Ricochet Read online

  Ricochet by Candice Wright Copyright © 2020 . All Rights Reserved.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any manner without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This eBook is licenced for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient.

  Cover Design by ©RAINY DAY ARTWORK

  Editing by: Tanya Oemig & Ms. Correct All

  Formatting by: Gina Wynn

  This book is dedicated to coffee. Thank you for staying strong and urging me on, helping me through homeschooling, quarantine and keeping my murder spree record to 0 days.

  Contents

  Ashes to Ashes

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  We all fall down

  One Year Later

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Also by Candice Wright

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Every shot that kills ricochets.

  ~ Gilbert Parker

  Ashes to Ashes

  Chapter One

  Lying in the stillness of the dark room, I stare out into the stormy night sky. It’s humid tonight. The open window lets in a balmy breeze that tickles my skin, but it doesn’t warm me. Not when I can still feel the icy imprint of his hands on me. I take a deep breath, the scent of rain beckoning me outside with the promise of washing me clean. No more fingerprints or bruises or bite marks, all of them rinsed away by the downpour of crying skies, the heavens weeping for the girl who has no tears of her own left to cry.

  I was naïve in thinking I would get a reprieve tonight. How silly to assume that burying my mother would grant me one night to grieve in solitude. I left the wake downstairs, walking up the staircase with heavy steps, hindered by the rustling fabric of the dress Clyde chose for me to wear. A fourteen-year-old walks into a funeral wearing a cocktail dress and a fake smile. It sounds like a bad joke, but this joke is my life.

  I could hear the whispers as I sat in the hard-wooden chair, watching as they lowered my mother’s white, flower-adorned coffin into the ground. Each shovel of dirt thrown over her casket echoed the mud being thrown over me. Nasty words scoring marks into my skin, made by catty women and perverted men who should have tried to help me. Instead, they cast me in the role of temptress and waited with bated breath for me to take my mother’s place.

  Not bothering to change after I made my escape, I kicked off my shoes and crawled onto my bed, the stupid dress billowing out around me as I grieved in private while hordes of fake mourners milled around downstairs drinking champagne and eating canapés.

  It wasn’t until later, when the crowd had thinned out a little and the voices that floated up from downstairs seemed fewer, that I realized my mistake.

  Dresses made for easy access. Not that jeans stopped him, but psychologically I felt safer wearing them.

  It didn’t matter. I didn’t fight back, didn’t tell him no, or flinch when he told me with whiskey-laced breath how beautiful I was, because I knew it could be worse. He had crossed so many lines, but never the final one, the one I wasn’t sure I would survive. So, to keep my virginity intact, I stopped fighting.

  Maybe that made me complicit. Perhaps it made me a whore like the catty women below said about me. The ones who passed their judgments as they blew their rich sugar daddies and fucked their gardeners on the side.

  But they had no clue what it was like to be me. Clyde had pulled me out of school under the guise of being homeschooled. It was a ruse so there was someone home to take care of Mama and someone around for Clyde to amuse himself with whenever the moment arose. I had lost the few friends I had, my brother was long gone, and now my mother, my last tie to the little girl I once was, is dead.

  A bolt of jagged lightning illuminates the night sky just as I hear the telltale creak of someone stepping on the loose floorboard outside my room.

  I tense, biting my lip as I hear the door open behind me for the second time tonight. I close my eyes at their approach, feigning sleep, forcing my body not to react to the cold fingers on my arm.

  Even with a house full of people, I know it’s him, his touch as familiar to me as my own, his icy, frigid skin mirroring the coldness of his heart. Fingertips tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, hovering for a moment before a cough from the doorway draws his attention.

  “She’s asleep?” the lightly accented voice asks. Italian, perhaps.

  “Yes, so keep your voice down,” Clyde replies, low and somber.

  “And she is untouched?” the man persists, not lowering his voice at all.

  I’d laugh at that if I weren’t so terrified. I’m many things, but untouched is not one of them.

  “I told you she was and she will remain so until I hand her over to you in the morning, but tonight G, she is still mine, so do not overstep,” Clyde warns, his voice filled with anger.

  “Maybe,” the other man concedes, “but I paid for a virgin, and that’s what I expect to receive. You can have your last night with her, but after that, forget she ever existed. Unlike you, I don’t feel the need to trade in my toys every few years. I like to keep them until I break them.”

  Clyde sighs, stepping away from the bed, his heavy footsteps moving toward the door.

  “Yes, G, I am well aware of the deal we made. Now let’s finish our drinks. I’m being rude to my guests,” he finishes, closing the door behind him.

