The Broken Parts Of Us (28 page)

A Shadows of Sin Novel

by

D h Sidebottom & R M James

To live is to suffer; to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Frankie

The bitterness is consuming. Its intensity slashes and claws at my insides, its hatred wrenching my soul as it curls and nurtures my need for revenge.

His torture only feeds my vice. I won’t let him break me, only strengthen me.

The pain he gives is welcomed, its rawness fuelling the loathing inside with each of his thrashes and tears on my pale skin, with every harsh truth he breathes in my ear and with each of his crippling holds.

I have waited too long for this and I'll never let the bastard win. He will have to end me before I give in.

But now he has a weapon against me. Something I swore throughout my life I would never let in;

Love.

Tate.

Tate

Her strength astounds me. He doesn’t seem to break her.

His relentless persecution and determination to bury her under his furious reign and brutality eats at my soul. It has found that dark place inside me, the pit of hell I had locked and secured away, and enriched it, demanded its flourish and ripened its ferocity. The family wrath.

She'll never give in, and I pray every night as I guide her through the darkness that tomorrow will bring the light to her soul before it is consumed, finally, by the plague of him;

Evil.

Jude.

Jude

She blossoms under my torture, the soft suppleness of her skin ripping and tearing as though her soul is trying to break free from the agony.

I'll allow it, because I can. Because I need her soul. I crave the sustenance it feeds my rage with, my thirst for cruelty quenched by the sounds of her desolate screams and my hunger for blood, nourished by the slow drip of her life force at my feet.

She thinks I won't break her, so does he. They underestimate the blood that slithers through my veins. It's sustained by pain and suffering. It's the blood that tenures those around me.

The Bloodthirsty.

The Shadows of Sin.

Prologue

September 8
^th
1997

Tate

M
y eyes flicked to my Father when he pulled on the door handle and dropped one foot out of the car and onto the gravel driveway, “Behave for ten. And leave the fucking station alone!”

I snorted. Arsehole.

“Mmmm.” I grumbled a reply, leaving him to just shake his head in frustration at me as I twisted the knob on the stereo and grimaced at the loud hiss through the shitty speakers. When I passed my test, no way would I be seen dead with one of these old fucking things; up to date gadgets and wheels for me, all the fucking way.

“Cretino!”

“English, Pop!”

“Idiot!” he repeated in English as he bent and glared at me through the open door. I shrugged. Fuck him, the miserable bastard! “Watch your brother.”

I sighed as I turned to the back seat and gave Jude a scowl. “Do I have a choice?” I asked tetchily as I returned my gaze back to my Father.

He sighed heavily and glared at me, “Why is life always against you, Tate?”

“I know, right. He’s eleven, I’m sure he’s fucking capable of holding his own knob when he needs to piss!”

I hissed when his hand shot across the top of my head harshly, “And you’re fucking fifteen you arrogant
Minchia
. Start acting like it and learn some respect!”

He rolled his eyes but then softened his gaze when he turned to Jude. Of course he quelled his irritation when he looked at Jude. Jude was the dog’s bollocks to my father, with his blond hair and his nancy blue eyes, and his A grade report card. “I should be telling you to keep your eye on the pansy sat up front.”

I caught the small conspiratorial smile Jude gave Pop and bit my tongue to stop the words that would bring another smack around the head from my Father.

Pulling the joint from the front pocket of my jeans when my Father disappeared into the house, I glared at Jude through the rear-view mirror and curled my lip at him. “You grass on me and I’ll beat your skinny ass for a fucking week.”

He eyed me warily, his blue eyes shimmering with tears as his lip pouted slightly. “Fucking hell, Judy,” I sneered as I called him by the nickname I’d christened him with. “You are such a pussy.”

He rolled his lips and trained his eyes out of the window to divert from me as I lit the spliff and inhaled deeply.

