Truth of Dark Pasts by Serena Wood (free children's online books .TXT) 📖

wasn’t River as I thought it was before, but instead something more near the window. I walk up to it cautiously, which seems like a stupid idea once I actually get to it. It’s open, which instantly makes me start to panic because I know I closed it this morning.

My door opens, illuminating the room as River steps back inside. She spots me by the window and studies me for a minute as she closes the door back and walks towards me. “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“Nothing, the window was open and I guess I was just being…” normally I would have gone on to explain how much of a wimp I am but something moves slightly from the darkness behind River. “Babe…?” she gives me this look of concern as soon as I trail off.

Whatever it was that moved quickly grabs onto River before she can defend herself in any way. She didn’t even have the time to turn around. I saw it too late.

The figure covers her mouth with a cloth in hand and the seriousness of the situation seems to sink in suddenly. My body doesn’t know how to react, all I can manage to do is stand there frozen with fear until the figure is lowering a now unconscious River to the floor.

The figure steps closer and still I can’t command my limbs to move, when I try, I only end up stumbling over something and falling down with the intruder hovering right over me. Quicker than I thought humanly possible, they move to attack me. Finally some sort of survival instinct kicks in and I try to squirm away, letting out a scream of fear that I hope draws in some kind of help from my mom or anyone that might be in range.

The person moves to practically sit on me and tries to muffle my scream with a hand over my mouth. I try to get a look at who it is, if I die by their hand; I at least want to know what this intruder looks like. But the darkness of the room and the hoodie they’re wearing blocks out any noticeable detail and all I can see of them is long, light colored hair.

Mom storms into the room nearly tripping over River in the process and I would thank God aloud if I could manage to. The person over me grumbles something in frustration, the sound of their voice instantly telling me whoever this is, it’s a girl.

Before I get the chance to process who she might be, she reaches behind her back and pulls out a handgun, pointing it at my mother with determination. Instinctively she stops in her tracks and stares at the gun fearfully. “If it’s money you want, you can take it. Just please, let us go.” She tries to reason with the unknown intruder and gets nothing more than a silent glare in response. Suddenly the gun moves upwards and quickly the gun fires, silenced by the silencer on the end of it. I would’ve screamed in panic had my mouth not been covered.

Thankfully the bullet wasn’t directed at her, but instead the small globe I have hanging from my ceiling. It dislodges from its suspended state and quickly falls down onto her head.

With my mom out of the way, the intruder focuses her attention back on her original goal. In the blink of an eye, the butt of the gun comes in contact with the side of my skull. It all happens so quickly, before I know it, my hearing fades, my vision blurs, and I drift into an unconscious state

Chapter 18, "Homewrecker"

 ☯River☯

As soon as I wake up, something feels wrong but I can’t place it. My head aches, the room is filled with eerie silence, and I’m cold. I open my eyes to find I’m staring at a ceiling that I wasn’t staring at when I fell asleep. I turn over and pull the sheets over my head, I don’t know what’s going on but it’s too early. Maybe I’m still sleeping, I could be dreaming this whole thing.

I reach out to pull Ellie closer in a vain attempt to relax. I come up empty handed. Suddenly the silence and the cold make since. She’s not there.

I lift my head from my pillow and realize that far more is going on than a missing girlfriend. I’m not even in her room anymore. I’m laying in a stranger’s bed, in a room I’ve never been in before. Where am I? What the hell is going on?

“You’re awake, I’m sorry if you have a headache. I had no other way of getting you here. I hope you won’t be mad.” the familiar voice rings out from the other side of the bed and I turn over again drowsily to see who it is. Chloe sits daintily in a love seat a few feet away from the bed.

“W-what the hell, Chloe?” I sit up and rub my eyes, looking around in an attempt to recognize this place. This isn’t her bedroom, I’m not even sure this is her house. “I just wanted to take you somewhere where we could have the whole place to ourselves. I found this house not long after I met you, it’s such a nice place, shame it was abandoned. I’ve been keeping it up, I’ve been waiting for years to bring you here, dear.”

“Dear?” out of all the weird ramblings she’s spewing, that one little word seems to be the oddest. “Would you prefer I called you something else? Honey? Babe, perhaps? I’ve always liked that one.”

