Truth of Dark Pasts by Serena Wood (win 10 ebook reader TXT) 📕

“That’s enough, Chloe. Just leave.” The authority in River’s voice challenges Chloe a little too much and she moves to push on her shoulders. But she stops when she glances down and notices our hands. Her arms fall down to her sides again and she stares at us in confusion for a minute. When she looks back up into River’s eyes, I swear for the briefest of seconds, I can see hurt in her nearly perfect blue eyes. “You can’t be serious, River.” River doesn’t offer a reply, she just tightens her grip on my hand and the gesture catches me off guard. I glance over at her to see that determined look on her face that she always has when she’s fully convinced in going through with something. She’s actually going through with this. The startled and confused thought rings out before Chloe starts to speak again.

“What the hell happened to you? You could have had anyone you wanted and you picked her? She’s a freak, River.”

Before River can reply, Kathy interjects with a hoarse, tired voice. “Ellie’s anything but a freak, insult my friends one more time and I swear I will fight through my hangover to kick your ass.” the statement catches me off guard but it’s not just the statement itself. She moves away from the wall to stand strongly by River’s side and just this once, Shay doesn’t stop her from starting a fight. They’re all protecting me.

But Chloe doesn’t seem to care, her death glare is locked and focused solely on me. “Savannah.” with just that small mention of her name, one of the girls behind Chloe shifts forward; already knowing the plan like she can read Chloe’s mind.

All in the blink of an eye, I’m separated from the group, pulled free from River’s grasp by the softball player named Savannah. I get practically thrown to Chloe and before I know it she’s beating me up again. Savannah and the other girl in Chloe’s posse manage to hold River and Kathy off long enough to allow Chloe to beat me to the ground and climb on top of me. She pins me to the dirty concrete and before I even know I’m on the ground, her hands are around my throat. She manages to lift my head and slam it back down on the concrete what feels like a few dozen times before someone comes to my rescue.

“Let go of her!” much to my surprise, my rescuer has Shay’s soft voice. Somehow she manages to sound sweet even when she’s angry and I wonder if she even has a mean bone in her body that’s strong enough to protect her from Chloe. But somehow she manages to pull the enraged girl off of me and I’m left staring up at the night sky, my head aching much like it did the first time this happened. Only a thousand times worse.

A heavy thud hits the wall of the club and I try to push through the pain to see what’s going on. I find that thud to have been Savannah, pushed against the wall, one punch from Kathy sends the girl to the ground.

She claws the other girl off of River and in an attempt to help I try to stand. But I can barely even sit up and the action causes the world to spin for what feels like an eternity. I scramble around until I find myself leaning against something, a bench or a lighting post; whatever it may be I can’t really tell at the moment.

When I lean against it though, the world stops moving and I look around to find River again. When Kathy pulls the girl off of her, all in a quick movement, the girl’s face hits the wall. Knowing that they’ll be okay, I try to search through the blurs to find Shay and Chloe. As I guessed, Shay didn’t have a chance against Chloe and already she’s starting to suffer the same fate that I had moments before.

But this time, Chloe won’t get away with it. She only manages to hit Shay’s head on the sidewalk once. Shay lets out this panicked cry and within seconds Kathy is pulling Chloe to her feet. Something snapped in Kathy’s eyes, they don’t hold the kind sparkle they did just minutes before Chloe showed up. All I see now is pure rage and Kathy’s eyes are hazed over with it.

She manages to free Shay from Chloe’s grasp, lifting the girl up and away from her victim. Chloe’s feet actually leave the ground before her whole body comes crashing back down to earth and now Kathy has the upper hand. River gets to her feet and tries to pull Kathy away but the girl pushes her back and keeps attacking Chloe as if she’s possessed. Kathy hits Chloe at least three times before Shay comes out of the haze that Chloe’s beating put on both of us.

She scrambles to Kathy’s side, placing a feather light hand on Kathy’s back. “Baby, that’s enough.” Kathy keeps hitting Chloe, each punch harder than the last and it’s as if she didn’t even hear Shay. “We need to get her off of her before the cops come or something.” River warns, trying again to break them apart. “That’s not what I’m worried about, you have no idea what she’s capable of when she fights like this.” Shay mutters with worry as she tries to carefully pull Kathy's hand out of Chloe's hair.

Again Shay tries to break Kathy away from the girl underneath her. “Babe, stop!” this time she tries to grab her arm but still Kathy doesn’t break out of the trance. Instead she places her hands around Chloe’s neck, giving her a taste of her own medicine.

