Just Let Go

PROLOGUE

Darcy - 3 years ago

"Please Foster, no more, I promise I'll do better" Between the heavy blows to my already bruised stomach and the gasps of air my lungs were craving, my words came out little more than a whisper, although I don't think my soul could muster anything but.
"Stop whining you little bitch, I told you how I wanted it, but yet again, you failed to listen. This is YOUR fault!" His venom spits in my face, his words dealing bruises to match the ones his fists were patterning my worn face with.
You know your life has taken a detour down shit pit lane when this becomes something of a norm..everytime I swear I cant do it anymore, that he's stolen and destroyed the last fragment of my soul and nature. Each time I would sit back and watch the shattered china that was my life disappear before my eyes, disposed of, crushed in the palms that were now sinking into their familiar imprints on every corner of my face. Each time he takes a little more of me leaving me with nothing to fight back with or claw onto. The haze swirling around my body lifted enough for his fumbling hands to reach under my safety blanket to begin clawing at the button on my jeans.
Threatening to shut every hole I possessed used to be a threat, then soon became a routine I would sometimes fight like an errant child. But as the energy slipped through my pores over the years, I gave in, I gave up.
"Please Foster, don't" my whisper didn't even register in his rage ridden face, it was probably a good thing, as my begging stopped working a long time ago, if he wanted it, he would take it, and it would hurt. So I closed my eyes and prayed it wouldn't last long or he would knock me unconscious first. My silent prayer for the latter looked like it was about to be answered as he drew his right fist back to sit next to his sickening grin. My eyes flickered between the two, I still didn't know which one I was most terrified of.

I wake to eyes that barely open. Straining what little sense I have down my nerves through to my fingertips I reach my aching hands up to assist my eyelids that have seemingly forgotten to work, as I do, every muscle in my abdomen screams with a resisting pain. What has he done? My arms fall limp back down to my sides, the pins and needle shooting up them seems to reach my head and I wonder if he actually killed me this time? Had my unspoken prayers after all these years been granted. Is this what it's like, it's peaceful and I often wondered if I'd be better here. The silence surrounds me, envelopes me. I want to chuckle, laugh at my demise, but I know I'm not really dead, I'm never dead. I'm never free from this prison that I choose to remain in. The faint sound of keys jingling in the background brought me back into the reality that I was in fact not dead but just beat to absolute shit. Footsteps to the right side of me brought his chillingly chipper voice, the same voice he had when he got what he wanted. His tone so cold and detached from this reality, from my reality, it breathes ice over my hot skin. Piercing and cutting the few areas he had so graciously left its normal peachy colour.
"Don't move Hun, I'm just off to the pharmacy, I will get you some pain killers and make this all go away, you know how I make it better, right?"
My barely audible grunt seemed to appease him as he runs a giant hand over my forehead and bending to plant a kiss where his palm just admired his handiwork. His huge presence heads back down the hallway as I hear him grab his car keys and whistle off out the front door. This is the point where I usually breathe through the pain. Push my way up and out of this ditch. Make myself presentable, well as presentable as someone can be with their face looking like it had been hit by a truck. But my breathing didn't come so easy this time, my panic started to swell. The deep gasps of air I was trying so hard to fill my deflated lungs and soul with were half hearted. I couldn't get all the air in I needed to get through this. My ribs wouldn't allow myself the necessity of air. I guess eventually your heart turns cold, the pain goes numb and you realise you're not the person you used to be. Was I really going to lie here and wait for him to come back, or to wait for my lungs and body to give up on me completely. My battered head was telling me to wake the fuck up, put my big girl panties on a get the ever loving fuck out of there, if only I could move, I would. But then up popped my insecure side, who was telling me to just stay there, maybe this was the last time? His touch had a certain warmth to it this time? Clutching, she was clutching at anything she could get her hands on, any lie that could be twisted into me thinking it was true. That bitch was always lying... So with everything I had and could muster, I rolled my broken body onto my front. The pain wasn't permanent, a motto I had to live by, so I kept going. With my arms having woken from their attack from the pins and needles I get them to reach out. Reach for anything that would give me leverage, give me help. My living room door, my sofa, my life. Obviously the last of those options wasn't going to offer me any physical help right now so I opted for the sofa. Through some screaming and grunting and a whole lotta 'fuck, shits and fuckityshits' I had somehow managed to pull myself up and stagger my way down to the end of the hallway and to the front door. My eyes had chosen to wake up and open another few millimetres, enough for me to take a quick look in the mirror that was hung so perfectly positioned by the door. Most people have a mirror in such a place to make sure there is no hair out of place before leaving for a days work, or to make sure their make up is perfect going on a date, not mine. Mine was still as crucial, although the only thing I ever used mine for was to check the bruises had gone down enough for me to leave the confines of the house. My eyelashes flutter open slowly and then almost as wide as possible as the horrific reflection returning my gaunt, haunted look is one I wouldn't recognise.
"What the fuck? My fucking face!!" The horror I was feeling couldn't show on the black and blue swollen mass that was seemingly my face. I now knew the reason my eyes wouldn't open, they were swollen and blue. My lip was split in two places causing the dried blood on my cut chin. But my face had nothing on what I was feeling inside, these bruises will go, they always did, but the shit stain he had left on my soul was permanent, I knew it was.
I had no time to wipe myself up, he wouldn't be long. Wouldn't do a blind bit of use anyway, there's no point polishing shit. So I wrenched the front door open and hobbled out onto the street without a single glance back. If I looked, I would cave and trample any hopes of getting out again. This is my one chance, I won't get another. Now where? I refuse to go to Caras in this state. My poor best friend would never forgive herself if she saw the extent of the abuse, she knew, but what could she do, how could she save me when I wasn't allowing myself to be saved?

"SHIT!!" Stumbling down road after road, doubled over in pain, my insides knew I was a waste of fucking space too, even they wanted out! Road after road, street after street, where the fuck was I going? It was 11.30 at night and I didn't haven't a clue where I was going, if Foster didn't find me and finish me off, lord knows someone else would. I didn't know this area, I wasn't allowed out. Foster moved me away from everything and everyone I loved except Cara, I couldn't shake that bitch, thank fucking god.
A few metres, a few miles perhaps, fuck knows, my legs were giving in and I could feel the spitting drops of rain. Even the sky pitied my shitty excuse for a life and was crying for me. I didn't cry anymore, what was the point?
Up ahead a little way I saw life, a bar It looked like? My barely recognisable eyes noted the sign saying "Woodstock Bar" ..what other choice did I have, the rows of gleaming motorcycles lined up out front showed the place must be packed. That insecure bitch in my mind decided to rear her ugly head and tell me that whole place had trouble written all over it and to steer clear, but I was done listening to her, she could go fuck herself for all I cared, if that didn't shut her up then the sharp stinging in my stomach and pounding in my head would have finished the job off.
I creaked the old wooden door open and around fifty heads all turned to look at their unwelcomed newcomer, but it was people, and people were all I needed right now.
With that, my mind started going fuzzy and my knees gave way to a cold hard concrete floor, the pain didn't register as my threshold was up done and broken on that front. My eyes should have won a medal for staying open for as long as they had, but they were done now, they needed rest. I could make out a few muffled words swirling around my crumpled body,
"Help", "Ambulance","Her fucking face man"... They sounded like words of people who would help, so I knew I could give in now. I could sleep. The last thing I hear and feel before my unconscious wins it's fight to draw me in is an older ladies Texan accent saying "it's okay now sweet, you sleep. You don't have to run no more" and a pair of arms lift me up and take me off to god knows where because at that point, it could have been a fucking dungeon, I just needed sleep.