WARNING!!! This chapter contains cursing, murder/suicide, and harming of a child.
This is a super sad chapter BUT it gets better--I promise.
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She hid under her bed, curled up in as tight of a ball as she could. Silently, she cried as she prayed that he wouldn’t find her. For her, this was a common occurrence as of late.
Every time her step dad came home drunk she hid. It didn’t use to be like that. He used to just go after her mother, Eve… but that all changed the day she started using heroine to escape from the abuse. Ever since that day James, her step dad, had started going after Sue Mae. It had gotten to the point that she was terrified he would force himself onto her.
Sue Mae didn’t know what to do when it all started. But then what seven years old would? It had been roughly three years, but for her it was like that first day all over again… She still lived in their small, rundown house on the outskirts of town that was barely still standing.
In what little time she had been alive she had never really been around nice and caring people. There was only one time she had been around truly good people, and that was only for two days when she was six years old. It had been the first and only time she had been allowed to spend the night at someone’s house. She’d gone to spend the weekend at a friend’s house. Since they went to church, she got to go along with them. It was there that Sue Mae learned about her Heavenly Father that would always love her, no matter what, and about Jesus who loved humans and his Father so much that he died so that the two could be together forever. From that moment on her heart belonged to Jesus... She believed that one day she'd have a father who would love her and cherish her, and more often than she would ever admit, her new belief was all that kept her alive. It was all that kept her from killing herself in hopes that just maybe her new found God would save her from her Hell on Earth.
Sue Mae worked very hard to keep her faith alive but the world kept coming at her and she didn’t have any support to help her. By the time she was ten, it was a miracle that she kept the little bit of faith that she had. It was that faith alone that gave her the will to live on. It was that long ago night in September that would forever change her world.
That night was her worst nightmare brought to life. Her mother’s dealer had come over. Like always, Sue Mae hid in her room and tried to pretend that she had the kind of family she always wished for.
After Eve had her hit, she allowed her dealer to have his way with her. That was always the hardest for Sue Mae to ignore—especially since it wasn’t always strictly consensual. But that night… that night was unlike any other.
Soon after Eve and her dealer started going at it the front door opened with a BANG. James came storming in. He had the look of death in his eye.
“You no good, whoring bitch!” James drunkenly accused.
“J-James! I-It’s not what it looks like!” Eve stuttered as she tried to fix her clothes.
“Yeah, it ain’t what it look like,” the dealer drawled with a smirk.
“You jack ass! I’m gonna kill you if it’s the last thing I do,” James promised as he lunged at the dealer.
All three started fighting and yelling at each other. Sue Mae heard it all and she was so afraid.
‘Please, God. Please keep me safe. Please help my parents. Please stop them from hurting me anymore!’ she prayed as she silently cried. ‘Please, please, please! I just want it to stop. Why can’t it stop?’
James broke away from the fighting and pulled out the gun he had tucked at the back of his waistband.
“Shut the fuck up!” he screamed as he pointed the gun at his wife and her lover.
“Come on, man. You really don’t wanna do this,” the dealer said with the promise of death in his eyes and the sneer of the cold blooded killer that he was.
“Shut up, bastard!”
“You dunno who you’re messin’ with!” the dealer ground out as he went to grab for his own gun.
“I said shut up!” James screamed as he waved around his gun. He pointed the gun right at the dealer and pulled the trigger. The bullet went through the dealer’s right eye and exited through the back of his head on the opposite side.
“Oh, my God! What have you done? James, how could you?” Eve shrieked as she ran to check on her dealer. “You dumb ass you killed him!”
“You bitch! You have no right yelling at me. It’s all your fault—you shouldn’t of been screwing the bastard!”
“Mellissa was right, I never should of married you. Because of you I have nothing! I could have been someone… But no! I had to marry your stupid ass and be stuck in this God forsaken dump with white trash.”
Eve slowly stood up with her dealer’s gun and pointed it at her husband.
“Put the gun down now!” James commanded.
“No! I will never be ordered around by you again.”
Sue Mae heard her parents and was terrified they’d hurt each other.
“Momma? Poppa?” Sue Mae cautiously asked as she stepped into the living room.
“I told you to go to your room and not come out, you ungrateful little bitch!” Eve yelled as she pointed her gun at her daughter. “I never should have had you. I should of gotten an abortion like my parents wanted!”
Eve pulled the trigger and watched as her daughter flew back into the wall from the impact of being shot.
“You bitch! She was my play toy. You’ve taken everything of mine—now you’ll pay with your pathetic life!” James screamed as she shot Eve three times; twice in the chest and once in the head.
When he heard the sirens getting closer he let out a string of curses.
“There’s no way I’m goin’ back to that hell hole,” James muttered right before he put the gun in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
The police arrived right as James took his life. They immediately rushed in after hearing the gun shot. Right away they checked for signs of life. All three adults were determined as DOAs. At first they didn’t see the small, unconscious Sue Mae struggling for each breath.
“Get an EMT over here now!” an officer yelled as he discovered Sue Mae.
Her pulse was faint but she was fighting for her life. The EMTs rushed over and checked her over before settling her on the stretcher and rushing her off to the ER.
“Please, God. Oh, please. Don’t let this little girl die. She’s been through so much… Please, spare her and use her to do Your will. In Jesus Christ’s name, Amen,” the EMTs prayed as they hastened her to the hospital.
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Her Weary Path to Eternal Life (ON HOLD <TEMPORARILY>)
Spiritüel"God loved the world so much that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him may not be lost, but have eternal life." ~John 3: 16 For Sue Mae knowing this truth was all that kept her going when nothing in her life was anything but...
