instead of being a good girl and doing your chores, you are sneaking around with those new boys that moved in down the street, aren’t you?”

My feet come off the floor, he is strangling me. On instinct, I try to pry his hands off my neck and end up leaving bloody red scratches on his arms, further fueling his fury.

“You are just like your mom," Darin shouts in my face." She was always a loose girl, too, chasing boys! You are no different!”

Hearing him speak with disrespect about my deceased mother makes my heart ache. She's been dead for eleven years, and he still hates her so much. I can’t understand why. In my memories, she is always kind and gentle.

A second blow twists my head to the left. My cheek is puffed up so badly that my right eye is swelling shut. I attempt to scream in agony, but Darin covers my mouth and nose with his hand. “He is doing it again.” I realize.

He will keep his hand there until I pass out.

Something snaps in my brain, and I react out of self-preservation. Biting down on his fleshy palm, drawing blood, I can taste the salty tang of it in my mouth. He lets out a sudden howl and releases me.

“This is my chance.” I tell myself, “It’s now or never to make a run for it.”

I quickly kick my uncle in the shin on his bad leg and scramble from the room. Without a care, I knock Patty to the floor, rushing straight out the front door. Finally, experiencing the long-awaited freedom I crave.

But then I hear someone yelling, “GET—BACK—HERE; GIRL!!”

My uncle Darin’s enraged voice rings through the night as I flee for my life from the run-down 1930s Bungalow on Brighton Ave. toward the safety of Sunset Cliffs. My ears are still buzzing, and my right cheek stings intensely from where he’s repeatedly slapped and bruised the soft flesh of my face.

I am too scared to cry right now, and adrenaline is flooding my system for fear Darin might catch up to me.

I have to get away from this place, from him. There is no way I can take another minute of his abuse. It is slowly killing my soul.

The sound of a beer bottle shattering against the sidewalk makes me run even faster. A shard penetrates my leg, and there’s warm blood oozing down the back of my calf.

My aunt Patty’s voice cries into the dying sunlight as it sinks into the Pacific and night approaches. “Come Back!! Paige…! You’re only making this worse on yourself!!”

The reason she is screaming for my return is so he will beat on me and not use her as his personal punching bag.

With Darin’s constant drunken rages and repeated threats of physical violence, I can’t continue to stay in that home a minute longer. Staying on the streets is safer.

I have not looked back since the dreadful evening I ran off…

Present day:

Living on the harsh streets of San Diego means I have been begging for money from strangers and searching through smelly dumpsters for scraps of food. Over the past ten weeks, life has become a struggle to survive.

The shelters are filled to capacity because of the foul weather, and most won’t accept women.

I am here now because of the billboard that glowed at me all night while I lay under the filthy, piss-scented overpass, using it as protection from the late winter wind and rain, unable to sleep.

It beamed at me like a rescue beacon, a neon angel in the darkness promising to save me.

“Paige Seaver?”

The woman’s voice at the door beside the reception desk calls my name, drawing me from my recollections of how I have ended up here today.

When I stand up from my seat and raise my gaze to meet hers, I see the nurse in light blue scrubs, wearing a friendly smile, something I have not seen in a long time. There is no judgment in her hazel-colored eyes, only kindness.

“This way please, we will go to the third room on the right.” She points with her pen down the hall in the direction I am to walk.

We step inside the frigid, sterile-looking exam room. My eyes scan the surroundings. It has a sink, exam table covered in crisp white paper, and a stool.

The nurse introduces herself as Linda and begins the intake process: height, weight, blood pressure, and temperature. All the typical things that go on for a physical exam.

Next, she asks me all the common questions that they ask at the free clinic, where Patty takes me when I’m sick.

“So Paige, how old are you?”

My voice quivers, nervously, “Nineteen.”

“when was your last period?”

Battling my anxiety, I force myself to respond, feeling a little more confident this time. “I started on the seventh of February, I think”

She confirms, “So five days ago, correct?”

I remember today is the twelfth. I nod at nurse Linda’s question.

“Has your period ended and when?”

I’m playing with the hem of my torn t-shirt, distracted by the wind blowing through the trees and the dark grey rain clouds gathering outside the second-floor window. At this point, I’m really not paying her any attention to respond. I am on autopilot, worried about where I will stay tonight.

Reflexively, I finally answer, “Yes, it stopped today.”

The rapid clicking of her fingers over the keyboard tells me she is steadily typing all the data collected into her laptop. Linda continues on with the barrage of questions.

“Have you had any children?”

I shake my head “No.”

“Good,” she says, glancing up at me from her screen with a pleasant grin. “And when was the last time you had intercourse?”

I sit silent for a minute and think, dumbstruck by the weird question and how she asked like it was an everyday conversational topic… “this is a bad idea being here. Maybe I should leave.”

Things are moving too fast, and I feel intimidated by all the questions. The fun parts have not even begun yet.

“This is only the nurse. What will the doctor want to know?” I wonder.

Panic swamps me momentarily. I inhale a deep breath through my nose, blow it out of my mouth to relax, and think better of running away from here.

This is the last chance to save myself or I will have to return to my uncle Darin’s, and I know that is not a considerable option.

At the thought, I tightly squeeze my eyes shut, trying to block out the idea. “If I return to his home, there will only be pain and misery awaiting.”

“Paige? Dear, is everything okay?” the nurse asks, reaching over to pat my knee as I open my eyes. I shy away, and she notices my discomfort with physical contact and quickly withdraws her hand.

She clears her throat and asks, “Did you hear my last question?”

“Oh, Um…I did,” With a heavy sigh, I confess in a whisper, “I am still a virgin…”

“Hmm…” she hums in an interested tone. Although her brow has a slight furrow as she types my last answer into her computer. I’m not sure if I have answered wrong by her reaction. “Should I have lied?”

“Well, this will be all the questions from me for now.” She points to the corner of the room at another door.

“The dressing room is through there,” she instructs. “Gowns are in the overhead cabinet. Please get changed for the doctor.”

Nurse Linda stretches her hand out and gives me an empty specimen cup and a bright, toothy grin as she gathers her belongings to leave.

“We will also need a urine sample before your exam. There is a restroom to the right of this door. Just leave it in the little silver cabinet when you finish.”

“And smile…,” she says, “There is no need to be nervous. We don’t bite.”

With that, she vanishes, leaving me to it.