Rest in Peace Roz: The R.I.P. Series Book 1 Read online

  Rest in Peace Roz

  The R.I.P. Series

  Book 1

  Kris Johnston

  Rest in Peace Roz

  The R.I.P. Series Book 1

  Copyright © 2016 Kris Johnston

  Cover Design by B2B Book Covers

  All Rights Reserved

  ebook Edition

  ISBN-13: 978-1537209746

  ISBN-10: 1537209744

  No part of this eBook may be uploaded without the permission of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form other than that in which it is originally publicated.

  If you have received this eBook through a free pirated website, understand that you have accepted stolen property. Please respect the hard work of the author and purchase your copy legally.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Trademarked products not belonging to the author are mentioned in this book. The author acknowledges the trademark status of these products as belonging exclusively to the owners.

  Table Of Contents

  Dedication

  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

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Epilogue

  Sneak Peek, Book 2

  Acknowledgements

  Author Links

  Dedication

  For Hannah

  Because, for whatever reason, you still believe in your crazy mom.

  XO

  For Amie

  This book wouldn’t have happened without you!

  Life is but a dream for the dead.

  -My Chemical Romance-

  CHAPTER ONE

  The year I turned fifteen, three major events happened that would forever change the course of my life.

  Major Event Number One: My body changed in a big way. I’m not talking puberty- I'm talking puberty on steroids. Almost overnight, what once had been something resembling that of a ten year-old boy transformed into a curvy, full-breasted goddess.

  I had long since resigned myself to the fact that I would always be a lanky, awkward stick figure with no chest or curves, until one day I awoke to an entirely new shape. Boobs, boobs, and more boobs. With, of course, a heaping side of badonkadonk (sorry, I have a hard time saying things like... ass. Ugh. It's a curse and makes me even more awkward than usual, just ask the popular kids at my school, the ones who drop F-bombs like flies and think they sound cool).

  I was quite uncomfortable with the new changes as soon as they showed up (odd, considering I had prayed to God daily to let me look more like a woman and not a boy child, but sheesh, I never expected the Almighty to take it this far!), and had no idea why my new body happened to appear when it did. Nevertheless, my new shape was forever a part of me after that, so I learned to cope as best as I could.

  And by “cope,” I mean covering myself with shapeless flannels, sweatshirts, and hoodies, even in the middle of summer. Because I wasn't already awkward enough.

  Major Event Number Two happened as a direct result of my new, voluptuous figure: The murder of my mother. She was strangled by the hands of her boyfriend, Derek, just down the hall from me as I slept in my room one horrible night. They had always fought with each other throughout the years, to which my automatic response was grabbing the earbuds and turning up the volume.

  I've always wondered if she cried my name that night screaming for help, and I simply tuned her out with my playlist because it's what I always did.

  I didn't know it at the time, but Derek had been admiring the changes in my body for months. Although I don't exactly remember feeling creeped out by him (because, let’s face it, that would mean I had to care), I do remember thinking it odd that he would always be just outside the bathroom door when I was done with my shower. Or lurking in the doorway of my bedroom. Or standing silently behind me in the kitchen, waiting for me to turn and bump into him. But innocent, clueless, careless me had no idea of the sinister thoughts which consumed his mind, and why should I? He'd been a stepfather to me, the only male role model I'd ever known, even if he was a sorry excuse for one.

  Sure, he drank too much. Sure, he and my mother argued like cats and dogs. Sure, he had hit me a few times and smacked me around a bit, before I learned to keep my big mouth shut. But still, he was the closest thing to a father I had, and even if I hated him, I'd learned to live with him.

  Over the years, I came to the conclusion, thanks to Derek’s meaty fists, that silence truly was golden.

  He had moments (lots of them), which made me question what my mother could possibly see in someone like him. Someone who could treat your only living child like utter garbage while you remained amped on drugs and looked the other way. Someone who could take away your independence and self-esteem piece by piece, chipping at it consistently until all that was left of your former self was an empty, hollow shell. Yet she allowed it. She allowed the abuse that would eventually kill her. Allowed the devastation of her life, and mine. It used to torture me to no end to know that my mother was a person who cared even less for her child than she did for herself. Then, eventually, one day I quit the self-torture over it all, because if she taught me anything, it was that apathy was far better than caring to the point of pain.

  Apathy equaled survival.

  I withdrew from her completely. I quit caring about her neglect of me. I quit searching for that mother’s pride I’d hear of from other kids. I stopped doing things to make her notice me and realized it was better to go unnoticed by her than to beg for attention that never came.

