When the Dark Wins

Severed

Severed

Dani René

Copyright

Text copyright © 2018 Dani René

All Rights Reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

To my girls who follow me down the dark paths I create.

Prologue

Drake

There are only so many dead bodies you have to bury before your life becomes nothing more than a long-winded repeat.

Over and over.

Again and again.

The blood is the same.

The graves are the same.

I smile when I do it now. When I dig a six-foot hole, I revel in the stench of flesh, rotting and cold. The reminder that I am a Savage. I was born into this life, and I’ll die in it.

The pieces of flesh and bone still chill me to my soul, but there isn’t any salvation for me. My life has been tainted by the sins that come with the last name I’ve been born with.

I bear the sins of my father.

I carry the cross of his actions.

And soon, I’ll be forced into the life he’s built.

With each body I dig a grave for, and with every heart I’ve seen cease to beat, I know that there’s no escape. As much as I want to run, there are people here I can’t leave.

Two boys.

My brother.

My best friend.

They’ll forever have me here, living the life that the man who’s kept us prisoner for so long has forced us into.

A dark journey.

A sordid road.

And there is no escape.

Unless…