But that name? That name was something from the past. A ghost who had left me to the fate my family had chosen when I'd been too young to understand he wouldn't come back for me.
And all that he'd left me to suffer.
As soon as my eyes connected with his light gray stare, I wondered how I hadn't seen it. Calix had been my protector. My everything.
An arrogant smirk twisted his lips as he watched the breath expel from my lungs in sudden shock.
"Hello, Little One."
The end for now
Continue the Massacred Dreams series in book one, Dreams of the Deadly, coming soon.
Newsletter
About the Author
Adelaide always had a love for reading and writing that she cultivated with years of passion and growth before finally publishing in 2020. You can count on intoxicating alpha males with a twist of darkness who are captivated by the light of their women. Her romance typically involves dark romance themes, colorful language, plenty of steam, and graphic violence.
Read More from Adelaide Forrest
Burned
By Rebecca Wilder
Burned © 2021 Rebecca Wilder
Example Copyright notice: All rights reserved under the International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.
Warning: the unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in prison and a fine of $250,000.
Burned
Rebecca Wilder
Sutton Tate’s whole life just got turned upside down. Her mom is dead, leaving behind nothing but an apartment full of memories and a letter with a bucket list of things she hopes Sutton will do in the next year.
The first thing on the list? Spend the summer with a great-uncle that she’s never even heard about in the tiny town of Destiny Falls, Michigan.
She’s reluctant but it’s just going to be a few months. She’ll work at the Mystery Cabin, the tourist trap that her uncle owns, make a little bit of money and try to connect with the last bit of family that she has left on this earth.
Then she gets to Destiny Falls and it’s nothing like she expected.
Her uncle is keeping her on her toes, there is always something to do around the shop, and the Cabin’s handyman, Teller, just might be the man of her dreams. Throw in the sleazy mayor’s son and some new girlfriends, and Sutton just might have a summer that she’ll never forget.
When the summer is over, will Sutton give up her dream of being an executive in Boston? Or will she have finally found the one thing that she can’t walk away from?
1
This story starts with a funeral.
My mom’s to be exact.
Just thinking that thought still makes me flinch. I swallow hard, trying to erase the image of her pale, lifeless form, dressed in her prettiest dress, the one that I picked out two days ago, lying in the casket only a few hours earlier.
She had brain cancer, stage four, and by the time they had caught it, there was nothing that we could do to save her. She had never even told me that she was sick. By the time I was done with my last semester of graduate school and had come home, it was too late.
I remember walking into our apartment, so thrilled to be home for a few weeks before I headed out to the East Coast to find a job. I had walked in and stopped short, shocked at the sight of my mom sitting in her favorite chair in front of the TV. She had lost so much weight, was so gaunt, her skin so pale, that it almost looked translucent.
She had given me the news then and I had spent my first night back home crying on her shoulder. A week later and I was practically living in the hospital with her. A few days after that and she was gone.
“I’m so sorry for your loss, dear.”
I’m startled out of my thoughts and I turn to see Mrs. Merkle, one of our neighbors, standing there with a pitying look on her face. Normally that look would have my spine snapping straight and my chin lifting in anger. I hate when anyone feels bad for me, but I’ve known Mrs. Merkle for my whole life and I know that she loved my mom as much as I did. She’s just as miserable and heartbroken at losing her as I am.
“Thanks, Mrs. Merkle.”
She wraps her frail arms around me, the blue veins stark against her pale skin. I should probably take comfort in her. In her familiar lavender and vanilla perfume. In her sweet southern voice.
I don’t feel anything though.
The church is filled to the gills with my mom’s friends, coworkers, and neighbors. That was the thing about my mom. She was so sweet and optimistic that it was impossible not to like her. She made friends as easy as some people breathe. I wish I could be more like that, more like her.
Her funeral and burial have been completed, and the pastor at the church was nice enough to let us hold the reception here. There is no way that all of these people would be able to cram into Mom’s and my tiny apartment.
Mom and I have never been rich. She had me when she was sixteen. A teenage mistake, although she never once said that or treated me as such. She always made me feel loved and wanted. I might not have grown up with a lot, but I had a mom who loved me, who was always there for me.
My dad was from the nicer side of town and he had been a few years older than my mom. His rich family had turned their noses up at my mom when they first met her, and learning that she was pregnant with their son’s baby, their grandchild, didn’t seem to change the way that they treated her or how they looked down on her. It was expected that he would marry someone from another wealthy family, not someone like my mom and so he abandoned her and me.
He was never in my life. Not even when I was a baby. I had tried to reach out to him once but was shot down. Hard. I’ll never forget how he had stared down his nose at me when I showed up on his doorstep. He had told me to get off his property and slammed the door in my face. I guess his illegitimate child was an embarrassment to his real wife and kids. I never tried to reach out to him again.
My mom had worked as a receptionist for a local doctor’s office for as long as I can remember. The pay was modest, but it kept a roof over our heads and food on our table.
Mom never went to college. Even if she could have afforded it or gotten scholarships, what would she have done with a toddler in tow? Childcare is crazy expensive and she couldn’t afford it after her parents disowned her.