Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105665 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 528(@200wpm)___ 423(@250wpm)___ 352(@300wpm)
“You should go. Really.”
“Probably. But it’s warm in here…” he drew his shoulders inward “…well, warmer. So I’m in no hurry to go back out into the cold. I’ve met a bad-ass boxing girl with a story that I think parallels mine. And let’s be honest … when I don’t disgust you, I intrigue you.”
“You annoy me, but I enjoyed hitting you. If you stay here—annoying me more—I might hit you again.” Jersey flopped onto her side, closing her eyes. “Go away.”
Chris squinted at her bag, inching his way toward it so as to not get his ass kicked again. He bent down, plucking a photo peeking out from the side pocket. “Where did you get this?”
Jersey opened her eyes. On a frown, she snatched the photo from his loose grip. “I’m going to end you, asshole, if you don’t get the hell out of here.”
“Dena and Charles …”
Pressing a hand to the mat, Jersey slowly sat up, keeping her squinted gaze glued to him, unsure if she heard him correctly.
“They died,” he mumbled, pinching the bridge of his nose. “Gah! Stupid voices.” The rest of his words tumbled out of his mouth like he couldn’t keep up with them. “I lived with them. Charles put me in basketball; that’s how I met my best friend. He … his family had so much money, yet he befriended me, bought me shoes, treated me like a real friend. But then …”
“You lived with the Russells?”
Keeping his eyes pinched shut, he nodded. “But they died. He killed them.”
“Who killed them?” Jersey bolted up from the mat, fisting her hands as adrenaline made its way through her body, ripping open old wounds, awakening a dormant hunger for revenge.
“My friend.” Chris opened his eyes.
CHAPTER
THREE
Eight years earlier…
Two dead. Four homeless. And a Friday—pizza night.
Jersey endured six nights of stomaching low sodium casseroles and bitter greens with lemon juice and olive oil in exchange for one night of greasy pizza and the health food store’s version of carbonated soft drinks.
She never complained. After six failed foster homes in fifteen years, sodium didn’t matter. Dena and Charles Russell loved her and the three other foster children in their care. So, why did she focus on pizza while shoving tattered clothes, worn boxing gloves, and two knives into a soiled, camouflage duffel bag? It distracted her from the drift of incessant chatter down the long hallway from the living room.
A hallway lined with photos of foster children, spanning twenty years.
A hallway haunted with the ghosts of Dena and Charles Russell.
And pizza.
Cheese made Jersey gag. She used to scrape the toppings from the crust, pluck off the sausage and mushrooms from its rubbery sheath, arrange them back onto the crust, and sprinkle it with parmesan—because parmesan was salty and didn’t make her gag like mozzarella.
“Jersey?”
Hearing the unfamiliar voice calling her name, Jersey closed her eyes, gripping the bag. She no longer needed salt. There was nothing she wouldn’t have given up to change the events of that morning. Even pizza.
A heartless, gutless person killed her foster parents along a winding road, a mile from home. Hit-and-run.
With an all too familiar sense of foreboding, she shuffled down the hallway for the last time.
Goodbye gold picture frames.
Goodbye lavender candle scent.
Goodbye vomit green paint.
Farewell creepy buck head above the fireplace.
Coo-coo …
The old cuckoo clock in the kitchen was the one thing Jersey wouldn’t miss. Dena inherited it when her mom died. It didn’t distinguish between 2 p.m. and 2 a.m. Dena said it comforted her. Jersey dreamed of it falling off the wall and shattering into unrepairable pieces.
But in that moment, she missed the contented sigh that fell from Dena’s chest every time that bird sprang from its perch inside the bottom of the clock. She missed the eye roll of Charles who hated it as much as Jersey did.
The thrumming heartbeat of the Russell home ceased to exist and so did all hopes Jersey had for the future.
“Jersey Six?” A brunette with a high bun, tailored black pants, and a fitted, pink blouse studied the contents of an open manila folder. She nibbled on her clear-glossed lower lip.
Several other strange adults, along with two police officers, clogged the pocket-sized living room as the three other foster children scuffled down the hallway, carrying belongings that could fit into a single bag: gently worn clothes, a doll or superhero figurine, a Dena Russell original hand-tied fleece blanket, and a toothbrush.
For the first time in many years, Jersey wanted to cry. She’d resided with the Russells for six months. The best six months of her miserable life.
“You.” The brunette snapped her blue manicured fingers at Jersey. “Roll call. I’m really sorry for your loss, but I’m a bit crunched for time. Are you Jersey Six?”
She nodded once, curling her straggly, coal hair behind her ear on one side, lifting her sable-eyed gaze to make eye contact with the social worker.