Verboten: An Inferno World Novella Read online

  Verboten

  First Edition.

  Copyright © 2019 Abigail Davies.

  All rights reserved.

  Published: Abigail Davies 2019

  Inferno World Copyright © 2017 Yolanda Olson

  No parts of this book may be reproduced in any form without written consent from the author. Except in the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a piece of fiction. Any names, characters, businesses, places or events are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, events or locations is purely coincidental.

  This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you are reading this book and have not purchased it for your use only, then you should return it to your favorite book retailer and purchase your own copy.

  Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Proofreading:

  Judy’s Proofreading

  Cover Design:

  Abigail Davies at Pink Elephant Designs

  Formatting:

  Abigail Davies at Pink Elephant Designs

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Epilogue

  Inferno World

  Acknowledgments

  Also by A. A. Davies

  About the Author

  Daimone Yolanda,

  Thank you for bringing me to the dark side, and being my cult co-leader.

  Yours sincerely,

  Daimone Abi.

  Chapter One

  JACOB

  Desire.

  Temptation.

  Forbidden.

  The three words ran through my head, and yet, not one of them stopped me from keeping my gaze locked on her bedroom window. The shadows of the darkness kept me hidden, but part of me wanted to step forward and let the streetlight bask over me, highlighting my face and what I was doing.

  I was on a tightrope, destined to fall with one wrong move, but nothing would stop me.

  They said it took sixty-six days to create a new habit, but all it took for me was one look from her emerald-green eyes, and the promise her small smile gave me.

  Some might’ve called it stalking, but I called it observing. Someone had to watch over her. She was a girl in the midst of a family that had deep secrets running through their veins. Secrets no one knew about but the people involved. Secrets that would never come to light.

  I promised myself I wouldn’t be like them, we all had, but that didn’t mean we’d stuck to that promise. We’d all fractured out into different parts of the country, but as the youngest, I was kept around more of the family. I didn’t deal with the amount they had to deal with, but that didn’t mean their blood didn’t run through my veins.

  Evil was evil, no matter how you portrayed it.

  I told myself I was being her protector, watching out for her so that she didn’t get hurt by the very people who should love her above all else, but it was a lie.

  It was all a lie.

  I craved to touch her. To be near her. I was on the precipice, about to fall to my death, but I’d do anything for her, even if it meant protecting her from me.

  I shook my head and took another drag of my smoke. The cherry-red bud lit up, and I knew if she was to glance out of her window, she’d see it and know I was there. I had a feeling she’d like me being here as much as I liked it.

  I could sense her gaze searching me out in the dark night, I could see her shadowed face, covered partly by her curtains. She’d only grace me with her eyes and part of her face, but that was all I needed to keep me coming back.

  In the darkness of the night, we could both pretend that there wasn’t a mountain between us. That we were just another two people in the world who liked to look at each other. Without the light we could be who we wanted to be.

  I dropped my smoke on the ground and dug the toe of my combat boot into it, twisting and turning but never taking my eyes off her window. I just needed one look, one signal that she was in there and safe from everyone—including me.

  The curtain twitched. The light went out. And I could breathe easy, at least for one more night.

  I slipped my hands into the pockets of my dark jeans and pushed off the wall. It’d only be a matter of time until she left for college, and until then, this was what I had to do. I didn’t want to think about what would happen after that, all that mattered was the here and now.

  And right now, I had a fight to win, both physical and mental.

  JACOB

  His fist connected with the side of my face, his knuckles digging into the bone, but it didn’t faze me.

  Three rounds. Four and a half minutes. My release.

  Here I could be who I wanted to be—who I really was. I could let out the darkness that resided inside me and unleash the anger that festered under the surface. No one knew who I was. No one knew my name. No one knew what kind the blood was that I spat out as I took another hit to the jaw.

  I was invisible, but not quite. Forty-three fights in three years and I hadn’t lost one of them. Tonight wouldn’t be any different. Sure, I’d let them get ahead in the first round, I’d allow them to get hits on me, to punish me for giving in to the temptation and staring into that window night after night. It wouldn’t make a difference though, because I’d unleash my hell on them. Just like I was going to do tonight.

  I hadn’t watched her for as long as I wanted to. I hadn’t been able to stare into her eyes from across the street and wonder what she was thinking, so I only gave him the first half of the first round.

  His bare knuckles met my eye and I stumbled. The fucker had a good swing. It wouldn’t matter though because it wasn’t enough to beat me.

  I shook my head and narrowed my eyes on him, the sound of the jeering crowd pulsating with each passing second. I recognized the look in his eyes, it was the same one I’d grown up seeing—want.

  Everyone wanted something, whether it was a brand-new car or the hot chick standing at the bar. Sometimes what we wanted we couldn’t have. Like my mom. What she wanted she shouldn’t have been able to have, but it didn’t stop her from taking it anyway. People were takers. They took every piece of you and left only little parts for you to salvage.

