Expected Release Date: March 17, 2014
Genre: Dark Romance
**AUTHOR NOTE - This is NOT a BDSM Romance**
We're thirteen girls, captive, slave to our master. A
master we've never seen.
Obedience will become all we know in our
shallow existence. It is the only emotion we're permitted to feel. When we're bad, we're punished. When we're good,
we're rewarded.
Our scars run deep. Yet we survive, because
we have to...
because HE teaches us to.
All
of us are special, we feel it with everything we are.
He has us
for a reason, but it's a reason we don't know.
We've never seen his
face, but we know that something deeply broken lies beneath the darkness. With
every touch, with every punishment, we know it.
Then
something changed.
He showed me who he truly is.
Now
I want him.
I'll go against everything I know to be with him.
A monster.
My monster.
Loving him is a sin, but a sinner I am. I won't stop
until I see every part of him. Even the parts he keeps locked deep down
inside.
I am Number Thirteen, and this is my story. No one
said it was pretty, or right, but it's mine.
PROLOGUE
My boots crunch in the yellow autumn leaves as I walk
towards the schoolyard. I didn’t want to come today, but Momma told me I had no
choice. She said school is for smart kids, and if I don’t go, then how am I ever
going to get smart? I could get smart, the man on the television tells me
everything I need to know. But she claims that I can’t make friends with the
man on the television, that the only way to make friends is to go to school. I
could have told her that I don’t need friends to be successful, but she’d only
tell me I’m being silly.
So I came to school.
I didn’t tell her that there are bullies here, or that
every day they push me around and shove me into lockers. That would make me
sound weak, and now that my dad is working, and my brother is away because he
didn’t like the school here, I’ve had to become the man of the house. There’s
no room for weakness.
Momma tells me bullies pick on the kids who are victims.
I think she’s wrong. I’m not a victim; I’m just a kid. They pick on me because
I’m different. I don’t look at the girls like they do; I don’t try to sneak out
to parties. I’m only thirteen. I’m just there to learn, then I go home and I
take care of my family, because, I’m the man of the house.
Like I said.
The shrill sound of the school bell ringing, tells me I’m
late. I pick up into a jog, rounding the corner and into the schoolyard. It’s a
cool winter day, and I have to pinch my coat together to stop it from flapping
in the icy breeze. I can see the students piling in the front doors, and I turn
my jog into a run. I’m focusing so heavily on the doors, that I don’t see them.
A strong hand lashes out, catching hold of my sleeve and tugging me into the
alleyway that runs down beside my school.
I always knew this alley was dangerous.
My body is slammed against a hard wooden fence, and I set
eyes on my bullies. Four of them. They’re all bigger than me, all of them on
the football team. They’re from a few grades up, and they’ve just turned
sixteen. The leader of the group, Marcel, steps forward first. He scrunches his
nose in disgust, as if I’ve just dragged myself out of a gutter, as if I’m
offending him. He leans in close, and I can smell cigarettes on his breath.
Smoking is not cool.
“You’ve been trying to avoid me, Will. Did you really
think you could hide at home with Mommy, and never have to come out again?”
I stare at him, wondering why he chose me to pick on. I
didn’t even know his name until he flagged me down and shoved my head down a
toilet six months ago. I was just a kid, keeping my head down, studying and
learning like I should. Now here I am, pressed against a fence, wondering why
they decided I was good enough to take extra special effort to attack. I don’t
bother answering him; it’ll only make him worse. My answers won’t make a
difference. If I answer, I’m wrong. If I don’t answer, I’m wrong.
“Are you fucking mute, you little cunt?”
My body jerks. I hate that word, it’s so…vulgar. I let my
eyes move to the four other guys standing like protective pack animals around
Marcel. I don’t know their names; they’re not significant enough. The tall boy
with orange hair looks nervous, like he knows what’s about to happen could put
him in a world of trouble - but he’s still here, still making the choice to
stay. The other two guys are stony faced, and fully aware of their part in this
attack.
I still don’t answer him. If I just let them beat me,
it’ll go away quicker.
“You’re a freak, Will, do you know that?” Marcel hisses,
leaning in closer.
Of course I know that. I wouldn’t be pinned against a
fence if I didn’t know that.
