Deliverance (The LockDown Series Book 1) Read online

  DELIVERANCE

  Copyright© 2016 Shannon Dobson

  Published by Shannon Dobson

  All Rights reserved. Author holds all rights to this work. Any copying, selling or sharing of the work without consent is illegal, legal action will be taken if these conditions are broken.

  Acknowledgements

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Excerpt from Baby Mine

  I would like to express my upmost gratitude to a fantastic group of ladies who assisted me with my book by beta reading for me, Dawn Vickers, Rhonda Hardy, Debbie Talbot and The Two Ordinary Girls.

  My thanks go to Debbie Talbot and Melissa Wilkinson for supporting me and entering my competitions and also for their names as characters throughout the LockDown series.

  Lastly I would like to thank my family and boyfriend for putting up with my crazy obsessive mind during this journey, you guys have been my rock and your encouragement and support means the world.

  This book is for my sister Sinéad. Thank you for just being you and supporting me in everything I have ever done. You encouraged me to write and get my book out there.

  This is for my boyfriend James. You have been a rock to me and even though I have been lost in the world of writing you have continued to love and support me throughout.

  Written for everyone who has ever supported me and loved my characters and lost themselves in the world of words.

  Thank you all.

  “In order to succeed,

  Your desire for success

  Should be greater than your fear of failure.”

  -Bill Cosby

  My name is Abbi, Abigail Adams.

  Well, that was my name until three years ago. Now I’m just the homeless girl who sits on the corners of the streets in London, day in, day out. I beg, plead continuously for someone to give me mercy. I am the girl with no name, the girl with the dirty dull blonde hair, the empty and dead blue eyes and holey age old clothes. I am the girl who is so thin that you can visibly see her bones through her papery thin skin, her veins blue and prominent against the bruised and beaten canvas that houses her barely surviving organs, especially her heart. The ‘crazy girl’ who the kids whisper to their parents about, who sits and prays out loud to the good Lord every day to be kind and end this misery for me, for just one psychopath to plunge a blade into me and end it all, to end this living nightmare.

  I sit here, on the dark, damp and frozen street. My fingers and toes are blue and numb, my skin frostbitten. The cardboard my backside is perched on is doing little to conceal the ice cold concrete floor from burning my flesh. I ask myself for the umpteenth time today, why do I continue to do this, why don’t I just go back? I’m sure they’d welcome me happily into their home, I’m sure they’d love me again. I’m sure they’d make me a girl with a name. That I would return to be a normal twenty one year old young woman with a family and a boyfriend.

  But they weren’t my real family were they, they were borrowed, and then they were taken from me, just as David was.

  My life, from as early as I could remember, had been a string of misfortunes, suffering and downright evil. I am sure you do not believe me. I am sure I am just the Jane Doe who is overreacting and trying to guilt trip you all into helping me, but right now, here today, is my chance to tell you. To make you see that I did not choose this life for myself. That this was my only option, my only way to escape the hell I was in, and I’m sure as you take the time to put yourself in my shoes and sympathise with my circumstances, you would understand me a little better, maybe even wonder how I’m still here, living and breathing, because I can assure you now, if it wasn’t for the reoccurring memory of a certain person pushing me through every unbearable day, I wouldn’t be here, I would be dead.

  Let’s begin at the start of my story, the earliest point I can remember, the point in my life when my ‘dear, loving, wonderful mother’ left this world. She overdosed on pain medication and then sliced her wrists open.

  I was all of four years old; a small, frightened, lonely and frail child. I needed my mother to nurture me and help me grow as a person. To have what every other child I had grown to envy, had. I hated her with a raw vengeance that manifested itself within me and ate away at every ounce of love I held for humanity. I wished I could see her one more time just to tell how much I loathed her cowardly ways for what she had left me with, who she left me with.

  Almost straight after she killed herself my father began to drink, a lot. He brought home women all the time, snorted cocaine and neglected his duties as a father; screw it he neglected his duties as a human, abusing the body he was gifted by God. By the age of seven, I was able to cook my own dinner, clean myself, wash my own laundry and clean up after him.

  He would sometimes become violent with the women he brought home. I would sit and hide away in my room, covering my ears just to block out the bellows of my father and the cries and pleadings of the women he was with. No child should ever have to witness its own flesh and blood the way I had to witness mine.

  I did not know him any different. As early as I could remember he was the dominant animal I knew today. I tried to force my memory back to a time when maybe the three of us had been a happy, ‘normal’ functioning family, but my memory failed me and flooded me with the vile images that still haunted my every thought to this day.

  More than once a week my father would remind me that it was my fault my mother had had depression. ‘If she hadn’t had you then she would never have died. You did this to her you bitch. You made her crazy.’ His constant verbal assaults at me replayed time and time again when I was in the comfort and safety of my bed every night. I would tell myself he was lying, that he didn’t mean the things he said, that I wasn’t the horrible monster who drove her own mother to take her own life. I couldn’t possibly have made my own mother hate me that fiercely that she couldn’t bear to be around me.

