Fade to Black (The Black Trilogy Book 1) Read Online Free

time I did anything except lie there. Daniel reached my mother’s mouth, and they began kissing above me. Frantic, I looked around my room, which was now blurry to me, as I was running out of air.
    I was leaving my body. I had to, or I would surely die from pain. I went still and silent. My effort left me. I wished to die. My last memory of that day was Gregory Peck’s face on my black and white TV.
    I was murdered. Even though my heart continued to beat, I was very much deceased. All faded to black.

 
    chapter two
    Piper~
    When I woke, I lay very still, with my eyes shut tight. I listened, and then I felt. Sounds of mumbling and flesh hitting flesh came from somewhere in my room. I swallowed just enough to know my throat was both raw and swollen. Pain cut through me like a knife.
    My body was stiff, and at an awkward angle, as if someone had tossed me like a pillow onto the mattress. After a moment of sensing everything I could with my eyes closed, I tried to open one eye. My lids wouldn’t budge. They were stuck with gunk from crying, and probably blood as well. The hitting and mumbling got louder, and I pulled my protesting eyes wide open.
    I was still naked, and at some point, my hands had been tied above me with an extension cord, usually used for a small lamp I read by at night. My feet were free. My legs were numb, and my body ached all over. The taste in my mouth was rotten with blood.
    A harder sound came from the corner of my room. The only light came from the hallway, but as my eyes began to adjust, I could tell it was Daniel. His heavy feet were pacing back and forth.
    The light glinted off a half-empty bottle of whiskey. He was pacing, crying, mumbling, and every other second, hitting himself in the head. I watched this, too scared to move, knowing what he was capable of.
    I was freezing from the cold draft. The inner parts of my legs were sore and wet, sticky with fluids and dried blood. I remember a deer I had watched Nathan field dress, after he had killed it with a bow. I had worried the deer could still feel, even after its heart stopped beating. This is what it must feel like if the deer were still alive as he gutted it.
    My big brother was gone, but in that instant, I wished he would burst through the door, and gut Daniel while his heart was beating. No mercy for this monster.
    I jerked involuntarily, and Daniel stopped to look down at me. He sank to his knees beside me and began rubbing my head like he was petting a dog.
    “Oh, t-t-t-t-thank God! I thought she’d k-k-killed you,” he said in a rushed whisper, the stench of stale alcohol washing over me. I gagged at the smell and recoiled at his touch.
    “You m-m-m-mustn’t be afraid, Honey. I-I-I tried to be g-g-g-g-gentle. She wanted m-m-me to hurt you. She…I-I-I…” He stopped, searching for words. “I d-d-d-didn’t want it to be this w-w-w-way. I planned on it b-b-being special, but now we c-c-can be with each other. I’m s-s-sorry you w-w-w-were hurt. That w-w-won’t happen a-a-again. I won’t l-l-let it.”
    I tried to back away from him, but I was held in place by the cord. I lay perfectly still, and Daniel put his forehead against mine. I shivered, repulsed by him.
    “Let me go, Daniel,” I said, my voice cracking.
    This man was my friend. At least, he was the only person left to me who I considered a friend, and until recently, he had shown me the attention and love I so needed after the loss of my dad.
    I was eleven years old. My father was dead. My mother hated me and told me she wished I were dead. My brother, my best friend, had gone to Nashville in hopes of making it big, whatever that meant. My grandparents were forbidden to speak to me, and now I was being comforted by my rapist.
    “Let me go,” I whispered with all my strength. My voice was not my own. Would it ever be again?
    “No,” Daniel got up and shook his head. “No,” he said again, and drank from his bottle.
    I watched in horror as he paced and hit at his