As if this has happened a million times before, Shay takes more forceful action, looking like she knows exactly what she’s doing. “Kathy! Stop!” She places her hand on Kathy’s shoulder and pushes her as far away from Chloe as she can manage. “Kath, sweetie look at me…” She places her hands on Kathy’s cheeks and finally the girl stills her motions a bit. “You need to stop, okay? Let go of her, baby, you’re choking her.” as if Shay magically broke some sort of spell, Kathy instantly releases her grip from Chloe’s throat and moves as far away from the gasping girl as she can manage, like she suddenly has the plague.

“W-what happened?” Kathy looks down at Chloe’s beaten state with confusion. “You blacked out again, it’s okay, it’s over now.” Shay places her hand on Kathy’s arm and smiles timidly. Kathy seems to drift out of her confusion and looks up at her with panic, as if she suddenly remembered something. “Did she hurt you? Are you okay?” she tries to check the back of Shay’s head for damage and Shay smiles. “I’m fine, sweetheart.”

River looks over Chloe for a minute to make sure she’ll be okay. When she’s sure Kathy’s assault hadn’t killed her, she pulls the blonde to her feet and shoves her towards her friends; who are already standing nervously against the wall. “Get the fuck out of here.” is all she says before the two girls drag Chloe away in a fear driven haste. River stands there and watches them a minute more before she’s convinced they aren’t coming back. She moves to kneel at my side and rubs my shoulder gently.

“Ellie?” She waves a hand infront of my face and it takes me a minute to realize she’s even near me, let alone to notice her hand. “We should get her to a hospital, she doesn’t look good at all, River.” I hear what sounds vaguely like Kathy’s voice in the background a minute later. “I know, call a cab or something.”

“You’ll never get a cab at this hour, I’ll be right back; I’ll see what Lee has to say.” with that the blured image of Kathy disappears back inside.

After that, every minute starts to feel like hours drifting by and the more time that passes the worse my headache gets. “C-can we go now?” I try to voice how much I need to leave right now, but it only seems to leave me in the slurred voice a drunk would have.

“Yeah, sweetie. Just let me go find Kathy.” the dark blur infront of me starts to leave my sight and River’s voice follows along behind it. “Stay with her, I’m going to see what’s taking Kathy so long.” She leaves us alone on the sidewalk and Shay scoots closer. “Don’t worry, Ellie. Lee’s dealt with stuff like this before, she’ll make sure you’re okay.” when she moves to hold my hand I try to return the act of kindness with a bruised smile.

Only seconds after that, someone rushes through the doors of the neon lit club “She’s over here.” that distorted version of River’s voice emerges again as three blurred people move to stand infront of me. “Okay, how’s the 911 going, sis?” the tallest of the girls kneels at my side as she speaks. “I don’t see what the point is, they’re long gone by now.”

“It doesn’t matter, I’ve told you this a thousand times before. Just do it.” the dream like image of Lee moves to examine my head and lets out a sharp breath when her hand comes back to her in a bloody state. “Come on, they can just take our statement at the hospital. I’m not taking the chance on waiting for them to show up.” Suddenly I feel an arm hook under my legs and another one on my back, causing me to squirm away a bit. “Relax, kid. It’s just me.” Lee’s voice rings out and at her comment I let my body relax so she can pick me up. For a second I wonder if she’s even strong enough to do so but the second quickly passes when I feel myself leaving the ground.

“What are you doing?” River asks with caution, following right along side of us. I feel her touch my arm for a second before Lee picks up her pace and her hand falls into the darkness around me. All I can see now is a blue flannel shirt and brown hair falling down to tickle my nose.

“My car’s parked around back, I’m pretty sure we can all manage to fit inside. We need to get her to a hospital now and it’s not like we’ll get a damn cab in time.” Lee’s voice startles me out of the half asleep state I was in and instantly River reacts to the little jump. “It’s okay, sweetie.” again I feel her hand on my arm and it doesn’t leave me the whole time Lee walks.

The dizzying movement of her walking, as long as it feels, probably only lasts seconds and suddenly it comes to a halt, her voice ringing out again. “Kath, get the keys. River, you’ll have to get in first and hold her, we’re only a few blocks away, so we can get away with the tight fit. Unless you don’t want tweedle dee and tweedle dumb to come along.” I here Kathy make some kind of remark on the other side of the car as Lee says that but neither her nor River pay it any mind. “No, I want them to come.” is River’s almost instant reply.

For a few minutes I think I fall asleep as Kathy struggles with the key, only stirring again when Lee grumbles something at her. River speaks up again when I move but I don’t catch it. For a second I feel like