  I wouldn’t let anyone take anything from me. The price was too high, and I wasn’t willing to pay.

  I grinned, shuffled to the side, and swung my arm out. My fist connected with his temple and it took point two of a second for him to go down for the count. I didn’t need to stay in the bloodied-up ring and listen to the ref count him out because I already knew he wouldn’t be coming back up for a while. I let him have his fun for forty-five seconds, and that was my limit tonight.

  “Jesus, Jacob!” I ignored my coach, Wade—well, he wasn’t really my coach because he couldn’t teach me shit that I hadn’t already learned practically living on the streets, but I allowed him to stay around because he knew how to patch my knuckles up and the occasional split in my eye thanks to a scar I got when I was six years old. He also observed people and soaked in what they could do, which came in handy when he was watching the way I fought. He could point me in a direction and never steer me wrong. “You didn’t even give him a chance to fight back.”

  I grunted in response and pushed my way through the parting crowd. People knew better than to get in my way, little did they know that if I wasn’t in the ri
ng, I wasn’t throwing punches. It was a rule I made and a rule I lived by—mostly.

  The gym tonight’s fight was held in—also where I trained—had seen better days, the wooden floor scuffed and indented with years of weight being dropped onto it. The walls were covered in past fighters, people who had made it to the big time sat next to people who had been injured so bad in a fight that they’d never be the same again. It was both a warning and inspiration, mixed together in some murky hope that people would get out of the shit they were born into.

  Not me though. I just needed the pain. I needed the impact of flesh hitting flesh, the burst of energy, and the reminder of who I was and where I came from. It was easy to forget, but I couldn’t afford that luxury, not when it came to her.

  The hallway to the locker rooms was empty apart from the guard who stood outside the room I was using. He passed me my usual envelope, full of the money that would see me through to my next fight.

  “Denny wants to set up your next fight,” Wade said as I pushed into the room. I shucked off my shorts, grabbed my body wash, and headed right for the showers. “Says he has a new fighter coming into town,” Wade’s voice followed me.

  I clicked on the shower and let the water bask over me, wincing at the sting of my eye. He’d re-opened the cut again. Fuck.

  “That right?” I asked Wade, not really giving a shit. I’d fight whoever was available.

  “Yep, says he’s gonna pay you double too, this dude is some heavyweight guy, well known, and—”

  “Don’t give a fuck,” I ground out, lathering up some body wash. I dragged my palm over my chest, my defined muscles jerking from the movement. They weren’t there for show. I’d worked hard for the strength I had because I wouldn’t let anyone overpower me, not like when I was a kid. I was in control of my own destiny, and no one would stop me from achieving it.

  Wade’s murmurings got quieter as his footsteps echoed back into the main part of the room. I finished up my shower, got dressed, and let him apply some butterfly stitches to my cut, then I was out of there.

  A few hours’ sleep was all I would get until I had to be at my brother’s house for the birthday meal. A meal I both dreaded and looked forward too. Maybe that was why I gave the guy those forty-five seconds earlier, because I knew what would be coming?

  Chapter Two

  BETH

  “Bring the potato salad outside, Beth!”

  I swiped my arm over my forehead and inhaled a deep breath. Her voice grated on my last nerve, but there was nothing I could say about it, she was my stepmom after all. My real mom wouldn’t have ordered me to make all the food for my own birthday cookout. She’d have done it for me, and possibly even covered the place in balloons, and maybe even…

  I shook my head. There was no use thinking of the what-ifs, because this was reality—my reality. One where I was surrounded by people and yet felt utterly alone.

  “Come on! Guests are going to be here soon!”

  “Coming!” I scooped the potato salad into a bowl fit for “outside use” and walked through the kitchen. The white tiles were pristine thanks to the scrubbing that I gave them first thing this morning, and the countertops were sparkling even though I’d been up since six this morning preparing the feast we were about to eat.

  The sliding glass doors attached to the left of the kitchen led out into the backyard where Dad was manning the grill next to the table my stepmom was already sitting at, sipping on her gin and tonic.

  “Hurry!” she barked out, making me grit my teeth so I didn’t bark right back at her. She had it made in this house and didn’t lift a goddamn finger. Months. It was only months until I could leave.

  Today marked my eighteenth birthday, a day that should have been celebrated with friends I didn’t have or want, and my real mom, not some younger version who thought I was her slave.

  “Happy birthday, Beth,” Dad’s deep voice announced, and the hairs on the back on my neck stood up.

  I turned around and smiled up at him. It wasn’t that he was the tallest person—he was only six foot one—but compared to my five foot nothing, it felt like there was an entire world of height separating us. There was a time where my dad was everything to me, but the older I got, the more he pulled away. Even more so when Mom left him—us.

