Love and Darkness (The Cause Book 2) Read Online Free

hand, popping something.  Then the woman tossed her again.
    The voices in Del’s head never stopped.  “Sexless reject,” Del said to her opponent, in yet another voice.  “No passion for life.  That’s why you aren’t graduating, not because of my issues.”  She no longer remembered which of the voices was her own.
    “You’re faking the lust, but Ma’am Keaton isn’t fooled,” Del said, this time a man’s voice, echoing a different set of thoughts.  Del shifted positions as the woman tossed her again, and the woman slipped.  An idea popped into her head on its own, how to make the shift and produce the slip.  A gift from one of the voices.  Del fell, but gently.  “I’m hungry,” Del said.  Thoughts about architecture ran through her mind.  An early TV actress once owned Ma’am Keaton’s mansion, someone not smart enough to realize the people building her house had been robbing her rather than building for her.  The place slowly collapsed on itself for lack of sufficient internal supports.  “Agriculture and brush clearing have accentuated the drought cycle,” Del said, in a different voice.  The woman recovered from her slip and returned, kicking at Del.
    Del rolled.  The woman grabbed and tossed her again.  Del hit the concrete wall with a jolt, knocking the breath out of her.  The pain of her dislocated arm made even partial control over the thoughts and voices utterly impossible.
    She would die.  Today.  Unless she snapped out of it , whatever that meant.  The other damned women who lived in this house knew how to keep silent.  They spoke with only one voice.
    Ma’am Keaton stood to the side, eyes hooded and arms crossed.  She was the judge of Del’s life.  The nameless woman rushed at Del again, aiming to slam her shoulder into Del’s midsection.  The blow would stun Del’s heart, and if successful, well, that would be the end of that.  Del rolled toward the leaping woman, enough so that the shoulder blow only glanced off her ribs.
    Exhaustion sapped Del’s will to move and to fight back.  Exhaustion, low juice, and the voices.  The never ending voices.  The woman, behind Del now, kicked at her, and Del went flying, heels spinning over her head in a full circle, to land on the small of her back.  Ma’am Keaton remained quiet, always so quiet.  Where were Ma’am Keaton’s thoughts, her voices?  Could Del be like her?  Quiet?  Would being quiet save her life?  Would being quiet count as snapping out of it ?
    The other student, not the nameless woman Del fought now but a different one, a student only a few months farther along than Del, had said Del was too smart.  Too many thoughts, too much of a good thing.  Del couldn’t disagree.  Nearly twenty years teaching politics and social studies to high school students had engaged Del’s mind, kept her thoughts from falling back into the mush of mindless entertainment and housewife worries plaguing the minds of her three sisters.  Del considered her brilliance her edge, and held on to her thoughts the same way a dog worried a favorite shoe.
    Her thoughts now came in torrents.  Each took a voice of its own and never stopped.  The voices took over her mouth and her mind.
    By any definition, she was insane.
    Ma’am Keaton’s quiet was the only way.  Nothing Del tried stopped the voices.  Nothing.
    Pain, death and insanity approached.  The nameless woman snapped Del’s left arm as she tossed Del across the pit again.  Bodily exhaustion threatened to use up the last of Del’s juice, threatened to send her into the horrible place without juice.  More, unless she stopped the woman, she would die from this beating.  Worst, unless she stopped the voices, she would die whether or not she survived the next five minutes.  Soon, Ma’am Keaton would make her hunt on her own, and with the voices, she would fail.
    The woman ran at her from across the pit, as Del lay prone, exhausted.  The woman was her death now