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

still and unthinking. My head was pounding. I tried to sleep, as my lips throbbed. My last thought was,
    You wanted this. You wanted him to look at you. You wanted him to kiss you . This is all your fault, stupid ugly Piper.
    Knowing in my heart that I desired to be loved, but not expecting this to be the love I would get, I prayed silently for forgiveness. I prayed not to be dirty. I prayed for Nathan to come and find me and take me to Nana’s. I prayed I wouldn’t wake up in this nasty old trailer with a broken body, with a mother who hated me so much, and a crazy man I had thought was my friend. All of my thoughts circled back around to the idea that somehow, this had to be my fault. I was in the middle of a prayer when sleep took me once more.
     
    …
     
    I did eventually wake up. I knew immediately from the smell that I was still in Daniel’s bed. I kept my eyes closed and listened to him laboring with something heavy. Then I heard the sound of plastic bags. After wrestling with whatever he was doing, Daniel dragged the bags outside, and the backdoor shut behind him. When I could no longer hear his footsteps on the porch, I opened my still protesting eyes.
    I realized that while I had been sleeping, Daniel had used some kind of cable to tie my wrist to the brass headboard. It was dark outside, and the only light I had was from the silent TV.
    I scooted to the window above me and peeked underneath the filthy blue blanket that covered it. I could see by the dim porch light that Daniel was pushing an empty wheelbarrow with one hand and with the other he balanced a shovel over his shoulder. I quickly put the blanket back in place, scared he would see me. I could hear him on the porch, dragging something again.
    After a minute of silence, I pulled the blanket aside slightly again. My teeth chattered as the draft from the window swept over me. Daniel had something in the wheelbarrow now and was headed into the cornfield. He disappeared between the thick, frozen stalks, and I think I took my first breath in several minutes.
    I was sore, but my head was clearer. I began tugging at the plastic cable, which tied my left wrist to the bed. I don’t know how long I worked on it, but it didn’t budge. I had no idea if my mother was in the trailer or not, so I tried to be as quiet as I could. I listened hard for any sound, outside or in. My stomach growled, and my mouth was dry.
    After a long time of tugging and pulling I was exhausted. Finally, I gave up, and lay back in the bed. The smell made me nauseated. I tucked the blanket around my feet the best I could with one hand. I was cold to the bone. My stomach ached with hunger. For a long time I lay, watching the TV lights flicker across the ceiling.
    I dozed off, lying in the filthy bed. When I woke up again, I tried to focus on the TV, but the images came in fragmented pieces without making sense. A shampoo commercial came into focus, where the woman was smiling, and teeth brilliantly white, and tossing her hair back and forth, pleased with its beauty. I wanted so badly to know what that was like. Being clean again. Being pretty. Being happy.
    My head pounded, and I was bleeding between my legs. The lip that my tooth had bitten through throbbed painfully. I drifted in and out of sleep for a while. It was near sunrise when I saw a flicker of light in the cornfield through the one-inch gap between the blanket and window. The smoke from a lit cigarette announced Daniel’s approach from out of the frozen stalks. He was pushing the wheelbarrow, stopping every few feet to take a drink from a bottle, and a puff of his cigarette. I froze, watching his progress. When he reached the steps, I arranged myself as best as I could to look like the dead.
    I waited, listening to his entrance and the sound of him discarding his winter coat and boots. When he came to bed I didn’t move, trying to breathe evenly, to make it seem as if I were asleep. Daniel put his cold, rough, whiskered face