Broken, Bruised, and Brave Read online

  Broken, Bruised, and Brave

  L.A. Zoe

  Copyright © 2014 by L.A. Zoe, Love Conquers All Press, and Gold Egg Investing LLC.

  Cover graphic design by Clarissa Yeo

  Cover, book, and graphic design Copyright © 2014 by L.A. Zoe, Love Conquers All Press, and Gold Egg Investing, LLC.

  All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

  Published by Love Conquers All Press.

  http://www.LoveConquersAllPress.com/

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance between characters in this story and real-life people, alive or dead, is strictly coincidental.

  All characters in this novel are 18 years old or over.

  Table of Contents

  JaeSea 1

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  JaeSea 2

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  JaeSea 3

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  Chapter Thirty-Eight

  Chapter Thirty-Nine

  Chapter Forty

  Chapter Forty-One

  Chapter Forty-Two

  Chapter Forty-Three

  Chapter Forty-Four

  Chapter Forty-Five

  Chapter Forty-Six

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  JaeSea 4

  Chapter Forty-Eight

  Chapter Forty-Nine

  Chapter Fifty

  Chapter Fifty-One

  Chapter Fifty-Two

  Chapter Fifty-Three

  Chapter Fifty-Four

  Chapter Fifty-Five

  Chapter Fifty-Six

  Chapter Fifty-Seven

  Chapter Fifty-Eight

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Chapter Sixty

  Chapter Sixty-One

  Chapter Sixty-Two

  Chapter Sixty-Three

  JaeSea 5

  JaeSea 1

  January 2

  Dear JaeSea,

  If you’re really up there.

  If you’re an angel earned her wings yet.

  If you can somehow help us, like I once heard a TV psychic say you can.

  Now’s the time.

  Mom stopped eating and drinking again, just wouldn’t get out of bed for two days, so I got scared and called 911.

  Only you can make Mom happy. Me, never.

  So she’s been in the state hospital so long her SSI check stopped, and now old Mr. Granger evicted us.

  My best friend Areetha is keeping our boxes of clothes, and I slept on her couch a few nights, but it’s a Section 8 apartment so she can’t let me stay long. Tonight I’m on my own.

  There’s this stretch of street, called the Red Line, runs into Riverside Park, where girls and dudes wait, guys go to pick them up. If you accept, you’ve got to screw them. And they’ve got to let you sleep all night in a warm bed, take a shower, and give you breakfast. They don’t have to give you money, so it’s not like prostitution. Only trading. And if you’re suspicious of a guy, you just stay out of his car.

  I’m not telling Areetha, because she wouldn’t approve even though she’s not exactly a nun herself, but what can I do? I can’t live at her place.

  You know I’ve never done much of anything, and probably no guy wants me anyway, but maybe there’ll be one desperate enough, or when I wear my thick parka can’t see how skinny I am. I’ve got no money and it’s cold. Lots of snow’s still on the ground from last week, and an ice storm’s coming.

  What else can I do? Freeze? Starve?

  Your sister forever,

  SeeJai

  Chapter One

  Meeting Rhinegold

  The storm turned me into a human snow cone, sans sweet syrup.

  Ice encased my furry hood, my parka, my gloves, my black denim slacks, my shoes, my eyelids, and my cheeks.

  I stood just inside the cone of yellow light from a street lamp. Too nervous to stand right below it so the whole world could see me in the glare and know I was willing to trade my despised virginity for a mug of hot chocolate. But also scared if I stood in the dark, guys driving by wouldn’t even notice me. Think I was just one more pile of asphalt-gritty snow thrown up by the snowplow.

  First thing in the morning I’d go check on Mom. The hospital didn’t seem to make her any happier than I could, despite all the medication they forced down her throat and her talking to doctors and counselors, but at least she was inside, and warm.

  I faced the road, Riverside Park behind me, after the street began a slight incline. Around the corner, a house must not have taken down their Christmas decorations, because gold and red lights flashed, reflecting on the surrounding snow and ice, like the open mouth of Hell burning without warmth.

  The north wind blew, carrying Arctic cold from the North Pole, across thousands of miles of glaciers inhabited only by seals and polar bears, more thousands of miles of Canadian birch, maple, and spruce wilderness of moose, elk, and wolves, over the barren badlands of Montana and Nebraska where bison used to roam in herds of millions, past coyotes, over two-meter-tall prairie and broom grass, then millions of acres of barren farmland, sliding over the wind-whipped white caps and ice chunked waves of the Mississippi River—right into Cromwell, picking up speed again in this emptiness between houses and the park … and slamming into me.

  It would’ve frozen my titties and tushie off if I had any to speak of.