Bullies are so dumb.
Marcel raises his fist, and brings it down over my face,
cracking my nose so hard blood spurts onto his shirt. I don’t cry out, because
that’s what he wants, but the pain radiating through my head is nearly enough
to make me beg. Nearly. Marcel takes hold of my shirt, and his grey eyes scan
my face. He’s panting, as though I’ve shoved him into an alley and challenged
him. Like this is my fault. The world is twisted like that, and it’s a lesson
I’ve learned the hard way.
“You know,” he growls, locking eyes with me. “I heard my
girl saying how handsome you were the other day. Do you know how much it sucks
to have my girl saying that a freak is handsome? Especially a freak that’s only
what? Thirteen years old? Your dick would be no bigger than a tube of damned
lipstick, yet she thinks you’re handsome!”
I wouldn’t know how much it sucks to have a girl say
that, because I don’t have a girl.
Again, bullies are dumb.
“Don’t answer me, you little twerp. It doesn’t matter. I
will make sure by the time you leave this alley; you’re not handsome anymore. I
won’t have my competition being some little weasel that can’t even speak.”
I taste blood filling my mouth, and my nose is pounding
so heavily I’m almost sure I can hear my own heart in my head. I don’t take my
eyes from Marcel. They say look danger right in the eye; it gives you power and
strength. I don’t feel powerful right now, in fact, I don’t really feel
anything. Someone like me doesn’t fight, I’m the underdog, and underdogs are
weak. Everyone knows it.
Marcel reaches into his back pocket, and pulls out a
pocket knife. The heart that feels like it’s in my head begins thumping even
harder. I try not to show fear, I try to stand tall and take what he dishes out
with strength, but that’s not so easy when your attacker is waving around a
pocket knife.
“She said it was your eyes,” he begins, lazily tracing
circles on his palm with the blade. “She said they’re the most stunning eyes
she’s ever seen. Like the ocean.”
I didn’t know my eyes were like the ocean.
He takes hold of my shirt, yanking me close. “No one is
more appealing to my girl, than me.”
They say bad things happen in slow motion, they’re right.
I feel Marcel throw me down onto the floor. I feel every movement as my body
slammed into the dirt. I feel his body weight coming over me, his knees pinning
me down as I squirm. I feel his friend take my arms, pulling them above my
head, while another puts a hand over my mouth. With my nose pouring with blood,
that makes it difficult to breathe.
I feel the knife ripping into my skin as I thrash my head
from side to side, and I can feel the blood pouring down the sides of my face.
Each time he attempts to stab me, I move and the knife only slices through the
skin around my eye. My pained wails fill the alley, but no one comes to help
me. No one is around in the one moment of my life that I need them.
I know what I’ll remember most about that day, and that
is the moment he finally manages to drive the knife into my eye.
I don’t feel pain, not right away. Instead I hear the
popping sound, as his blade pierces right through. Then I feel pressure as he
twists. It’s only when he yanks it out of its socket, that I start to scream.
Then the pain is unlike anything I’ve ever felt. Words cannot begin to explain
the horror I feel as darkness begins to invade my body. I know my face is
covered in blood, because it drips down to soak my hair. I know I bite his
friends hand so hard I nearly take off his finger.
I don’t know what they’re saying, or even acknowledge the
moment when they run away. All I know was that I am bleeding to death in an
alley, missing an eye. Red fills my vision as the blood begins to cover every
part of my face. I know I’m still screaming, even though I can’t hear it. All I
can hear is an excessive ringing in my ears. I can’t even move my hands to
cover my eye, in an attempt to protect the empty socket. I can do nothing but
lay and scream, witnessing a pain that I’ll never witness again in my life, and
wondering what I did to deserve it.
No one deserves to die.
But I do die that day.
And in my place, a monster is born.
About the Author
Bella Jewel is an Aussie girl through and through. She
spent her life in Western Australia, growing up in many different areas of the
state. She now currently lives in Perth with her husband, children and mass
amounts of pets. She's crazy, fun, outgoing and friendly. Writing is her
passion, she started at the young age of 18 but finally got the courage up to
publish, and her first novel Hell's Knights was released in August 2013.
