The Initiation (Darkness Within Duet 1)

Standing up, she filled her closet with the few pairs of jeans and shirts she’d kept. Within twenty minutes, her life was neatly packed away in the closet. There was nowhere else for to her to go. This house, her father, Hannah, were all part of her life. She didn’t have the means to take care of herself. No house, no job, nothing. She depended on him, and she hated knowing that she did.

She sat on the edge of the bed, fingers locked together, staring at … nothing.

The empty void had come to her when the ambulance came to take her mother away, as she sat in the hospital for three hours waiting for her father to arrive, to take her home.

She moved toward the window and stared out toward the sterile street. Not a piece of trash in sight, nor any loud neighbors.

Just silence.

This life, she already hated.

Nothing made sense to her.

“Harper, dinner.”

She looked toward the door and frowned. That wasn’t her mother.

Gritting her teeth, she wanted nothing more than to climb out of her window and run. To rebel. To not conform.

Instead, she walked quietly to the bedroom door, closed it behind her, and headed downstairs to her new family. Slowly, step by step, she walked downstairs, coming to a stop near the entrance to the dining room.

She’d visited her father twice since he left.

“These potatoes are stunning,” he said. “You make them so creamy.”

“I fill everything I do with love.” A few seconds of silence. “You should call her again.”

“She’ll be here. She’s not used to being in such a big house.”

“How do you think I should … handle her?” Hannah asked.

“How do you mean?”

“Well, her mother is gone, and I can see she’s hurting.”

“She’ll be fine.”

“I want her to like me.”

“She’ll like you. I know how good you are.”

Harper heard them kissing and rolled her eyes.

“Do you think I should make her eat more healthily? I remember what it was like to be at that age, and no one likes a fat girl, even if she has a pretty face. I could help her get more style. To become more attractive. She could be beautiful, but she doesn’t exactly use it to her best potential.”

“You’ll do what is best.”

“We’ll keep it a secret so she doesn’t feel like I’m picking on her.”

“Her mother was always too soft with her. She wouldn’t do what’s right. She always believed that a man would love a woman regardless of her flaws. It’s time for Harper to get into the real world.”

They laughed.

Harper stayed perfectly still, her hands clenched into fists as she heard them. They shouldn’t be laughing like that. Not about what her mother thought. She’d loved all people, flaws and all.

“Oh, well, some women think that, but don’t worry. I know what a real man wants. I’ll take care of her.”

“She’ll love you like a best friend and then like a mother. Just you wait. Harper’s always been a good girl. She doesn’t make waves.”

They sounded so happy, like their lives hadn’t been touched by death.

She stared at the door across the hall. It led to the outside, to freedom, to being far away from here.

The normal Harper would walk into the room and pretend nothing had happened. Pretend that she wasn’t hurting as they laughed about her mother.

Her dead mother.

Her heartbroken mother.

Facing the both of them, she didn’t want to be the good girl anymore.

“I’m going out,” she said, stepping across the doorway and going straight toward freedom.

She sped up, not giving anyone time to call her name as she opened the door, closed it, and walked down the long driveway toward the exit.

On the visits she’d paid to their house, she often stayed in her room, out of the way. The only reason she ever went to visit him was because he forced her to.

He’d turned up, waiting outside her mother’s house, calling her mother names, saying she was turning his daughter against him. When he first started this, Harper had believed it was because he wanted to see her, and he’d not had a great lawyer to get custody of her. In the end, she saw it for what it was—he was being a bastard. He could have had custody, her mother told her. When she went home with him, he wasn’t interested in her; he just wanted to hurt her mother. It was another way to bind her mother to him. She could never move on, which was probably another reason her mother had decided to end it.

Her mother never tried to turn her against him.

Not once, from the arguing to the impending divorce, did her mother turn around to her and say, “Your father is a womanizing bastard who deserves to have his dick cut off.”

She acted like nothing had happened, like her husband moving on with another woman didn’t even bother her. All the time, it had.