  My mother was diagnosed with PND (postnatal depression) after trying to kill herself once when I was three weeks old. My father worked far too much and was hardly home, so my mother was left to look after me and bring me up. The stress of a teething and colicky baby drove her crazy. She lasted up to my fourth birthday before my father found her in the bathtub, wrists bleeding and an empty bottle of her anti-depressants and pain killers lying on the floor next to her, and a litre bottle of vodka empty on the side of the tub.

  Since that moment, my father had detached himself from me, hardly acknowledging me; t
he only physical contact I would get from him would be when his fist or foot connected with my body.

  That was my life pretty much every day for the rest of my childhood. The moment in which that changed, I damn well prayed to any source of help, that he would return to just beating the living shit out of me on a daily basis. It was far easier than what I had to endure just after my thirteenth birthday had come and gone.

  Age thirteen, I awoke to blood on my sheets. I was absolutely petrified; I thought something was seriously wrong with me. I had screamed so loud it had brought my father in from his room, clearly hung over. I soon realised I had in fact got my first period. I was scared, horrified in fact, that I had messed my sheets, frightened at what my dad would say.

  When he entered my room and seen the mess, he pulled me by my arms and gotten into my face, bitterly and maliciously shouting at me, ‘You dirty little bitch, look at the mess you made on your bed. You can fucking clean that shit up I aint touching it.’

  I hadn’t been taught about periods. I didn’t have any relationship with my dad, unless being his guardian and carer counted. I didn’t listen to what they had to say in sex education at school because I was too bothered about what going home entailed to want to learn.

  After receiving a slap across the face and a tanned arse for getting my sheets dirty, I soaked them in warm, soapy water and left them. I then proceeded to sneak out of the house and run to the shop with no money. I had to risk stealing some sanitary towels just to prevent anymore unwanted accidents.

  A week later I had finished my first ever period, it was horrible. I found it hard to learn the right way to stick the damn things into my knickers. My stomach ached like a bitch and I couldn’t stop crying. But instead of being like any other father and making me a hot water bottle and hot chocolate, telling me everything was going to be fine and it was just a ‘normal’ part of growing up, my ‘father’ had seen this new change within my body as a sign that I was now a woman and as my father always had, decided to take what the hell he liked from me.

  It was Friday 18th November the first time it happened. The first time I wish I’d never woken up the next morning. The day that I realised the animal I had known since birth, the man who had battered and bruised my body, was just a puppy in comparison to the demon beast that had released himself that night, and nearly every night following.

  I heard the creak of my door, the wood, old and ancient, moving on its rusty hinges. I heard the heavy footsteps and deep breathing of somebody close. The shadow covering my body and then the warm, whiskey breath on my neck, the large hands squeezing at me, ripping at my clothes.

  That was the night my father had taken his own daughters virginity.

  I couldn’t remember past the tearing inside of me, the excruciating pain it had caused me, because I had blanked it all out. After the initial struggle of trying to fight him off of me, I had exhausted myself. So I closed my tired eyes and dreamt of a world in which I was safe. A world in which my father was no longer here, a world in which a knight in shining armour would ride up on his perfectly white horse and whisk me away to some perfect little island where white sands and crystal blue seas encompassed me away from the world.

  I awoke in the morning very raw and tender. My sheets had once again been soiled with my blood. The only remnants of my virginal innocence left.

  I had felt dirty, disgusted in the way my body had been used. I had scrubbed vigorously at my skin, trying my damnedest to wash away the scent and feel of him upon me. I couldn’t endure even the slight chance a molecule of his being on my flesh.

  I begged the floor to open up and swallow me whole; there was no way I could go through that again without wanting to be non-existent in this world. I wanted to take my mother’s way out. The cowards way, because I wasn’t prepared to live a life of this kind of abuse.

  Let’s move on shall we; age fourteen, my father was away at ‘work’ for the evening, so I had my best friend stay over. Sorry correction, my ONLY friend. For some reason no-one had ever questioned why I was constantly at home alone, why nobody ever picked me up from school or attended my parent-teacher meetings, why I did everything without parental supervision, but I was glad he wasn’t there; we were safer alone, I would be safer.

  How wrong could I have actually been?

  Lying in bed sleeping with Melissa, top and tailing in the bed as all girls did at sleepovers, I heard the door creak open. I had become accustomed to the sound on a weekly, sometimes nightly basis; my father entering my room, the bright light from the hallway filtering in, casting a shadow of the beast.

