The second time was ten years later when my dad died, leaving behind an empty seat at the head of the table at the clubhouse. There was nobody else qualified to fill it, so there I sat, the middle of the night, all alone, listening to my old man’s favorite Waylon Jennings record. It was a hot summer night, and the windows were open, the blackness of the forest quiet and inky beyond the window. The owl appeared out of nowhere, landing on the windowsill in a soft, sweeping flap of his feathery wings, scaring the ever-loving shit out of me. We sat there for several long moments, staring each other down in the quiet stillness of the night. Again, he blinked over and over, and my blood went cold when it dawned on me the last time I had seen him was when Julie had died.
And now here he was again. Only this time, he was sitting in the grass, the moonlight falling over his body as he gazed up at me. Something about him was different, but that didn’t dawn on me right away. Later, I would realize he looked friendlier, curious almost. Not so serious, perhaps. But tonight, just like before, he filled me with terror just by appearing. So much so that it abruptly jarred me out of my daze and I quickly set into motion.
Gently, I lifted up the girl and placed her in the El Camino. She didn’t budge even slightly, worrying me even more. I threw the man’s body in the back of the El Camino, thanking him out loud when I saw the tarp already back there, just waiting for the perfect dead body to come along and wrap itself up in it.
“What a thoughtful piece of shit you are,” I said to him as I closed the tailgate.
After parking my bike on the side of the road, I hopped in the driver’s seat, turning on the ignition. My eyes locked with the owl’s once again, who had been silently watching my every move.
“Shit,” I muttered to myself.
I started the car and headed down the road back to the clubhouse, watching the owl grow smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror behind me.
Misled
By: Kathryn Kelly
He deals in a world of violence, sex, drugs, and crudity. As president of the Death Dwellers’ Motorcycle Club, Christopher “Outlaw” Caldwell presides over a club in chaos after the death of their longtime president and his mentor, Joseph “Boss” Foy.
Megan Foy runs from her abusive stepfather, hoping for her daddy’s intervention to save her and get her terrified mother away before it’s too late. Only problem is, she soon discovers her beloved daddy is dead and the man who killed him is the man she’s falling in love with.
This is a full-length novel.
Warning: FOR MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY. CONTAINS PHYSICAL ABUSE, VIOLENCE, RAPE, AND EXCESSIVE PROFANITY.
Preface
In each of us lives good and evil. The conundrum we face as a society is recognizing those we pigeonhole as evil and those we applaud as good. That’s the grossest mislabeling in the world, the greatest injustice. Have we not heard of the fable of The Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing? Do we yet misunderstand how deceptive appearances can be? The sun casting a golden gleam upon us doesn’t shield us from the rain. Good and evil are wrapped in illusions we’re determined to create.
The man society views as acceptable…you know the one…? He gives up his seat to little old ladies. Attends church. Sings carols with good cheer. Gives a hand out and a help up. That man, too, has evil lurking in the depths of his soul. Perhaps, he’s more evil. This man has the ability to charm and smile and manipulate the world to see his goodness. When, in fact, he’s the scariest of all.
He’s a wife beater and a child molester. He tears down under the pretense of building up.
I know him well.
He’s my stepfather.
Chapter 1
“No! Please. Stop!”
The crack of a hand connecting with flesh tore through the tension. Meggie jumped and wrapped her arms around her middle, her sob competing with her mother’s pleas. She sat on the edge of her bed, body trembling, praying her mother would survive this latest beating.
Another lick. Dinah wept and Meggie’s belly roiled at the tormented sounds.
“Please, Thomas,” Dinah cried. “You’ve got to stop!”
Meggie nodded vigorously. Yes, he had to stop. One of these days he’d kill her mom.
Glass shattered and furniture banged. Dry heaves wracked Meggie at the heavy thud. She knew that sound, knew it meant her mother was careening to the floor. Dinah screamed and Meggie doubled over, sweat popping off her skin, her mother’s pain her own.
Surrounded by her white bedroom furniture and pastel green décor, she wondered how her home life was such a nightmare. On the outside, everyone saw the perfect family—a woman, an assistant high school principal, finding happiness in her second marriage with the teddy bear of a middle school math teacher who’d stepped in as a father-figure to the woman’s daughter.
Dinah’s scream coupled with tearing clothes. Though not in the den, Meggie had seen the situation play out enough to pick out the sounds and their meanings.
“Please,” Dinah sobbed. “I don’t want to.”
She didn’t want to have sex, she meant. Meggie bowed her head into her hands, wishing for the strength and fortitude to take it upon herself to kill her stepfather.
“Let’s go in the bedroom.” Dinah’s breath caught around a moan.
Thomas grunted. “I’m fucking you right here. Right out in the open.”
Embarrassment competed with Meggie’s fear and anger.
Her mother’s next sob burned through Meggie and she covered her face.
“Don’t. Not in the den. I don’t want Meggie to hear.”
“Think she’s not fucking?”