Total pages in book: 16
Estimated words: 15455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 62(@250wpm)___ 52(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 15455 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 77(@200wpm)___ 62(@250wpm)___ 52(@300wpm)
The driver steps out and opens our door, and suddenly, I feel frozen to my seat.
“Go on,” Vincenzo eggs me on.
With his nudge, my legs cave, and I step out, my whole body shivering with despair.
Vincenzo stands behind me and places his hands on my shoulder, grounding me, reminding me that I’m here with him now, safe.
“Your mother’s inside. Do you want to see her?”
I vigorously shake my head. “No. Never again.” Rage coils my muscles. “She made me suffer so much.”
His fingers dig into my skin. “Did she hurt you?”
I swallow down the lump in my throat. “Many times.”
“Physically? Emotionally? Psychologically?”
I nod at all three. She was the worst kind of mother anyone could ever wish for.
It’s also one of the reasons I don’t want to be one to a child I never wanted.
No child deserves to live like I did, to be born into a world that despises you.
“Do you think she deserves you in her life?” he asks.
I shake my head, emblazoned by my own hatred for her after she kicked me out.
Vincenzo leans in, whispering into my ear, “Then take it from her.” He holds up a match in front of my face while he tucks something into my hands.
My eyes slowly lower to look at the item. A wrapped box with a wire at the end.
Vincenzo lights the match.
My soul gasps at the thought, but I still grasp the match.
Could I do it?
Would it hurt or would it make me smile?
“Do it.” His tongue licks the ream of my ear. “Burn. It. Down.”
My hand rises as though possessed by the mere possibility of making her suffer the way she made me suffer, of making her feel the same kind of burn I felt when they scorched that living thing out of my belly.
The match is dropped right onto the wire.
And I chuck it at the windows, smashing them.
The explosion is almost instant.
A shriek goes off, a siren’s call to my heart.
I once thought I could go back …
Not anymore.
And as a wicked smile forms on my lips, a fire erupts inside the house, flames licking at the ceiling, devouring the place and all its dark, depraved memories whole.
Just like my purity.
Burn. It. Down.
###