Chapter 1 A savior

Jojo:

I was closing from my last job for the day and directly returned home.

The moment I stepped my right foot into the house, my aunt, the devil herself, waited in the center of her small living room. She was standing amongst her dead pieces of furniture, arms folded across her chest and eyes laced with disgust, fixed on me.

On reflex, I held on to the hem of my shirt.

I anxiously stood by the door, stiff as a board, waiting for her to speak.

"So you're finally back. Where's the money you earned today?" my aunt spat impatiently.

I swallowed. Despite my reluctance, I slowly reached into my pocket and took out the money I had worked hard for today.

In the blink of an eye, she snatched the money from my hand and counted it in front of me. Soon, she wrinkled her nose in disdain. "Is that all? You're not keeping anything from me, are you?"

Eyes wide with panic, I shook my head adamantly. "I wouldn't do that! That's really all I earned."

Aunt grunted coldly and stuffed the money into her pocket casually, grumbling, "You'd better not be lying to me. If I find out you've been squirreling money away, I'll be sure to teach you a lesson."

Thinking the worst was over, I cleared my throat and said cautiously, "Auntie, if there's nothing else, I'm heading to my room."

"Wait!" Aunt snapped, sending a chill down my spine.

I stopped abruptly in my tracks and turned to look at her.

She stared daggers at me, the malice in her eyes unmasked and unabashed. What did she want to say? Was something wrong? Did I anger her somehow? Why was she looking at me like that?

As I was racking my brains, trying to remember what I had done today, Aunt started to speak unhurriedly. "I got another bill from the hospital today."

My heart leaped to my throat.

My mother had been in the hospital for a long time now, and the hospital sent us a bill every month.

"But I don't want to pay for it any more," Aunt continued, sitting on the couch leisurely.

The news struck me like lightning. I fell to my knees and scrambled to her feet, begging profusely, "Please, Auntie! You have to keep paying my mother's medical bills. Please..."

But Aunt simply shook her head. Ignoring my pleas, she rolled her eyes and said, "I took you and your sister in years ago. I've done my part. If your idiot of a father hadn't beaten your mother until she got a brain hemorrhage, I wouldn't have been tied down by your damned family all these years!"

She paused for a while as if giving me time to let her words sink in. Then she urged, "So what do you want? Keep the vegetable alive or let the oxygen be removed, so we could have lesser bills to pay, or take up the bills yourself from now on because either way, I'm done wasting my money on her."

I stared at my aunt through a mist of tears and paused.

Mixed feelings surged in my heart. I wasn't ready to go through the agony and shock people who lost their families went through. I wasn't ready to lose my mother just yet.

In the end, I made up my mind. With tears in my eyes, I vowed, "I'll take up the bills, Auntie."

Aunt didn't say anything else. She simply went back to her room and slammed the door behind her.

I sat slumped on the floor for I didn't know how long.

When I was eleven years old, my life took a different turn when my dad cheated and beat my mother and I. He regretted being expelled from the pack for her and blamed her for everything.

When I tried to stop dad from slapping mother, he threw me directly at the boiler across the room. It flipped and rained the boiling content in it on my left palm, scalding there. It left an ugly red mark on my left palm, scarring me for life.

My mother was diagnosed with brain hemorrhage after that, an illness that rendered her invalid until date. My sister Valerie never experienced motherly care because of it.

It had been eight years since my sister Valerie and I were taken in by my Aunt Elowen.

At nineteen, I had worked so many part time jobs, it should have been illegal. Even with how hard I worked, aunt always found a way to take it all, insisting that I had to pay for the roof over my head. My mother stayed at the hospital receiving little or no treatment, just surviving. But now, she might lose her only chance to live. I couldn't just stand by and watch her life slip away!

I wiped the tears on my face with the back of my hand and forced myself to cheer up. I didn't have the time for self-pity. What I needed now was money-a lot of money. I stood up and although I had just gotten here, I left the house for my night shift.

When I was walking down the familiar path, I felt that someone was following me.

I turned around vigilantly. I couldn't help but spit out curses as soon as I recognized the man. The last person I wanted to see in the universe, Mykel, my cousin, stood in front of me. A lascivious smile tugged at the corners of his lips.

Over the past eight years, I had not only been maltreated by my aunt, but also sexually harassed by her two disgusting sons, Mykel and Lev.

I felt my skin crawl. I didn't feel good about this, any of it. He moved closer to me, my back was against the counter already.

"I know what's about to happen to your mom, Jojo. I came to make a deal with you. Let me have you this night, let me be the one to break that innocence. Then I'll pay off your mother's medical bills." He moved closer until he was face to face with me. I stopped breathing for a while. I could hear the rapid beating of my heart.

"No one would do it better, if not me. I would unwrap you like precious candy. It's always painful for the first time but I'll soothe your pain. I'll make your first time worth it. How much do you like my offer? Because I like it very much." He was whispering into my ear now and my body shook with both fear and disgust.

Before I knew it, he attacked me with one swift move and I fell to my knees in front of him immediately.

"Please Mykel, you don't want to do this." I hoped he would listen, even though I knew he never did.

"Suck me off Jojo, and I'll do what I promise. Fuck! You look damn good on your knees." He spat out.

In one swift move, he gripped me by my neck and pulled me closer to himself. He spun me around and pinned by back against his chest, while holding both my hands captive at my back, with his one hand. Bile rose up in my stomach, out of anger and spite, but I swallowed it back.

His dirty free hand rummaged through my body. The bastard squeezed my right breast hard. I closed my eyes and shuddered, fighting to shake off and wriggle free of his hold but failed.

The next thing I knew, I had my back against the ground and he was on top of me. I screamed with agonizing pain, I felt the skin at the back of my head split open.

"Bloody bitch!" He yelled. Saliva dropped from his mouth and landed on my face. I tilted my face to the right, before his palm came crashing down, hard against my right cheek.

He clasped his right hand around my throat and tore the upper part of my dress open with little or no effort.

"Mykel, stop!" I trued to punch him hard with my fists, but it did nothing, except excite him.

"Stop!"

"Damn Jo! You know I love it when you get feisty."

My screams and cries became inaudible, even to me. His laughter began to grow distant and his image slowly blurred away from my vision.

I was going to close my eyes and resign to fate, give it all up for once, when I felt a huge weight being lifted off my body. I tried to raise my head up, just to get a closer look.

Mykel was being flung towards the wall.

I narrowed my eyes, even as the sky began to spin in my head.

Was that...?

The man drove the first punch into Mykel's face.

A saviour?

Then the darkness came.