  It's hard to care for someone who gave up a long time ago. And my mother, Jill, had. Looking back, I realize now that's why she ended up with Derek, and why she stayed with him despite the poison they were to each other. It's easier to not care than you might think, especially when your entire life was wrapped up in getting your next fix and you were in love with an abuser.

  I always thought she’d lost her desire to care after the death of my older sister, Angelina, when she was five years old. I was barely a year old when she fell down the stairs and died. I remember nothing of the girl who came into this messed-up family before me. My mother refused to display her photographs. She never allowed her name to be spoken. She never tolerated any sort of observance of her memory. It was as if Jill wished to erase the existence of my only sibling, and she succeeded. The only one who ever visited her grave was me, and the only way I even found out where she was buried was by Googling the obituaries from our local paper. My mother’s actions told me she didn’t give one iota about my sister or her death
.

  Not surprising, since she didn’t give one about me, either.

  The only time I ever saw my mother actually care about anything to do with me was when my body became more womanly than hers. Curves, breasts, thick, dark hair (thanks to my biological father’s Italian genes), pale skin and clear, blue eyes (thanks to hers), meant she no longer viewed me as a child. She viewed me as competition.

  It must have been difficult for her, watching me bloom into something she could never be. Her brassy, from-the-bottle-blonde no longer had the gleam and luster it once had. Her dark roots showed constantly and the ends hung in thin strings around her shoulders. Her skin was constantly covered in bruises, sores, track marks, cigarette burns, and other unattractive afflictions. Her eyes, once so blue and deep, were now in a constant state of glazed over, even when she was totally sober (which was never). Half of her teeth were missing or rotted, her mouth had cold sores, and her smile had an odd skeletal look about it. It was as if her body knew it didn't have much longer left, and was alerting the rest of us to prepare for her inevitable death.

  I hated her smile.

  When my body went through its outrageous change, she quit smiling. That, for me, was worth the curves.

  Her jealousy ate at her. I did everything possible to keep my new shape concealed. Short of binding myself, the only logical choice was to wear anything two sizes too big. Yet it mattered not. She saw what she wanted to see in me, regardless of how I presented myself to the world, and her.

  She knew Derek had been watching me around the house. She knew he had seen something in me, too. Something that a father figure, even an abusive one, should never see in the child he helped raise from toddlerhood. That one terrible night, she'd had too much to drink (or shot up too much of whatever it was she injected into her veins), and accused him of wanting me.

  Derek. An old, gross guy. Of wanting me.

  Barf.

  However, Jill had apparently hit the nail on the head because the next thing she knew, Derek was strangling her, forcing the weight of his body on hers as he struggled to silence her accusation. He got it. He silenced her forever that night.

  And once freed of the damning words and horrible accusations, he could do whatever he wanted.

  Which brings us to Major Event Number Three.

  CHAPTER TWO

  They fought like the animals they were. I heard them in their bedroom down the hall as I made my way from the drug-and-paraphernalia-littered kitchen with a bowl of microwave popcorn. Although I wouldn't admit it at the time, I know I heard my name somewhere in all the shouting.

  Memories of her screaming, “Don't lie to me!” and him raging, “Shut your mouth, whore!” stay with me to this day. It sounded worse than the norm, but being my mother's daughter meant I no longer cared. Just like her.

  Let them kill each other, I thought as I entered my bedroom. A part of me actually hoped they would, because then I'd be free from their toxicity.

  I opened my old, rusty laptop, threw on my earbuds, and raised the volume of my favorite playlist until I almost couldn't stand the throb in my eardrums. There was no way I wanted to hear any of it, no way I wanted to know what it was they were fighting about, no way I wanted to hear my name coated in their venom again.

  Eventually, I closed the laptop and let sleep claim me, removing the earbuds. Silence had finally come to the screwed up home that was mine, and I sighed that night- literally sighed- thinking I was going to enjoy the peacefulness of quiet for once. I was wrong.

  So terribly wrong.

  I had slept for an hour or two when something woke me up. I hadn't expected it to be Derek sitting on the floor just beside my bed, staring at me in the moonlight which streamed through my window. I also hadn't expected him to be crying quietly, or his hand playing with a strand of my dark hair as I lay there in ignorant slumber. I hadn't expected his hands to shake and tremble like they did, or the snot to drip from his nose. The manic look in his eyes when he realized I was awake, and watching the horror shroud his being, came as an unexpected surprise as well.

  I think I knew instantly in that moment. I think it was something my soul saw, without having to be told. However, what the soul sees, and what the brain comprehends, are two entirely different things. It was apparent in his behavior that something major was wrong, but as my soul begged to be heard, my brain detached itself and refused to acknowledge it. I shoved it aside, never allowing it to even form the thought within my head. I refused to comprehend what my soul already knew. And because of that, I was able to ask the question that I was certain would give me a fat lip.

