Charley's Innocence

Prologue

Mansfield, Ohio

2003

I was entirely baffled by what he had just told me, so I took a step back. I tripped, my butt colliding with the floor. “Damien. You don’t have to do this.” I pleaded.

I was crawling backwards, as he bounded forward, knife in hand.  I was about to scream, but my voice was already so quiet and thick from being terrified, that I couldn’t manage to get my voice to cooperate.

I was already just about naked with just a camisole and shorty shorts on. The rest of what I was wearing on this cold night was in a shredded pile somewhere in the warehouse. Damien was trying to kill me. That was all there was to it. I finally found someone to love and he turns around to be a crazy person. He just seemed so normal. I’m only sixteen; I didn’t know we turned to crazy this early!

“GET BACK HERE!!” He roared. I tried to get up. Bad idea.

I was pinned on the floor again in seconds, and I was sobbing. I was so scared. That was when I remembered that I had my cell, but we didn’t get service where we were at the moment. Shit!!, I thought.

At that moment, I felt the knife cut my skin. It sliced across my arms, multiple times. Then I felt something wet and realized too late that he was pouring gasoline on my thighs. I heard a match and I stiffened, not sure what my options were anymore.

The flames felt like someone had put a mixture of hot and cold together. And it stung. Oh, how it stung. Like a thousand bee stings, only in repetition every second.

I finally found my voice and screamed, bloody murder. So loud, I shattered glass. Shards went flying and I was hit on the side of the face with a piece. And I was on the verge of passing out, I had been for awhile but I fended off the dark edges of my vision, trying to stay alert so he couldn’t get the better of me.

Unfortunately, with the amount of pain I was in, it was becoming extremely hard to hold onto the last ounce of strength I had mustered up. He was getting the upper hand and he knew it. I couldn’t find the strength, or even the ability to move any part of my body. It all hurt too much. From what I could see of my fading vision, were white, yellow, blue, green, orange, and red flames all around me. I was encircled in flames. I was going to die.