Total pages in book: 118
Estimated words: 109674 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109674 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 548(@200wpm)___ 439(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
I wasn’t sure how, but I wanted to save her. I didn’t care if I died doing it. Amelia wouldn’t survive years in this cell, and I wouldn’t survive without Amelia.
She had become my reason for existing.
15 years old
Eight months later
I tried to figure out what day it was by the markings on the wall. I hadn’t begun counting the days at the beginning of my captivity, stupid enough to believe it would be temporary. Sometimes when I’d felt too weak, I hadn’t counted either, but I estimated it had to be Christmas soon, which also meant that Nestore’s eighteenth birthday probably wasn’t that far away.
The creak of the door to the cellblock opening tightened my belly until it felt like solid rock. My pulse began racing as I wondered what was in store for us today. The air suddenly felt too thick to breathe. I struggled with every intake of air. The beatings had become less frequent in the past two to three months. Maybe once a week, Father still came down here to whip me with his belt or pummel me with the unrelenting water from the hose. I wasn’t sure what was going on, but he looked as if he were the one being hunted. He had been Capo for only three months, but since taking over from the previous person, he had lost weight.
It made me gleeful to know things were tough for him. I didn’t remember if I’d ever loved my father. Maybe as a little girl, before he’d killed my mother and later his second wife, but the memories of those warmer emotions were distant and almost unimaginable. Maybe they had never existed in the first place, and I only wished they had.
Nestore did sit-ups in his cell. He worked out every day, using his own body weight, but a lack of food slowed his progress. He was only muscles, sinew, and bone, and always on the verge of passing out. I spent hours watching him. Nothing filled me with more warmth than the sight of him.
One of the younger guards, a bulky man with a bald patch he tried to cover with the longer hair from the side of his head, entered the cellblock. The little hairs at the nape of my neck rose when his brown eyes settled on me. Something in them was greedy and hungry.
He sauntered over to my cell, twirling the key chain around his index finger as he leered at me. “My, my, Amelia Lamorgese. You used to be untouchable. Look at you now.”
I ignored him and looked back down at my notebook, where I wrote down dreams and hopes and memories from long ago, everything that kept me busy and reminded me I was still human.
“Ignoring me?” The sound of the key jarring in the lock made me tremble. My instincts screamed at me to run and hide, but I was trapped.
My throat closed up.
I caught Nestore’s eyes. He sat up, his eyes reflecting concern. No, fear.
I swallowed hard. The guard opened my cell door with a jarring creak and stepped in. The way he scanned me from head to toe made me want to creep under the cot like a small child, as if that would protect me. It hadn’t in the past when Father had come to my room to punish me, and it wouldn’t now.
“Where’s my father?” I inquired, trying to sound confident. He smirked as he locked himself inside the cell.
My heart seemed to burst out of my chest as my eyes scanned my surroundings for a weapon I could use, even if I’d never done it before.
“Leave her alone,” Nestore snarled.
The guard laughed, a dirty sound from deep in his belly. “Watch and learn, boy. Not that you’ll ever get the chance to fuck a woman. You’ll die a virgin down here. If you’re lucky, one of the guards will at least fuck your ass one day.”
I shuddered, fear making my pulse rush in my veins. His shadow fell over me. My hand shook too much to keep writing, so I lifted the pen off the paper and peered up.
“What do you want?”
He cackled. “I think you know what I want.”
He gripped my arms and jerked me to my feet. I screamed, overcome with terror. Without thinking, I rammed the pen into his upper arm. He roared and ripped it out, then tossed it away.
He slapped me so hard I fell to the floor, my head ringing from the impact.
“Leave her alone! You’re a dead man!” Nestore roared, but the guard only sneered as he staggered toward me.
“I’ll rip your dirty cunt apart, you bitch.”
I scrambled backward, toward Nestore’s cell. The guard followed and bent over me, gripping my hair.
My scalp seemed to split open. The pain blinded me briefly, and I screamed.