Total pages in book: 103
Estimated words: 100818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 100818 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 504(@200wpm)___ 403(@250wpm)___ 336(@300wpm)
That time I’d downed too much of my dad’s gin, she had pretended the bottle broke. Then made sure I had enough water to drink and painkillers to hide my hangover. She’d hug us in the kitchen while making cookies. She was funny and made us laugh, brightening this place.
We really liked her, and that, apparently, put a target on her head, and she had to go.
We didn’t do fun in this house.
I made my own entertainment. Devouring every book I got my hands on, including all the ones Elizabeth had snuck in. She had given me everything from the classics to modern-day fantasies, novels by Jane Austen to Sarah J. Maas.
Late in the evening, after my parents were in bed and the house was silent, I’d sneak into the poorly stocked library and take whatever caught my interest, bringing it back to my room and reading late into the night.
When I was feeling brave and was sure my parents were out, I’d sit in the living room and watch old movies. Sometimes, Archie would join me; sometimes we’d even talk.
Now that we were older, you’d think my brother and I would be close, but we weren’t.
I hated to admit it to myself, but I had no one.
This loneliness was again messing with my brain because those nightmares were back. The same ones that haunted me years ago. Elizabeth said it was stress-induced, but from what?
Sending a burst of breath onto the windowpane, I ran a finger through the condensation to spell Anya in cursive across the glass.
Walking hand in hand with someone the same age—I’m four, I think. My socks soaked from the snow. We made our way along a river. Peering over a snowcapped railing into the distance at ornate towers that lauded over a city.
It was always the same dream.
Later, while using Elizabeth’s iPad, I had recognized the spiked towers of the Kremlin.
Now, what the hell did that mean?
I’d never lived in a place where it snowed. Yet, I could swear I knew the coldness of snow between my fingers, the way it melted to the touch and pooled in my palm.
Elizabeth had told me it was probably something I picked up from a TV show I had watched. That it was probably because a part of me was yearning to go somewhere. As far away as Russia, apparently.
Peering down some more, I marveled at the spectacle my parents had conjured up of suburbia. We assimilated with the neighborhood as if what happened within these walls was ordinary. Even though my parents were hardly here.
The reality of my life made me sad.
The same routine. Same confinement. Same meals.
This feeling I didn’t belong.
That something was off.
Maybe it was the fact that I knew our family was in shambles. That they left Archie and me too many nights to sleep in this big house alone. If that wasn’t weird enough, they also wouldn’t allow me to mention it—forbade me to discuss what happened in this house with anyone.
They wanted everyone to believe we were happy and perfect, trying desperately to portray us as a white-picket-fence family. Even our teachers who homeschooled us didn’t see the truth. They’d never known what occurred in this house when the door shut behind them and they left to live their own lives.
They didn’t know that my parents were rarely home. That when they were, they didn’t speak to us. And if we confronted them about their neglect, they would punish us. Either locked in our rooms, all luxuries removed, or worse, by my father’s hand.
One day, I hoped to get away, but I knew the scars would linger for a long time.
My memories were too rich and too real.
The strictness overflowed. Yet the love you’d expect from a family who seemed to have everything didn’t.
Escaping the compound was impossible. Fleur de Lis-shaped spikes decorated the iron fence surrounding the front of the house. I could see it from here. It looked pretty but deadly. Along the sides and back of the property, ivy stretched the length of the high brick walls, creeping its way as if masking what those walls really meant.
The gate in the garden only opened for deliveries. The one at the front was merely for people my parents deemed worthy. That slim door to the side wall secured with a large padlock and reserved only for god knows what. No one used that one.
I never understood it. Why the security? I knew my father was a powerful man, but this made no sense.
Often, I sat at my bedroom window, looking out at the world and wondering if I’d ever escape. It’s ironic since most people would dream of living like this. The luxury around me was reserved for fantasies, not nightmares. But even the velvet drapes and lavish marble couldn’t hold back the echoes of solitude.