“I’m not your babe. Why on earth would you call me that?” hearing those words come from someone who’s gotten into more than one fist fight with me, it’s just an idea I can’t grasp. What’s wrong with her? Why is she acting so weird?

“Do you remember last year, when we went to the festival they have before school starts?” she ignores my question entirely and I wrack my brain to try to piece together what she’s referring to. “No…”

“Oh, sweetie, that hurts my feelings a bit. But I forgive you, I don’t blame you for forgetting at a time like this.” Her happy expression falters for a second when she says that last part. “Anyway, you took me on all of the rides, oh, and you even won me a teddy bear. I still have it, by the way. It was rather romantic, don’t you think?”

Slowly I start to piece together what she’s talking about. “Chloe, that wasn’t a date. I won an elephant for Savannah, too.”

“I remember. But you didn’t kiss Savannah.” she smiles fondly at me and all of a sudden I realize why she’s bringing this up. “That wasn’t me, you tried to kiss me and I told you I wasn’t interested. Look, I’m really sorry if me being with Ellie brings up old wounds but I thought you got over it.”

“You’re not with her.” she growls, trying not to break her composure.

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t turn me down, you must be confused from all the stress you’ve been under. We’ve been together for almost a full year now.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? I’m not with you.” the tone in my voice ruins her happy looking smile and turns it into a frown. “Please don’t talk to me like that, you know, you’re being very hurtful right now.” somehow the tone in her voice makes everything click together.

Oh my god, does she really believe the story she’s telling me? Is that why she's acting so weird? “Chloe… I’m not your girlfriend…” I try to address the situation carefully but it blows up in my face.

“Is this your way of breaking up with me?” she looks at me with such distress in her eyes and tears start to fall down her cheeks. She really does believe it. “N-no… I mean…” She gets up and starts to pace. “I know things haven’t exactly been the easiest lately, but you don’t have to talk like that. We can work things out.”

“No, Chloe, we can’t. You don’t understand, I’m with Ellie…” I would have gone on to explain that she’s completely lost her mind but she cuts me off. “You’re not!” her raised voice level startles me into silence.

“I know what you’ve been doing, you’ve been cheating on me. But I can’t just let you throw away what we have for…  her. I’m going to fix this, I swear.” she steps closer and moves to sit in my lap. I’m so completely confused by everything that’s happening that I don’t think to push her off at first.

“I’ll be better to you. Please, just let me try to fix things.” she wraps her arms around my neck and for some reason I can’t manage to push her away. I pity her. A part of me feels like I drove her over the edge and now she’s completely insane. All because I rejected her.

“Chloe…” I try to soften my voice, like I’m talking to a child. “This isn’t going to work out, you have to understand that.”

“It will work out. I know we’ve both been horrible to each other lately, but I also know that you still love me. Deep down, I know you do.” before I can make a protest, she presses her lips to mine. Immediately, I feel dirty, like my lips are suddenly filthy just for kissing someone who’s not Ellie. But still I don’t pull away, I’ll at least let her have this one moment. Maybe she deserves that much from me since I’m the reason she’s so insane right now.

But she takes the gesture too far, assuming that I wanted to kiss her just because I didn’t have it in me to hurt her anymore. She deepens the kiss, moving her hands down my torso to rest on the waistband of my pajamas. I break the kiss in hopes I can stop her, but she only takes that as a sign she’s not doing anything wrong. She moves to start kissing my neck, moving her hands back up to explore my body. It’s too pushy, it brings back memories of my uncle and those awful men taking advantage of me. Ellie never tried to touch me like this, she was always respectful.

Ellie. “Chloe… stop. I can’t do this.” I push her back slightly and try to catch my breathe.

“Why not?” again that hurt tone in her voice strikes me down, why do I keep hurting every girl that falls in love with me?

“I won’t hurt Ellie. I love her, Chloe.”

“No… You love me.”

“Chloe, I don’t…”

“Stop lying!” again her raised voice startles me into total silence. “I’m supposed to be the one you love. Why don’t you love me anymore?” she starts crying again and I don’t know how to respond. How do I tell her what she thinks she knows is all made up?

“I… I never did. Chloe, you’re confused. If you let me help you, I can take you somewhere and they’ll give you medicine or something…” she pushes on my shoulders and shoves herself out of my lap; moving to pace the room again. “You’re the one that’s confused. It’s all her fault, she did