  Not that I cared too much. I usually felt chilled inside. Normal for me. So the outside temperature just plummeted to match my cool heart.

  Besides, what I was there to do, I had to do. I had to get through the night, one way or another.

  With a thick, ultraslick layer of smooth-frozen water on top of the thick snow, walking seemed more like skating. Only I’m no Kim Yu-Na.

  Overhead power lines hummed and buzzed over my head. Thick ice coated the wires, which made me nervous. The extra weight could break them, and I didn’t want to be down below when a live wire whipped around.

  Down the block, a loud crack popped, followed by a crash, alerting me the ice just broke off a large tree branch.

  With no late-night traffic, the winter world remained otherwise still, the air crisp though empty. All good citizens toasty watching TV in their living rooms beside crackling fireplaces with blue natural gas flames.

  The loud engine noise rumbled through the night when it was still far away. A snow plow spreading rock salt. I
could still hear it for a mile away after it passed by me without so much as tooting his horn for me.

  The cold, dry air burned my nostrils and clogged my throat, and I suddenly realized I could die there, walking the Red Line unwanted by any man, mummified in ice, just one more deep shadow in a desolate winter wilderness, undiscovered until a spring thaw brought out the first skateboarders.

  If I could still walk, I could go knock on somebody’s front door until they called the police to take me to jail. At least I’d be warm.

  Or trudge a few more blocks to where the alkie and crackhead crazy homeless men huddled around trashcan fires, and maybe none would cut my throat before or after raping me front and back. They didn’t have any standards.

  A loud, booming voice resounded through the frozen air, sort of musical, but not exactly singing, not anything I recognized. A man’s voice, chanting, challenging.

  I kept looking in front of me, not wanting to look, because I didn’t want him to see me.

  Not driving a car, he couldn’t be cruising the Red Line searching for a companion to share his loneliness for the night.

  Judging by his bombastic singing, he must be some kind of nut. Why else would he be out on a night like this?

  So I just shrugged, and peered into the dark empty tunnel of the street in front of me, hoping the opera singer would head into the park.

  No such luck.

  Not far behind me, he shouted: “Yo! Are you crazy?”

  I turned, slowly, plates of ice cracking along my elbows and shoulders, and stared into the blackness outside the street lamp’s glare.

  At that moment, the winter storm clouds rifted apart, and the full moon shone over the scene, transforming it into what I least expected:

  A gorgeous winter fairyland.

  The silver moonlight reflected from every surface, glimmering and glittering with magic, all the more beautiful for its lack of color.

  Pure white light shining from every bare branch of oak and elm, leafless guardians upright swords defying the sky above.

  Silver elfin luminescence rippling reflected moon glow from the frozen ground.

  Remembering a fairy tale, I half-expected the Snow Queen to ride by in her carriage.

  “Nobody’s going to pick you up tonight,” the man said.

  In an instant I recognized the truth of his statement. Idiot! In weather like this even the horniest bastards stayed home and jacked off to online porn.

  He wore a dark gray bulky parka with furry fringes. A hood over an orange ski mask. Thick insulated pants. Green rubber boots that went half-way up his calves.

  Even from forty or so feet away his head reared above me. Even though he wore two feet of padding, I could tell from the way he walked and swung his arms, his shoulders were broad and muscular. If his voice didn’t sound human, I’d think him a gorilla dressed to explore the North Pole.

  “Tarja Turunen,” he said as he approached. “Stop walking alone, and come home with me.”

  I didn’t understand. Was that another language? A magic spell? Was he just nuts?

  When I didn’t move or speak, he began to hurry, stepping quickly, spreading his arms out like an acrobat to keep his balance.

  His bent his knees and half-squatted, sliding on the slick soles of his boots, going faster, picking up speed.

  “Look out!” he shouted.

  “Stop!” I cried.

  He slammed into me, knocking me back on my ass as he fell against me. Fortunately, when my head slammed the ice on the ground, my stocking cap absorbed the impact, but the force knocked the air out of my lungs. He rolled to the side as I lay on my back, looking up at the stars, stunned.

  Numbing cold seeped through my heavy coat, freezing my back. Although my stomach still felt numb and hollow, I had to get going, while I stood could.

  By that time, the strange man stood up. He looked down at me, braced his feet, and a reached down with his hand. “We’ve got to keep moving. Know what the wind chill factor is out here?”

  I rolled over, bruising my knees. I put my weight on my hands flat against the snow and ice covered sidewalk, and got back on my feet without his help.

  “I’m not watching the TV weather report,” I said.

  “Me neither, but it feels cold enough to put the chill on penguins. Come on.”