  “Thanks, Dad,” I whispered.

  His bulky arms came around me and he pulled me into his chest. The side of my face smushed into his pecs, and for a second, I felt like I was that eight-year-old girl celebrating her birthday with the two people who loved me most.

  “Can’t believe you’re legal now,” he murmured. Legal for what, I hadn’t gotten a clue. I could drive the family car legally two years ago and couldn’t drink for another three. He pulled back and cupped my shoulders with his palms. “You look more and more like your grandma every day.”

  My brows furrowed and I swallowed down the lump in my throat. I knew he was right. I’d seen pictures of his mom, old ones that weren’t even color, but they were enough to tell me that I looked like her. It was the way his pupils dilated as he stared at me that had me wanting to back away, but maybe it was because he could see so much of her in me? Maybe he missed her like I missed my mom?

  Knocking at the back gate had Dad’s dark-brown eyes widening, and he sniffled, crinkling up his straight nose as he did.

  “Beth, answer the gate,” my stepmom, Shell, said.

  I turned my head so I could face her and narrowed my eyes at the bleached-blond hair she’d pulled into a knot on the top of her head, showcasing her slender neck and the small tattoo that sat on the base of it.

  Dad’s fingers trailed off my shoulder as he let go and my attention whipped back to him. He shook his head and smiled at me, the kind of smile he’d been giving me since Mom left—placating—and then moved back over to the grill.

  “Beth,” Shell warned, and I shook my own head in return.

  I stepped away from the table and toward the gate, knowing who it was before I even opened it. I could sense him on the other side, waiting to come into a place he only entered a couple of times a year, but I looked forward to both of those times more than anything.

  I clicked the latch and swung the gate open, pulling my lips up into the biggest smile I could manage.

  Jacob. Uncle Jacob. Dad’s brother who had turned up for the first time five years ago. I’d always known that Dad had other family members, but never met any of them. Mom had said that they were the kind of family you didn’t want around, but she wouldn’t have felt that way if she had met Jacob.

  I never exchanged more than a few words with him, but he was the kind of person who didn’t need words to let you know how he felt. He didn’t impose his touch on me without me asking for it, he didn’t extend his arms for a hug, he didn’t even exchange pleasantries that normal people did. But it was what I loved most about my uncle Jacob. He was what I aspired to be.

  “Hey, Uncle Jacob.”

  His almost black eyes met mine, the white butterfly stitches covering the cut above his right eye causing a stark contrast. I didn’t look away from those eyes, eyes that told a thousand stories I was deaf to hear.

  “Baby girl,” he grunted out, his deep voice causing my bones to rattle.

  He stepped forward, the movement showcasing his muscles under his taut white T-shirt. I couldn’t stop my gaze from sliding down his arm, over the popping veins, and to his hand where his leather jacket hung loosely off his long fingers.

  “You gonna let me in?” he asked, and my attention snapped back to his face, and the almost-there smile surrounded in scruff. Scruff that showcased a scar on his cheek and jaw. I’d asked once how he got it, but he never told me.

  “I...yeah.” I cleared my throat and stepped back.

  His musky cologne flowed on the air as he moved past me, and I could do nothing but stare at him as he stepped closer to my dad and exchanged a few words with him. Uncle Jacob always gave off a carefree vibe, but today his shoulders were taut as he sat do
wn next to Shell.

  “Eighteen already!” I jumped out of my skin at the shrill voice from behind me, and spun around. “Sorry, love, didn’t mean to scare you.”

  I grinned at Laney, our neighbor from across the street. She’d been living on this street since before I could remember, and just because she had wrinkles upon wrinkles marring her face and had entered her late eighties early this year, didn’t mean she wasn’t a force to be reckoned with.

  “It’s okay.” I moved to the side so she could get past me and took a quick look through the gate I was holding open. I didn’t know why I did that because it wasn’t like anyone else was coming. I may have made enough food to feed twenty, but the reality was that there would only be five of us.

  I never let it get to me that I didn’t have any “real” friends. High school friends were overrated in the grand scheme of things. We’d all leave for colleges, starting new lives across the span of the country and probably never see each other again, so what was the point? There wasn’t one in my opinion.

  The sizzle of meat on the grill brought me out of my head and I closed the gate.

  “Can you believe our girl is eighteen already, Hal?” Laney asked as she sat on the chair at the head of the table.

  “Nope.” Dad shook his head, plated some chicken, and set it in the middle of the table. His eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at me. “Seems like only yesterday she was six years old and needing cuddles when she scraped her knees.

  I chuckled as I pulled my own chair out, opposite Uncle Jacob who was now staring at Dad like it was his job. His eyes were narrowed and his lips in a thin line, but I didn’t spend too long wondering why. Uncle Jacob was broody with a capital B.