Marked By Lies: A Reverse Harem Series (The Marked Series Book 1), Paige Orr [new books to read .TXT] 📗

me it’s all for my own good, but how is controlling everything in my life good for me. I know that my life isn’t terrible, and in fact, I have it better than so many people out there, but I can't help feeling suffocated with all of her rules. Sometimes I just want to be like any other teenager, break some rules, and have some fun. What’s so bad about that?

I creep my way around the kitchen counter, basically holding my breath to listen for any sound that she might be awake, but when silence reaches my ears, the air rushes out in relief. As much as I might moan about her, I still love my mum more than anything in this entire world, which is probably why her lack of trust in my decisions hurts so much.

As I make my way out of the kitchen and into the hallway, I continue to strain my ears, not wanting to let my guard down until I’m safely in my room. It would be just my luck to be caught just as I get there and end up with a lecture to end all lectures. I keep my eyes on the stairs, certain that any moment she will appear with that disappointed look on her face, telling me how she expects better from me.

As much as I try not to let her words get to me, every time she sits me down when I do something she disapproves of, and instead of anger she tells me how disappointed she is, it hurts like a vice squeezing my chest. I swear that when women find out that they are pregnant they all go for a workshop where they tell them that their disappointment is the best way to deal with a “wayward” child, especially since that's all she ever seems to say to me.

Because of how focused I am on the stairway, I don’t notice the puddle until the liquid quickly soaks through my socks, causing me to leap backward in shock. Mum would never leave something spilled on the floor, and as I look down, taking in the still growing dark pool, trepidation fills me. I could just be being silly, but right now I don’t care so much about getting caught, all I care about is making the sick feeling in my stomach go away, which is why I call out to her.

“Mum?.. “

I wait on her groggy reply, but when it doesn’t come, my heart beats out of my chest as panic fills me. My hands shake as I reach into my pocket, pulling my phone out to shine the flashlight on the pool at my feet. It takes me a few tries to even get the phone unlocked with my hands shaking so badly, and when I finally get it unlocked, I have to take a deep breath before bringing up the flashlight.

I close my eyes as I flick it on, too scared to see what’s on the floor. I know it’s stupid and that it won’t change what’s on the floor, but I can’t seem to stop myself. Slowly I crack open my eyes, looking down to my feet, and when my eyes reach the blood pooling at my feet a scream tears free from my throat as I drop my phone.

When the phone lads on the hardwood floor beside me, the light bounces around the walls, and what is revealed to me is the most horrifying sight I’ve ever laid eyes on. There on the wall opposite me hangs my mum, pinned upside down with nails through her hands and feet. She’s almost unrecognizable as the blood still pouring from her cleanly sliced neck coats her face, spilling into her mouth that’s open in a silent scream.

I feel something inside of me break as I rush towards her, babbling incoherently as tears stream down my face. Everything around me seems slow and sluggish, and it feels like an age before I finally reach her. I fall to my knees, bringing me eye level with my mum's listless eyes, and in a haze, I try to find a pulse.

Not feeling anything, I fall backward, scooting away from my mum's corpse, not even taking in the fact that I’m backing through her blood. My hand brushes against something hard, ripping another scream from me as my head whips towards what it was, finding my phone still laying where I dropped it.

Through the numbness that’s beginning to creep in on me, I pick it up and dial 911, not even hearing a word that I say to the operator. My mind just keeps going over and over how I should have been here, and how I could have done something to stop this from happening to her.

I don’t remember the call ending, or crawling back across the floor, but everything around me seems to blur together as I cling to my mum just repeating one word over and over again.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry. I’m so sorry.”

 

 

My eyes snap open as I wake with a gasp, my hand coming up to my throat as I struggle to breathe through the pain of my memories and the fire in my throat the feeling of hot tears burning their way down my cheeks as a sob hiccups out of me. I’ve not thought about that day for so long, but the memories are just as hard to think of now as they were all that time ago.

I can feel my mom’s blood sticky on my palms as I wipe them down my covers, fully freaking out now. No matter what I do, the memories cling to me, refusing to let me go from their clutches. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see dark shadows approaching me, causing me to panic even more as I scurry back on the bed