  I took several steps along with him, then stopped. “Wait a minute. You’re supposed to pick me up in a car. A warm car.”

  He turned and stared. Although I couldn’t see his face—not even his eyes—the way he held his shoulders and head told me he was giving me one of those “are you crazy or just stupid?” looks.

  But in the Antarctic air, his deep, gruff voice sounded surprisingly gentle. “Look, you can’t stand here all night. I’ve got a crib in a condemned house. It’s not beautiful or clean, but the fireplace works. And I’ve got plenty of food stashed away. Pizza. Sandwiches from QT, chips, and candy bars. I’m a knight, not a troll. I won’t eat you, I promise.”

  So what if he didn’t act like what I expected? So long as he had a warm place to sleep and some food to eat, including my fave raves. Give me anything sprinkled with salt and I won’t stop until I finish the bag.

  Besides, I carried my cell phone, charged to the brim at Areetha’s before I left her apartment in the North Town Projects, deep inside one of my winter coat’s inner pockets. All programmed to call 911 as soon as I hit Green.

  I planned to trust some guy tonight, so it may as well be Sir Lancelot.

  I had to admit, he projected a disturbing feeling of confidence. As though he took for granted so deeply he had my best interests at heart, only an idiot couldn’t see that, and I was no idiot.

  Lots of guys who thought of themselves as “confident” were really arrogant pains in the ass, but he didn’t seem like that. Not yet, anyway. I’d wait and see. Still, I couldn’t turn down a way to get in out of the cold.

  “Wait up.” I tried to catch him, but couldn’t keep my balance as well as he could. I had to twist, and flap my arms like a duck to keep my head above my ass. At the best of times, keeping my head out of my ass often felt like an impossible challenge.

  The incline to the park steepened, so he slid back, but dug the sides of his boots into the ground to gain some traction. “Like I’m desperate enough for a woman to look on the Red Line even on a warm summer night, when they stand three-four deep.”

  Good or bad news? So maybe when I took off my thick winter coat he wouldn’t care how little woman-flesh I had inside it.

  I tried to follow exactly in his footsteps, so I wouldn’t slide or fall down. “Then why are you out here on a night like this?”

  A car engine approached from behind us.

  “Keep moving,” the man said roughly. “We’re on a public road. We have the right to be here as long as we don’t stop and block other people.”

  What?

  To my left, a black and white police cruiser slid by, the tires crackling as they threw salt against the wheel rims.

  “Keep moving,” the man said. “Don’t pay attention to them, or you’ll look guilty.”

  Guilty? I didn’t feel guilty of anything except the insanity of being there to begin with.

  When the police car’s red tail lights disappeared, I said, “What was that all about?”

  “You’re walking the Red Line and you aren’t afraid of the police?”

  “I heard it’s legal, since you can’t charge the guys money. They know they’ve just got to give you a place to sleep for the night, and breakfast. Or they’ll get a bad rep and nobody will go with them again.”

  “And people say I live in a fairy-tale world. Look, all the cops in this precinct are on Greco’s payroll.”

  “Who’s Greco?”

  “The local pimp.”

  “Oh.”

  “Red Line girls don’t charge and don’t give him anything, so he has the cops harass you. Everybody knows that.”

  It was only my first night there. Mom never did
much for me, but she let me live with her in a crumbling 2-family flat between the Yards and Hell’s Block, before this time in the hospital. I heard crack whores hung around outside the bars there, but I didn’t drink in bars, so I never saw them.

  Why was I following this guy, anyway? For all I knew, he planned to rape and kill me himself.

  Because I didn’t plan on changing my name to Frosty the Snowman.

  By that time, we reached the park entrance. He waved his arm at the nearby woods of iced-over oak and elm trees.

  “This is my special place. It’s always magic, especially now.”

  “It is beautiful,” I said.

  “More than that. Come on, I’ll show you.” He stepped off the shoulder of the drive and headed for the woods. There, where the snow had accumulated undisturbed, and so was deeper, his boots crunched a little into the layer of ice.

  I slid along behind him, my light weight not breaking the surface.

  The hazy gray winter cloud storm clouds had vanished. A billion trillion jewels sparkled in the deep black sky with inhuman glory. A dome of beauty over the dark winter world.

  Wind blew into my face, but it was already so numb, I barely felt anything. The effort of moving my legs to trudge along kept my blood flowing through my arteries and veins.

  “Back there, what did you say to me?” I asked. “Something about a target.”

  “Tarja,” he said. “Tarja Turunen. She’s from Finland. The first singer for Nightwish. You made me think of her because her second solo album is My Winter Storm and one song is ’I Walk Alone.’”