  I strain to listen over the sound of my wildly beating heart that threatens to crack my ribs.

  I guess I know why he never crossed that line when he so happily crossed all the others. I wouldn’t have been worth as much if he had broken me in.

  The storm is raging now, both outside my window and in the darkest part of my mind. A scream builds within, rivaling any a banshee might make, but I swallow it down and bite my lip until I taste blood. The little girl inside me urges me to run, to push open the window and disappear into the night. But then what will happen to the little girl who comes after me?

  Climbing from the bed, I grip my hands into fists. Nobody was there for me. They ignored my cries and turned their backs on me. I won’t ever be the person who stands by and lets something like that happen, not if I can stop it.

  I rip the dress from my body, tearing the fabric in the process, and dump it in a pile on the bedroom floor. Rummaging through my dresser, I grab the first night
shirt I touch, pulling it over my head before grabbing my backpack from the back of my desk chair. I empty the contents on my desk. A cherry Chapstick makes its bid for freedom by rolling off the edge and landing on the carpet soundlessly. Walking on silent footsteps to the door, I pull it open gently, checking that the coast is clear, then step over the creaky floorboard and tiptoe down the dark hallway to Clyde’s office at the end.

  Pushing the handle down, I find the door unlocked like I knew I would. Clyde thinks he’s untouchable. I’m going to show him how wrong he is.

  I don’t waste time as I move across the thick carpet beneath my feet, feeling oddly proud of myself for all the times I spied on Clyde. I must have always known deep down this day would come.

  Lifting the picture of a forest landscape off the wall, I place it near my feet and focus on the safe hidden behind it.

  0817, Mom’s birthday.

  I type it in, tensing when it beeps once, then I swing the door open.

  The first thing I take is the money, ten stacks of cash tightly bundled together with rubber bands and shove them into the backpack. Next, I take the ledger filled with names and numbers. I don’t know what any of it means, but something tells me this thing might be valuable. Finally, I take the item I came here for, the gun. It’s heavier than I thought it would be, looking large and intimidating in my small hand, and yet, a wave of comfort washes over me. It doesn’t matter how small I am, how weak I am; this thing evens the battlefield. I shove it into the backpack and close the safe, placing the picture back over it.

  Leaving the room the same way I found it, I close the door behind me as voices saying their goodbyes drift up the stairs.

  I head back to my room and remove the gun, shoving it under my pillow before grabbing items I’ll need. I only pack the essentials I can carry—underwear, socks, toothbrush, a handful of toiletries, and three changes of clothes. There is no space in the backpack for anything else.

  Opening the desk drawer, I lift out the tattered copy of Chicken Little and run my fingertips over the cover reverently. How I wished for a different life. Shoving it back in the drawer, I slam it closed.

  The temperature had dropped, the howling wind blowing in the window, making the white gauzy curtain flutter as if it’s dancing to music only it can hear. I pull the curtain closed before climbing under the comforter, the inky blackness of the night wrapping itself around me like a welcome friend.

  And I wait.

  It doesn’t take long, the lure of spending his last night with me too strong for him to ignore any longer.

  This time I don’t pretend I’m asleep or ignore his presence like a ghostly specter. I turn to face him, watching as he flicks on the lamp and bathes the room with an eerie glow.

  I watch him gaze around, his face sad as he takes in the pink and white polka dot wallpaper, the white gloss furniture, the bed, and the white bedding with tiny pink flowers. It’s a bedroom fit for a princess, something I never aspired to be, but then this room isn’t about me, it’s all about Clyde.

  “Hello, pretty girl,” he whispers when his lust-filled eyes finally land on mine. “Daddy has a special night planned for us.”

  I don’t answer him. I stare at the handsome face my mother loved. The strong jaw, sharp cheekbones, and twinkling bright blue eyes all add to his appeal, but it’s just a mask to hide the monster beneath. But he’s not the only one wearing a mask, and tonight he’s not the only monster in my bedroom.

  He removes his clothes, cufflinks first, popping the silver ovals on my nightstand. His white shirt is next, followed by his suit pants, his shoes, and his socks.

  “Clothes off, pretty girl, you know I don’t like to wait,” he scolds lightly.

  I sit up and pull my nightshirt over my head without protest, leaving me naked, my panties likely still in his jacket pocket where he shoved them after the first time he visited me tonight.

  He smiles, a genuine one that lights up his entire face and makes the bile rush up the back of my throat, but I fight it down.

  “So beautiful,” he murmurs, sliding his boxers down to expose his hard length.

