Runaway Read online

  Runaway

  By

  Eve Vaughn

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  All trademarks, service marks, registered service marks are the property of their respective owners and are used herein for identification purposes only.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Runaway

  Copyright © Runaway 2017 Eve Vaughn

  Electronic book publication August 2017

  With the exception of quotes used in reviews, this book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means without permission from the author, Eve Vaughn.

  WARNING: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. No part of this book may be scanned, uploaded or distributed via the Internet or any other means electronic or print, without the author’s permission. Criminal copyright infringement without monetary gain is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in Federal Prison and a fine of $250,000. For more information regarding the government’s stance on copyright infringement visit: http://www.fbi.gov/ipr.

  Dedication

  To my inspiration to keep writing, my family who builds me up and keeps me going. I love you all.

  Chapter One

  Seven o’clock.

  That was the time Esther made sure to have Mike’s dinner on the table when he came home. Not a minute before and not one after. He’d set up a camera in the kitchen to ensure she adhered to that specific rule. The last time she made that mistake, she was on the receiving end of two cracked ribs and a broken pinky finger. Whenever Esther was recovering from an injury he’d given her, he wouldn’t allow her out of the house. Mike pretended that it was because he cared about her healing properly, but she knew the truth. He didn’t want his perfect image to be tarnished in the eyes of his friends and family even though most of them already knew. Most of them assumed Esther was to blame or decided it was none of their business.

  She decided there was only one way out of this nightmare that was called her life. One of them would have to die and Esther feared with each passing day that it would be her. Mike’s behavior had become more erratic lately since there had been layoffs at his job. She was sure the uncertainty of his employment created stress. But coupled with his excessive drinking of late, her husband had become a ticking time bomb waiting to explode.

  Esther sat at the kitchen table, nervously glancing at the clock. It was nearly nine and there was no word from Mike. Not that she expected a call. He stopped being considerate ages ago. So he came and went as he pleased and if Esther dared to question him, she found herself on the receiving end of his fist.

  She picked up his plate and took it to the microwave. If he did come home, she wanted to make sure the meal was warm. The last thing she needed was another reason to set him off. Just as the bell dinged, signaling the food had been properly heated, she heard the front door open. Esther quickly took the plate and rushed it to his side of the table and sat down.

  Seconds later, Mike came stumbling in the kitchen. His eyes were bloodshot and his clothing was disheveled. Clearly, he’d been drinking and what was worse, he more than likely drove home drunk. “The fuck are you looking at?” He glared in her direction before heading to the table and grabbing the beer that she’d placed by his dinner.

  He frowned at the can before tossing it in her direction. “It’s warm!” he roared.

  Esther barely had the chance to duck as the object came hurtling to her head. Though she warmed his meal, she’d forgotten to switch out the can so his beer would still be cool when he opened it.

  “I’m sorry. It was cold when I put it on the table but—”

  “Are you calling me a liar? Because I know what the fuck a warm beverage feels like.”

  Esther shook her head with vehemence as she held up her hands defensively.

  “No. It’s my mistake. When I put it on the table at seven, it was cold. I didn’t know you weren’t coming home this late. Please, how about you eat something and I’ll get you a cold beer. I’ll make you some coffee so you can sober up a bit.” She stood up and hurried to the cabinet to do exactly that.”

  “Bitch, who the hell are you talking to?” He was in her face in an instant and Esther found herself cowering away.

  “I didn’t mean anything by it. I swear.” She rushed to the far corner of the kitchen, hoping this bout of rage would blow over without it getting physical. That outcome wasn’t likely judging from the way Mike glowered at her. Coupled with his already bloodshot eyes, his expression had twisted in a way that made him appear almost demonic.

  Tears rolled down Esther’s face as fear held her paralyzed. “Please, Mike. I didn’t mean to upset you. Can’t you please just forgive me and I’ll do whatever you want to make things better.”

  “What I want is for you to shut the fuck up! I haven’t even touched you yet and you’re already sniveling. You’re pathetic. An ugly little nothing. And you’ll forever be nothing. I should have listened to my parents about marrying you. They knew you were trash when they first laid eyes on you. And they were right.”

  Mike caustically threw those words at her, each of them cutting her deeper than any dagger could. He grabbed Esther roughly by the forearms before slamming her into the wall, head first. The impact sent a shooting pain through her skull followed by a round of dizziness. But before she could properly recover, she was yanked by her hair and thrown to the ground.

  “Please, stop!” she cried out, curling herself into a ball and preparing herself for the kick that was sure to follow. Instead of a kick, Mike brought his heel down on her hip with what felt like all his might. Something cracked and a pain like she hadn’t quite experienced before surged through her body making her scream out in agony. And then the kicks came, most of them hitting her ribs and stomach. All the while, Mike yelled obscenities at her.

  “You fucking bitch! Don’t you ever talk back to me again? It’s because of you things are so messed up and all I ask when I come home is some peace and quiet. But you keep giving me lip.”