Fuck, this shit was good and I relaxed instantly as I tilted my head back and rested it on the headrest. My lips grew into a wicked grin as an image of Becky flooded my woozy head. Christ that girl had one hot pussy. I snorted when I remembered how she had begged me to stick my cock in her ass. She was only eighteen, she’d be a raver by the time she was twenty one. Whether I’d still be hooked on her by then was another matter. Debbie had been giving me the come on for the past few days and I was debating whether to give her a go. After all, variety was the spice of life and all that shit.

I frowned as a faint shout attracted my attention out of the window and towards the house. Harry Wilde, my Pop’s best friend had just lost his wife; slaughtered in her own home, or so the word on the street went.

My brow twisted slightly when another loud shout pierced the quiet surroundings. “What’s going on?” Jude asked from behind me.

I shrugged and pulled another drag of weed into my system. “How the fuck would I know.”

He remained quiet as we listened to more shouting. The tones were becoming angrier but the words were blurred and I couldn’t get a hold on any of them.

The sky was shimmering in the pink of dusk and I rolled down the window further to both clear the smoke out of the car and to gaze at the fresh twinkle of stars peeking out of the beckoning darkness.

The arguing became louder as I wound the window further. I was starting to worry about Pop; yes, the arsehole fucked me off but he was still my Father. He demanded my respect but I would never let him know he had it anyway. He ruled Jude and me with an iron fist and I knew without a shadow of a doubt it would be the same with my baby sis, Bella, when she grew up.

  The shouting wasn’t shouting anymore, it was roaring and screaming and I swallowed the lump in my throat. Pop could take care of himself; I knew that much but there was something about this argument that wasn’t settling right in my gut. It wasn’t just heated; it was full of nastiness and evil.

“Tate?” Jude croaked hesitantly from behind me. The car rocked slightly as he moved further towards me, as though the anger in the house was feeding through the ground and rearing up into the car with us.

“It’s okay, mate. Just Pop being Pop.”

“No, Tate…. There’s something going….”

He quietened when the front door opened. Light from the inside flooded across the driveway and threw an orange glow across the gravel and I squinted as a small tiny shadow belted out of the lit doorway and careered over the shingle, the skinny frame falling onto delicate knees and skidding forward a few feet.

Fuck, that must have hurt.

“Hey!” I shouted through the window but the small girl didn’t hear me as she continued to escape the commotion and sped around the back of the house, limping and hobbling when her knees tried to give up their fight to keep her upright and moving.

“Was that Angelo’s kid?” I jumped at the sound of Jude in the now quiet surroundings. In fact the whole area had gone eerily silent and I yanked open the car door as two figures appeared in the doorway to the house, the backlight making their shadows seem larger than graphically possible across the dark driveway.

“Stay here.”

“What? No...”

“Bloody hell Jude, for once in your life, do as I ask.”

He swallowed heavily then pushed himself back against the seat and nodded, his eyes blinking as they watched me warily. “It’ll be fine. If you need owt, go find Pop.”

He gave me a confused look, “Why? Where are you going?”

I shook my head at him and scowled before I made my way around the back of the house towards where the girl had gone.

“Francesca!” Harry shouted as my Father echoed his call and they disappeared towards the road area.

It was getting dark as I walked around the side of the monstrous house. Christ, it was huge; protected by masses of fences and walls. Seven foot hedgerows also secured the perimeter and I frowned at the extent of defence this family needed.

Where the hell was she? There was nothing here only a few garages and what looked like a pool house. The gardens were on the other side of the house and I shrugged to myself as I scanned the area and peered through windows.

She couldn’t have just disappeared into thin air.

A small smile tilted my lips when I spotted a break in the fence, the wires curled backwards and outwards to create a small hole and as I slipped through and pushed through the hedge behind it, I emerged into an open field.

My breath hitched slightly at the simple beauty it held. It was covered inch to inch by dandelions, most of them dead now and as the breeze shook them their seeds floated and hovered above the ground creating a vast landscape of airborne shimmering fairies. Moonlight broke the scene, its light illuminating a small patch on the field and I cocked my head as I studied the girl sat in the centre of the moonlight, her knees drawn up to her chest as she hugged them and rested her forehead against them.

