Mending Soul by Lauren Ruiz (sites to read books for free TXT) 📕

“When we first met, leaving you was the last thing on my mind. But now, it’s all I want.” Aurelia Hastings said to Seth Lennox as she walked out of their two bedroom apartment in Los Angeles.
Aurelia had decided on leaving Seth for awhile now, but never had she had the courage to leave.
Their relationship had been falling apart, and he simply did not care.
She had always threatened to leave him if he didn’t get his act together. But he had always shrugged his shoulders and walked away saying, “You would never leave me. We’re perfect for each other.” Then he would just walk away with a laugh and leave her standing there, feeling like a complete fool.
But she had had enough of his inattentiveness.
“Wait a minute, you’re leaving? Why?” The look of shock on his face confused her. Why did he even care whether she stayed or not? He never bothered to pay any attention to her anyway.
“I can’t live like this anymore Seth. It’s over and it has been for a long time. So I thought I’d do us both a favor and leave.”
As she walked out of their apartment door, she wondered where she was going to go. She had just thought about it that morning.
Maybe she would just go to a motel and stay there until she figured everything out.
Then maybe she could go back to the apartment and get the rest of her stuff.
But as she pressed the down button on the elevator, she felt a strong arm turn her around.
She was now face-to-face with Seth. But he was not smiling. His face expression wasn’t even close to that. Instead, his face looked like pure evil. She felt as though she were looking into the face of a demon, and not Seth.
But she knew that he would never hurt her.
Wrong.
She was on the ground, covering her face with her arms as he punched and kicked at her.
“You’re not going anywhere! You belong to me! You’re my property, so get your skinny ass back in there!” Seth shouted as he grabbed her by her hair and began to drag her back into their apartment.
Ding.
Seth had let go of her hair as quickly as he had grabbed onto it.
There was nothing but silence now.
Eyes filled with tears and blood, she looked around and found Seth’s motionless body lying next to hers.
His eyes were wide open, staring right at her.
They weren’t blinking, and he looked as though he was no longer breathing.
She stared at him, too fearful to even move.
Keeping her eyes on Seth, she slowly motioned her weak body towards the elevator.
As she crawled, she grabbed her bags, and with all the strength that she now barely had, she got up and ran into the still open elevator.
Blood.
Pain.
Darkness.

Aurelia woke up in a daze. Where she was, she didn’t know.
She sat up, nervous.
When she did so, her head began to throb in pain.
Her entire body felt shattered.
“What happened to me?” she whispered out loud to herself.
Then she remembered.
Seth had hit her.
Aurelia closed her eyes.
Seth.
The man that she had been in love with for the past three years had abused her out of pure anger.
She felt warm liquid stream down her pale cheeks.
She swept them off her face, brought up her hand, and stared at it with her bright azure eyes.
They were tears.
She closed her eyes and tried to remember what else had happened.
She remembered walking out of the apartment, his attack on her, and her lying on the ground in pure agony.
Then her eyes fluttered open in reminisce. There was silence and then when she looked around the hall, she saw that his body was on the ground too. What had happened?
Had someone saved her?
If so, who?
As she looked around now, she saw that she wasn’t in her own apartment.
When she had first awoken, she could have sworn that she was in her own bedroom.
But now as she looked around at her surroundings, she had no idea where she was.
Everything looked unfamiliar to her.
The room was a little too dark and creepy for her tastes.
If it weren’t for the lamp beside the bed that she had found herself in, she wouldn’t have been able to see a thing.
On the black shelf on the opposite side of the lamp, there was a picture frame.
She picked it up gently, as though not to scratch it, and found herself confused.
There was no picture in it.
In fact, on the walls, there were picture frames with no photos in them.
In a way, she felt safe and scared at the same time.
She didn’t know where she was, how she got there, or if there were other people lurking behind the closed door.
Then she heard footsteps outside her door.
Without thinking, she hid back underneath the covers and pretended to be asleep.
The door creaked open, then closed.
She was too afraid to peek from beneath the covers.
She didn’t know who she would have to be dealing with later on.
While thinking this, she heard another pair of footsteps inside the room. They had been joined with the other presence.
She could have sworn that that she had only heard one pair of footsteps came inside the room, so where had the others come from?
The door didn’t even open a second time, and she knew that she had heard it closed.
“Who’s the girl?” a deep voice said. His voice echoed and bounced off the walls in the room.
“Aurelia Hastings. I found her in the elevator.” Another voice answered.
How did the man know her name?
Had he been the one to save her?
“You’re lying. You found her in the hallway of her apartment complex. What made you bring her here?”
Only silence answered him.
“The man she was in a relationship was beating her. I found him dragging her back into their apartment. But she didn’t see me. Do you want to see how she has ended up because of him?”
There was another dreadful silence.
The footsteps were drawing closer to her, and stopped. She could feel their warmth beside her now. She kept her eyes closed, and held her breath.
“Turn on the main light.”
The other man must have done what he was ordered to do because even behind her closed eyelids, everything seemed much brighter to her.
Aurelia felt the covers drawn from her body.
“Damn, that bastard got her good. Look at her face man. Put the covers back before I puke.”
“You have seen worse bodies than this. Why does she set you off guard?”
“They were never as beautiful as her. Even through all those bruises and cuts, you could tell she has the face of an angel. And look how small she is. She’s like a child. Damn, I wish I could have been the one to have killed that man. Dammit, cover her back up.”
“I wish I had made him suffer. But as long as he wasn't hurting her anymore, to me, just him being dead was fine with me.” The first man said as he drew the covers back over her body.
“I wonder why he attacked her in the first place.” The second man said.
“It looked like she was leaving him. She had suitcases with her.”
“So he thought he could keep her by force? That’s so pathetic.”
“I agree.”
“Man, even with all those cuts and bruises, you seriously can tell she’s beautiful.”
“She truly is.”
Underneath the sheets, she smiled.
No man had ever said that she had an angelic face. Well, not to her face anyway.
Too many men would always stare and flirt with her, but she never exactly took notice to them.
Seth…
She thought of Seth with his dark ashy blond hair, and his large brown eyes.
She didn’t want to think about him.
So she focused on the stillness of the room.
The two men were no longer talking.
She couldn’t even feel another presence inside the room.
She hadn't even heard them leave.
What she too deep in thought to hear the door close?
She slowly lifted the covers off of her.
The main light was still on, so she could see what enclosed her fully now.
The walls were painted a dark royal blue, and there were all sorts of vases and jewels scattered among the floor.
If she didn’t know any better, the two men that had been in the room a minute before were filthy rich.
Or they could have just been friends of the home owner.
She wished that she could have taken a sneak peek at the guys, but she was merely too afraid.
The man with the harsh yet serene voice had been the one that saved her.
He was also the one who had supposedly killed Seth.
Was Seth truly dead?
She couldn’t believe her ears when she had heard the harsh voiced man say that he should have made Seth suffer.
What Seth had done to her was wrong, but he didn’t exactly deserve death over it.
She blinked her upcoming tears away.
Even if he were dead, she had to be and stay strong.
Then, the tears sprang out uncontrollably.
Just knowing that Seth was no longer alive killed her on the inside.
She had shared so many fun and memorable moments with him. She would never see him again.
He was now forever gone.