  A cough erupted from her mouth and splashes of blood dotted the kitchen floor. She tried to roll away but with each attempt, Mike would kick her harder. The final blow landed on the side of her head, making everything go black.

  When Esther came to, pain radiated throughout every pore in her being. Mike was thankfully nowhere in sight. She hoped that he’d left the house which was his habit whenever he lost control like this. Usually, it was to hang out at some bar or one of his other women. He didn’t bother to hide his affairs anymore and there was really nothing she could do about it. She rolled her head just enough to catch sight of the microwave clock. It was just past midnight, so he’d left her lying here for a few hours. The fact that she’d even survived this latest assault was in itself a miracle.

  As she lay on the kitchen floor, Esther tried to pinpoint exactly where her life had spun so far out of control that she would end up here. The only conclusion she could come up with was that she’d been cursed in the womb. For as long as she could remember, Esther had felt unloved and unwanted. The only daughter in a family of six, she’d been brought up to believe her one purpose in life was to serve and be silent. Her parents belonged to a strict religious sect that believed that women should be seen and not heard. She wasn’t allowed to wear pants or makeup and she was required to be covered from the neck down. Her father was the leader of the small church that he had founded and amongst his group of worshipers, he was God. The Honorable Prophet Jeremiah Wilson, as he’d dubbed himself, ruled his congregation with an iro
n fist, but he was even more militant with his own family.

  Esther’s mother, First Lady Ruth Ann Wilson, was no better than Jeremiah’s servant, waiting on him hand and foot. But she seemed to revel in her duties and she particularly loved lording her position as the prophet’s wife over the other women in the congregation. Both of her parents held their positions in the church in higher regards than their children, although their sons were treated much better than the “girl child” as she was often referred to. While her parents were stern with Esther’s three brothers, he was a complete authoritarian with her.

  He had to approve of the outfits she picked out and how she wore her hair before she walked out the house. Esther wasn’t allowed to make eye contact and she had to keep her head bowed in his presence. She was forbidden to have friends outside of the church and even the peers she was allowed to interact with was on a limited basis. Whenever the Prophet or his wife felt like Esther had stepped out of line, her punishments were often severe like receiving ten strokes of a cane to the back. She still bore the scars for those sessions of ‘correction’. But those weren’t the worst disciplinary actions in her opinion. At least the beatings were over quickly. Her least favorite thing was when she had to kneel bare-knee on rice while she recited an entire chapter from the bible of Jeremiah’s choosing. If she got one word wrong, she had to start over again until she got it right. Once she’d knelt for nearly twenty-four hours without food or water. She was so dizzy and sleepy, she’d passed out.

  That was her childhood: school, bible study, worship and trying to stay clear of her parents’ wrath. Her teenage years were markedly worse. When she got her period, Esther’s mother called the women of the church to pray over her to ‘keep the devil away’. From then on, every month she was subjected to an invasive exam by her mother and one of the women from the congregation to make sure her hymen was still intact. It was embarrassing and humiliating because it wasn’t like Esther had the opportunity to interact with the opposite sex except at school. But even there, she was under the watchful eyes of two of her brothers who attended the same school. The worst part of puberty for Esther was that her father started to look at her differently, making note of all the changes in her body, and sometimes ‘accidentally’ touching Esther. There’d be a slight brushing against her breasts or a pat on the rear. She’d always feared her father because he was so strict, but her feelings toward him had turned into absolute terror. When he started to show up to her monthly exams, he looked at her in no way that a man should look at his daughter.

  Esther lived in constant fear that one day, he’d do something other than stare and brush against her. When she was fifteen, by some divine intervention, The Honorable Prophet Jeremiah Wilson, suffered a massive heart attack at the pulpit. Perhaps it was wicked to feel this way about one’s own father, but Esther had been relieved. Ruth Ann, on the other hand, had seemed lost without her husband, so much so that within a month she’d remarried one of the church elders who promptly took over as the congregation leader.

  Esther’s stepfather Arthur was just as pompous as her father had been but for the most part, he ignored her, which was infinitely better than the alternative. Ruth Ann followed her husband’s lead and barely acknowledged her daughter except in church where she put on a show of being a good mother. Unfortunately for Arthur, he didn’t possess Jeremiah’s charisma and the church membership dwindled down to nothing, forcing it to close. When the church closed, Arthur disappeared. Esther’s older brother David had already moved out of the house to attend seminary school, leaving Ruth Ann alone to raise three teenagers a fate she complained about daily. Ruth Ann was left with no choice but to enter the workforce. Josiah and Malachi got jobs to help with bills while Esther took care of all the cooking and cleaning.

  Ruth Ann’s previous indifference to her daughter had seemed to develop into hatred. Esther could do no right. The place was never clean enough or there was always an issue with the food she prepared. There was no pleasing her mother no matter how hard she tried. Her brothers weren’t much help because they were barely around and they never went against their mother anyway.