She was trembling; her weeping shaking her body harshly and I swallowed back the emotion that watching her was doing to me.

Fuck that shit. I was Tate Nardini, I didn’t do emotion.

“Hey” I said quietly as I came to stand beside her. She didn’t answer and I frowned at her as she kept her face downwards, her long blond hair falling around her face like a shield, “Can I sit here?”

She shrugged. At least I knew she could hear me so I plonked down beside her and copied her pose, drawing my knees up to my chest also.

We sat in silence for a while but as the moonlight started to shift I could feel her sorrow heighten. “Are you okay?”

She shrugged again but still didn’t turn to me. “You took one hell of a tumble, that must’ve hurt.” She nodded and hiccupped as her crying settled but her anguish was far from over. “What’s your name?”

“I can’t tell you that.” She whispered finally and I smiled as her soft voice seemed to float around us and calm the storm. Huh?

“Why can’t you?”

“Because you’re a stranger.”

I nodded and smiled, “Well that’s good. But I know your name anyway, it’s Frannie.”

“No!” she hissed as her head shot around and her pretty face tightened. “That was what Momma called me, no one else.”

“Okay,” I pulled in a breath and narrowed my eyes on her, “What does your Poppa and your friends call you?”

“Francesca.” She divulged but her teeth nibbled her bottom lip severely at the mention of her Father.

I nodded and pursed my lips, “Well then, I think I’ll call you….” I gazed at her, taking in her little jean shorts, her scuffed pumps and her plain Tee. She was far from the little nine year old girl she physically was, even though she screamed innocence and naivety. “Frankie.” I smiled at her as her small pale lips lifted at the name, “It makes you sound tough.”

She giggled a little and the sound whispered across the dandelions around us and appeared to calm their unease. It was like the whole of the field was attuned to this one little girl, its mood and ambiance feeding from her life force.

I leaned back and propped myself up on my hands as I peered up at the dark sky and let her grow more comfortable with me.

“It’s getting dark.” She whispered and I looked over at her when her voice trembled slightly.

“Don’t you like the dark?”

She shook her head and wrapped her arms around herself as if protecting herself from the shadows now emerging around us. “No.”

“But without darkness, the stars can’t shine, Frankie.”

She frowned and looked at me as the moonlight shifted from behind some trees and lit her face slightly. Her long straw coloured hair rippled slightly in the wind and whipped it behind her back exposing the soft length of her pale neck.

My brow lifted when I caught an arrangement of moles below her ear and I reached out to touch them. She jerked slightly but didn’t move away. “There were no stars where the darkness tormented me” she whispered cryptically.

The grief in her words made my teeth clench but I urged her on, sensing this little girl needed to get this out. “And where did the dark torment you, Frankie?”

Her whole face seemed to collapse as a shiver racked her body violently and a choked sob caught in her throat. “Hey, it’s okay. There’s no one here to hurt you.”

Her eyes widened and shimmered with unshed tears as I reached out and took her hand gently. Her eyes dropped to our joining and her teeth ravaged her already sore lips. I had a feeling she had been worrying that lip a lot lately.

“In the basement.”

I closed my eyes as her agonised murmur pulled at something inside me. “Why were you in the basement?” I asked softly as I pulled her backward until we were both laid on our backs, side by side, staring up at the night sky but she slipped her hand away from mine and let it rest beside her.

She shook her head and turned her face away as she refused to answer me. “Can you see that star there?” I asked.

She turned to look at me then followed the direction my finger was pointing to.

“The bright one?” she asked and I nodded.

“Yes. It’s called Capella and it’s the brightest star in the constellation, Auriga.” Her wide eyes focussed on it and I turned my head to watch her as I touched the group of moles on her neck again. “These moles you have are the exact replica of that constellation. How cool is that? I’m quite jealous.”