  My bed dipped and my covers were pulled off. His hand clamped down hard onto my tiny mouth, my nightdress and knickers ripped from my still body. I learnt not to struggle, it only made it worse. I learnt to lie there and just take what he would give, because then he would leave. Before I could even count to five, his adult body had pushed me into the mattress as he forced himself into me. I winced at the excruciating pain, the searing hot agonising pinch causing me to jolt.

  Melissa was sound asleep next to me, not one movement from her. She had her feet by my head.

  I stayed calm and quiet the entire time, hoping he would leave before she woke up. I prayed to God that this would be quick for me and that Melissa didn’t open her eyes.

  Once again, I could not have been more wrong. If there was a God out there, why was he letting this happen? Why had he let it happen so many times?

  Before he finished in me, Melissa had woken up, the repeated movements on the bed obviously disturbing her. She had sat her even tinier frame up and glanced towards the full-grown man atop me, thrusting inside me. I wouldn’t let her see the silent tears as they left my aching eyes, to seem pleading for help.

  “Abbi, what’s going on? Why is your dad in bed?” Her innocent little voice sounded in my room above the grunts and groans of my dad. His head quickly snapped her way, a cruel smile lacing his lips.

  Fuck! Surely, he would not.

  “It’s okay Melissa, just go back to sleep. He’s just saying goodnight.” I lied to her, trying to reassure her and get her settled again. I couldn’t let her be destroyed by him as well.

  She clearly wasn’t as stupid and naive as she had been making out, because she jumped from the bed and began trying to pull my father from my numb and still body.

  “GET OFF OF HER. YOU’RE HURTING HER YOU HORRIBLE MAN!” she screamed at my dad, clearly panicking. Her voice saying exactly what her brain was thinking.

  My father had climbed off me, tossing me from the bed to the floor in a crumpled pile, agonising pain rippling my back and arm.

  “Stupid fucking bitch. This is your fault Abbi. She can blame you for this.” I heard him say through my foggy senses.

  Through my blurry vision, I saw him stride towards a shaking Melissa, grabbing her around her throat and pushing her onto the bed.

  Oh Jesus no, please God do something. I tried to get myself up to help her. I needed to stop him, she didn’t deserve this. I did. I deserved everything I got, for the love of God I did, I killed my mother, but Melissa, she was innocent in all of this.

  My arms wouldn’t allow me to move, the pain too bad; my body was in shock, unable to prevent this awful thing from happening before my eyes. She was innocent and he was going to destroy that entirely. This was my fault, I brought her here, I brought her somewhere I knew my dad could come back to.

  He ripped at her knickers, her tiny body kicking and punching out. “Stop moving you little bitch or it will hurt more. Now open those legs and let me in.” The sick son of a bitch rammed into her virgin vagina full pelt, a scream so loud and piercing I still remember hearing it now. When I close my eyes, I see her eyes pleading me to help. I hear her cries and torturous screams, and I see the tears streaming her face. Then I remember her eyes rolling back and her body becoming limp, her unconscious frame lying still on the sheets as my father continued to molest her.

  “GET OFF
HER!” I scream at my father, smacking, punching and kicking him everywhere I can. “JUST TAKE ME, LEAVE HER ALONE!” I try to bargain with the crazy man, anything to stop him hurting Melissa, my fourteen year old body relentlessly attacking him. My arm and back ached from the impact of the floor but it didn’t stop me as I attacked him with everything I possessed.

  “I want her, your cunt’s used. Now shut the fuck up while I fuck your friend here. Look she loves it. She’s passed out in ecstasy. Look in those eyes, she wants me.” He thrusts into her repeatedly.

  I pick the first thing I can and smack him with it hard, hoping my effort wouldn’t be lost and he would get off her.

  I hear a growl as my father turns his head to me, still pounding ruthlessly at Melissa’s still body. My innocent and only friend.

  I see him tense and hear his grunts as he finishes with her. He climbs from her body and across the room to me. I was trembling and frightened beyond belief as his fist connected with my face. I had no time to acknowledge the blow coming towards me. “YOU STUPID FUCKING WHORE. THIS IS YOUR FAULT!” he bellowed at me and then I felt myself falling, the darkness surrounding me.

  Waking up early the next morning, I turned to see my trembling friend, her body vigorously shaking as cries erupted from her mouth at her acknowledgment and memory of what she had endured at the hands of him.

  I got up as quickly as my aching body would allow. A horrendous pain in my stomach; a clear indication my father had kicked me when he walked out.

  I get to Melissa’s side and cradle her in my little arms, her naked body floppy and motionless, the only noise coming from her were her now faint sobs. “I’m so sorry Mel, I’m so sorry.” All I could do at that point was cry, sob with her for her lost innocence, and cry at the brutality of what my father had done.

  Enough was enough, I decided then and there. It was one thing to do it to me, but to do it to my friend... I could understand his hatred of me after my mother’s suicide but Melissa had done nothing other than try to protect me.