  “What are you doing in my room?” I said calmly, amazed at how normal I sounded. I was stunned that I could sound so blasé, like Derek being a creeper in my room in the middle of the night, was something that happened all the time.

  His hand squeezed itself into a fist around around my hair. An automatic reaction, I'm sure, for when I questioned him about anything. It didn't really hurt, and I was surprised. If he wanted it to hurt, it would.

  His thin lips trembled and more tears fell. His hands pulled on my hair, forcing my head to move closer toward his. He brought me within inches of his face, his dark, soulless eyes looking deep into my wide ones.

  “I didn't mean to do it,” he whispered, and began sobbing.

  My heart rate quickened with his words. They confirmed what my soul had been trying to tell me, but I stubbornly refused to hear.

  “Okay, Derek,” I said, cringing at how shaky and small my voice sounded as I attempted to placate him. “I believe you.”

  He continued to sob, and pressed his forehead into mine. I froze at the contact, torn between the desire to experience such fatherly love (albeit, creepy), and wanting to pull away so I could deliver a killer head-butt.

  I did neither. My body seemed paralyzed.

  His hands came out of my hair, and he began to trace my face softly. The nicotine and chemical-laced digits moved gently, caressing my skin almost as if we were lovers.

  Indeed, my earlier assessment of receiving care from my father figure swiftly turned into horror when he whispered three little words accompanied by what I could only guess was some kind of whacko, forbidden desire.

  “You're so beautiful.”

  His hands moved lower, to my shoulders. Something inside me woke up as I realized that would not be their final destination.

  My breath hitched and I pulled away as my eyes searched the room frantically. I didn't know what I was looking for. I had no weapons. I had nothing within arm’s distance to defend myself. I didn't know what to do or how to get out of this, but I knew I was going to try.

  He caught the fear in my eyes. He leaned forward, inhaling it like the most sensuous of fragrances.

  “I've waited for this for a long time, Roz,” he said, his face filling with rapture as mine filled with horror.

  His big, meaty hands gripped my head and pulled me to him. He roughly shoved his dry, chapped lips against my own as I feebly pushed at his chest. His grip was relentless and I felt bile hit the back of my throat as his tongue swept across my tightly closed lips.

  “Open your mouth,” he whispered against me.

  I shook my head no, as much as I could with his hands holding it in firmly in place.

  My body trembled from head to toe in complete, utter fear. Derek was a jerk, but I’d no idea he was this bad. He was going to rape me here, in my own bed, with my mother down the hall, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Opening my mouth to scream meant allowing his putrid tongue entrance to my mouth, and there was no way that was happening. But I needed help, and I didn’t know any other way of getting it.

  Finally, he pulled back slightly, swinging his body up to cover my own. I used the opportunity.

  “Mom!” I screamed as loud as I could. “Mom! Help!”

  One of his hands connected with my cheek, hard, as he slapped me quiet before covering my mouth.

  “I told you,” he sai
d angrily. “I didn’t mean to do it. She can’t help you, Roz. She’ll never help you again.”

  The world fell away in that moment as I realized what he’d been saying. My mother was dead, lost to me forever.

  My soul whispered a quiet, I tried to tell you.

  Hot tears pricked the corners of my eyes as his other hand pulled at my hair once more, jerking my face up so I was forced to look at him.

  “Now here’s what’s going to happen, sweetheart,” he said, moving his hand so that it partially blocked my nose. I took in as much air as I could, but it was difficult. That, combined with the intense fear, made my breathing shallow and I was hit with a wave of dizziness.

  “I’m going to explore all these curves you’ve been hiding away from me, understand? Then I’m going to do all the things I’ve been wanting to do to you. And you’re going to be a good girl and let me.”

  My eyes burned as I sobbed into his hand, terrified. My arms reached out to the sides of the bed, searching desperately for my phone which I’d fallen asleep with. It wasn’t there.

  I suddenly wished we had neighbors close by, but part of being a junkie was making sure neighbors didn’t see the dealers coming to your house at all hours of the night. And my mother would've never let us live where neighbors would be an issue.

  Although I had always felt isolated in my small life, I never truly knew the meaning of the word until right now.

  He removed his hand from my face and I took in a much-needed breath. A tiny amount of clarity entered my brain and I knew I would fight this with everything I had. Even if it resulted in my death. He glared down at me as my tears continued, but I didn’t scream again. I did, however, beg and plead with him not to do this.

  He simply grunted at me and grabbed my wrists, trapping them above my head.

  “Please Derek, you’re like my father,” I tried to reason.

  He sneered at me, a vile, spittle-covered grin marking his face. “I like the way you beg me. Say please again.”