AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Grabbing my chest, I cried, “Hate hurts! Hate hurts!” Onus’s eyes had been the epitome of revulsion.
Even though Elijah’s wings were mighty, as he stroked the stormy air with his full heart, his speed was slowing. “No! Rhea, I won’t let you go!” His arms moved to keep me, but my will was mine. “The pain in your heart will kill you!” he pled. “You don’t understand how to handle it!”
Slowly slipping from his grip and friendship, I stared at him. “I will learn.” I thought of Weatherman and his meaning, wanting Onus to be better than the man he believed to be his father. “I will be better than my father, too.”
Unlike the fear I felt as the mountain ripped Onus and I to shreds from who we once were, this soul-fall was lonely. It was my time to become the goddess of ease.
In the warehouse, I landed on dirt that smelled of lust, greed, and sperm.
Rolling to my hands and knees so that I could get to my feet and prepare for Onus’s next onslaught, I froze when seeing a naked child curled into a ball. Someone had used her and ejaculated… on her pregnant belly. In horror, I peered up at the man I had… lost.
To see the evil of a crime from afar, you think you understand the depravity of it. Your imagination makes attempts to fill in the blanks, but it’s never even close to the truth. To see such unspeakable violence against a child, so close you can touch her, your soul is shaken to its core and will never be the same.
Before the door was slammed shut in fury, I was able to see that this child and I were the only prisoners.
Now in complete darkness, my hand searched for her. She whimpered upon feeling me, so I quickly assured her, “I won’t hurt you. I promise.” I tried not to flinch when feeling wetness on her swollen belly. “My name is Rhe—Rosa.”
A little hand grabbed mine followed by a broken whisper telling me, “I’m Anita.”
I swallowed tears I thought I understood when in the presence of gods. Now I knew better. Trying to be quiet, I said, “Nice to meet you, Anita. How old are you?”
In a hushed voice, she replied, “Not sure. I was twelve when I was taken.”
Her past blasted through me in a rush. Her parents owed a Fallen God drug money, so she was given in trade. Both her past and present terror stole my breath.
“Well,” pretending to be unaffected, I whispered back to her, “maybe we won’t be here much longer.”
She pulled her hand from mine. “You don’t understand who has us.”
She was right. I didn’t know a damn thing.
???
2 months later
Moments… They are small yet can be incredible. powerful. Seconds of emotions, trials, and love can last far beyond the end of each one. My moments—drifting seconds—with Onus had been packed with vigor, learnings, challenges, and respect. A greater gift than any of which God could’ve ever blessed me. In person, whether painful or not, Onus’s raw affections were refreshing air for my labored spirit.
Those are meaningful parts of life.
Now it was time for me to learn the pain of the humans who experienced the opposite.
Each second was torturous. Full of regret and doubt.
Yes, love can conquer all, but betrayal can make you forget love ever existed to begin with.
Laying in the dirt of my prison—a totally barren, windowless, warehouse, my heavy exhales sent dust into the air. My blood soiled the earth I had always adored. My tears fell, praising Mother Nature for her patience, so unlike mine, which had long faded. I’d never considered her grief until up close to the crimes she was forced to house.
Joining Mother Nature’s fight, I reached out and grabbed Anita’s shaking hand. My worn, naked body trembled, but I didn’t give up, pulling her to me. “Sh. He’s gone.”
Onus had just slammed the door, leaving the warehouse. It sat on an acre of earth that would never be the same. Too many sins had tainted the ground of misery.
Propping my exhausted body in a corner, cold metal shocking my heated and damaged skin, Anita scurried to my lap, hiding against my bare chest. She kept repeating, “So angry. So angry.”
Trying to catch my breath and the notion that we’d survived another round of torture, I nodded. “Indeed. But now over. Rest.”
Onus never returned for seconds after having his fill—his revenge on me for daring to offer my body to other Fallen God MC brothers to spare a child sexual assault.
In the dark and the silence, we both tried to recover from fright.