  Esther felt hopeless. Her only escape was school, and she was determined to do well so that she could earn a scholarship and a ticket out of a house. She graduated in the top five percent of her class and had earned some grants toward school, however, it wasn’t enough to cover everything. Esther figured she could find a job to cover the rest. Just when things seemed to be turning around for her, Ruth Ann had fallen ill with some mysterious ailment that had kept her bedridden.

  David, Josiah, and Malachi had made the decision that Esther would be the one to take care of the mother since they provided for the family financially. Forced to give up her dreams of finally being independent, Esther found herself taking care of her mother hand and foot. She took care of her mother while being subjected daily to verbal abuse that would have made the toughest of men break down. Not a day went by when she wasn’t told how worthless she was. She was little more than a servant. Esther watched on the sidelines as her brothers progressed in their lives while hers remained stagnant. David graduated from seminary school, and soon became an associate pastor at a small church where he soon became engaged to the head minister’s daughter. Josiah and Malachi eventually moved out as well to pursue their passions, leaving Esther alone with Ruth Ann who had become even more ornery.

  Esther could clearly remember her breaking point. It was the dead of winter but her mother had wanted homemade chicken noodle soup.

  The pounding in Esther’s head made it nearly impossible to navigate through blizzard-like conditions on a day when she should have been wrapped up in a blanket nursing a hot cup of cocoa. But her mother had demanded chicken noodle soup. It was a simple enough meal that Esther could prepare in the slow cooker, but she’d run out of some ingredients. She’d told her mother, but Ruth Ann had told Esther that she’d have to go to the store.

  With no vehicle, Esther was forced to don her shabby winter coat that barely kept her warm when she was inside the house, let alone outside. Thankfully the grocery store was only a half a mile away, but even that distance was an ordeal to get through since she had to trudge through knee-deep snow. Wind and ice slashed across her face and, Esther contemplated turning around to go home. But the thought of dealing with her mother’s verbal tirades wasn’t worth it.

  By the time she made it to the grocery store, her hands were numb and her headache had developed into a full-blown migraine. Thankfully getting back home wasn’t as bad as the snow plow had done a pass on the street while she was shopping, but each step was painful. She hoped that her fingers and toes weren’t frostbitten. When she returned home, she put away her groceries and sat by the radiator to warm up. The heat made her feel better but with her aching head, she could barely function but still, Esther was determined to push through the pain. Once she got all the ingredients in the slow cooker, she went to her room to lie down where she promptly fell asleep.

  “Get your lazy ass up!” The force of something blunt landed on her back

  Esther must have dozed off because her mother was in her room with a broom in hand. She must not have gotten up quick enough for Ruth Ann because she found herself on the receiving end of another whack.

  She scrambled out of bed and moved out of the broom’s reach. “Mama, what’s the matter?”

  “I’ve been calling you for the last ten minutes. I could have died and you were in here like you don’t have anything better to do. I don’t know what I did to be cursed with such an ungrateful child.”

  Esther took a deep breath before responding. “I’m not feeling well, Mama, so I was lying down to rest. What was it you needed?”

  Ruth Ann narrowed her gaze into an angry glare. “You always have an excuse, don’t you? I’m hungry. Go get dinner.”

  To look at her mother one wouldn’t think she was ill, in fact in the last three years, she’d gained a significant amount of weight, so much that she rarely
left the house. She didn’t even go to church anymore. Some of the ladies from her group would come by on Wednesdays and have bible study.

  “Okay, Mama.”

  Her eyes burned with tears but she wouldn’t let them fall because she didn’t want to face any more of her mother’s ridicule. She was twenty-one years old. She should have been a junior in college now. But she was destined to be nothing, just as her mother said she would.

  Thankfully the soup was ready so she ladled a generous amount into a bowl and placed some oyster crackers on a plate.

  Her mother was parked in front of the television, watching one of her favorite televangelists. Ruth Ann frowned at the food Esther presented. “What is this?”

  “You said you wanted chicken noodle soup. I made some.”

  “I wanted it earlier but I want something else.”

  “But I went out in the snowstorm to get the ingredients, Mama. I did what you asked me to.”

  “Are you talking back to me, girl? After all I do for you?”

  Something inside of Esther snapped, the pain and anguished she’d carried since she was a child came bursting forth. “What have you done for me other than put me down and abuse me on a daily basis? I cook and clean and do everything around here. You can barely wipe your own butt without calling me for help. I work my fingers to the bone around here without a simple thank you. Your sons who you cherish so much aren’t the ones taking care of you, I am. So even if you can’t love me like a mother is supposed to love a daughter, you can at least show me the courtesy of one human being to another!”

  Without warning, Ruth Ann grabbed the bowl of soup and threw it at Esther. “Who the hell do you think you’re talking to? I brought you into this world, you ungrateful little snake and by God, I’ll take you out. You have been the bane of my existence since the day you were born, tempting your father like the Devil’s handmaiden.”