  I hold my breath as he reaches out to twist a strand of my hair around his finger, my hand slipping under my pillow, my fingers wrapping around the handle of the gun.

  See, Clyde is an evil man in the worst sense of the word. He doesn’t just use his body to control mine; he turns my own against me, forcing my pleasure, reveling in my responses to his touch. He doesn’t just make me hate him; he makes me hate myself.

  For a long time, I thought it was my fault that I must have wanted it because good girls don’t come when they are being assaulted. That’s what he told me, that it’s not rape when you like it. For the longest time, I believed him until I stumbled across a blog online written by a rape survivor. Her words changed something inside me, made me see that Clyde’s words were just another way of hurting me, raping my mind right along with my body.

  Well, it ends today.

  “Lay back on the bed, legs spread,” he orders, moving around to the end of the bed.

  I do as he asks, moving on autopilot, my hand gripping the gun as he stares at me.

  “What’s going to happen to me now?” I ask, wanting to know what his lie will be.

  “Hush now, that’s for tomorrow. Tonight is all about pleasure.” He smirks, climbing on the bed, kneeling between my legs.

  “I know what you’re planning on doing,” I whisper, the words slipping out before I can stop them. “You won’t get away with it, people will wonder where I am, they’ll ask questions,” I tell him as his large hand slides up my thigh, but we both know that’s not true. Everyone I care about is gone.

  “I forget how innocent you are sometimes, especially with a body like this. I’ll tell people you ran away, but I doubt anyone will ask. Nobody will remember you, Vida, you’re a ghost,” he says lightly, as if he’s talking about the weather. I think it might be his tone that snaps the last of my restraint.

  “Funny you should say that.” I pull the gun free from the pillow and point it at his head.

  His eyes widen a fraction as his hand pauses on my thigh. I let my hate for this man fuel me and pull the trigger with zero hesitation.

  My hand shakes, the noise sounding like a bomb that makes my ears feel like they are bleeding.

  “I guess this makes us both ghosts now.”

  Chapter Two

  I kick my feet, my toes just skimming over the dusty ground as the swing moves back and forth, the squeak of the rusty chain sounding far louder than usual in the dark, empty park.

  The distant sounds of a couple arguing from somewhere across the trailer park is joined by the sorrowful howl of a dog chained up in someone’s yard, lonely and forgotten about. I might only be eight, but I knew the feeling well. I want to howl at the moon myself, but it wouldn’t change anything.

  A snap of a twig behind me captures my attention, and even though I know it’s not safe out in the park alone this late at night, I don’t panic.

  I know it’s my brother Drake, he always seems to know where to find me.

  The swing beside mine creaks as he sits down next to me, his long legs crossed at the ankle. He didn’t come here to swing; he came here to talk. But I don’t want to hear what he has to say, I already know. I heard Mama crying softly in the kitchen earlier when they were talking.

  “It won’t be so bad, Chicken Little. We can write to each other and I’ll be back for a visit before you know it,” he whispers, nudging my foot with his.

  I bite my lip hard to stop myself from crying. I’m a big girl now; crying is for babies.

  “But it won’t be the same. Can’t I go with you? I’ll be good, I swear.” I turn to look at him, but it’s too dark to see his face.

  “You need to stay and look after Mama,” he answers, standing up and making the swing creak again. “Come on. Let’s get you home.”

  He tugs me off the swing and picks me up, and even though I’m mad, I wrap my ar
ms and legs tightly around him. Burying my head into his neck, I take a deep breath, smelling the shower gel he always uses and the faint hint of cigarettes he smokes when he thinks I’m not around.

  Maybe if I hold on tight enough, he’ll stay with me. He’s the only one who makes pancakes the way I like them and catches the cockroaches when they scurry across my bedroom floor. Who will do that when he’s gone?

  He carries me all the way back to our trailer, the voices of Mr. and Mrs. Beckett yelling, getting louder as we pass their place. The sound of something hitting the wall and glass breaking makes me jump, but my brother just holds me tighter.

  My mom opens the door as soon as we get there and Drake carries me inside, popping me onto the kitchen counter.

  “Vida Roberts! What have I told you about running off like that? Especially when it’s dark outside. It’s not safe out there,” she scolds, but I only have eyes for my brother who stands in front of me with a hand on either side of me, bracketing me in.

  “It’s okay, Ma,” he answers her, but she shakes her head; her red hair that’s the same as mine bounces around her shoulders when she throws her hands up in the air.

  “It is not okay, Drake. When you’re gone, there won’t be anyone around to chase after her, because lord knows I won’t be. She needs to learn this now before she gets hurt,” she snaps.