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    Kept
    Kept
    Kept
    Ebook126 pages1 hour

    Kept

    By Erin Lee

    ()

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    About this ebook

    Kept

    An Erin Lee Thriller

    Inspired by a true story

    Bree’s destiny had always been kept.

    Like a dirty secret, it was nearly impossible to escape a certain dark fate. A victim of circumstance determined to survive, she only wanted someone to trust. But it wouldn’t come easy.

    First, it was the family life that forced her to run away from home at age fifteen.

    Next, it was her son’s father, Le, who pulled her from friends, locking her into a toxic web of abuse and drugs.

    Then came the addiction, which chained her to methadone clinics and seclusion.

    In spite of it all, Bree refused to allow anyone to put out her fire, which burned brightest in the love of her son, Noah.

    Just when she was beginning to turn things around and had repaired her relationships, came the final blow.

    Locked in isolation and desperate for someone to put her trust in, Bree began talking to a mysterious man over the Internet. Placing her trust in him was the biggest mistake of her life.

    Now, caught in his evil web, she must decide—once and for all—how to take control of her life.

    It starts with a can of gasoline and a simple spark. From there, comes the fire.

    In the end, she determines, it won’t be Bree who is kept by anyone ever again.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCrazy Ink
    Release dateFeb 22, 2018
    ISBN9781386375883
    Kept
    Author

    Erin Lee

    Erin Lee lives in Queensland, Australia and has been working with children for over 25 years. She has worked in both long day care and primary school settings and has a passion for inclusive education and helping all children find joy in learning. Erin has three children of her own and says they have helped contribute ideas and themes towards her quirky writing style. Her experience working in the classroom has motivated her to write books that bring joy to little readers, but also resource educators to help teach fundamental skills to children, such as being safe, respectful learners.

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      Book preview

      Kept - Erin Lee

      For my readers, who fuel my passions.

      &

      For Bree, who found hers in Noah and has been setting the world on fire ever since.

      Author note:

      While this book was inspired by a true story, many of the characters, timelines, and actual events have been changed to protect all involved.

      Do not read this as an autobiographical work. Instead, it is a fictionalized version of one survivor’s story.

      Kept

      Prologue

      P ermission to leave , Sir?

      It was a question I felt like I’d been asking my entire life. From the early days growing up in my family home where I didn’t exactly fit in, to the first apartment with Le, I always felt locked up, trapped, and unable to live with any resemblance of freewill.

      I was a doll. That’s what people said. I was porcelain skinned and too pretty to look at without suspicion. Girls at school assumed I was a bitch or was hanging around only to steal their boyfriends. Guys figured I was a slut. My mother believed I was useless and up to no good. And, I guess, you become what people say you are. I did, anyway. For a while.

      At fifteen, I ran away from home, hoping that by starting out again on my own, things would be different. Instead, they got worse. Years of abuse at Le’s hands and a drug addiction made any shot at being anything more than what my mother said I’d become almost seemed impossible. And then, things began to change. It was when I had my son, Noah, that I finally knew I had to get away.

      Le was locked up, making it easy for me to escape. But it didn’t mean I was free. Bouncing from one methadone clinic to another to keep my cravings under control, I did whatever I could to mostly keep off the radar. Eventually, I became a shut in. I locked myself in my home and stayed away from anything that might make me use again.

      Lonely, I turned to the Internet for friends and some sort of fun. It was the day I received a message from a man called Sir2001 that everything changed again. He called me doll and told me dolls were for keeping safe. He promised to love me and that he’d take care of my son and me. And I believed him.

      My name is Bree Dalglish. I am an addict. I am a mother. I am many other things too. But the only thing that counts, no matter what happens next, is that I am finally free... I am not a doll.

      I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me.

      ~Joshua Graham

      Kept

      Chapter One

      Thirty Years Ago

      Age Eight

      M a! Please, pay attention !

      I grip the handle to my left as my half-baked mother slides into the center and over the double yellow line of Glebe Point Road. I want to squeeze my eyes shut, but can’t. It’s midday in Sydney and we’re supposed to be on our way to the flea market at Darling Harbour. I didn’t want to go. I begged her not to, even. I knew full well she’d had one too many slow wake up, Bree shots this morning to be in any shape for driving. But my mother isn’t one you can exactly reason with. When she has her mind made up, the best I can do is follow.

      Oh, silly, I’m fine. Stop your worrying. You’re an old lady before your time, she barks, pulling hard on the wheel to pull us back into the left lane.

      I should have kept my mouth shut. Now, she’ll only be aggravated. She might even try to show off—to prove to me what a great driver she is. It occurs to me to remind her about her suspended driver’s license and that she’s on her second strike for a DUI. I say nothing. The last thing she needs is a reason to drink more.

      Today, at the market, she’ll barter with her eyelashes with greasy men who could care less about her need for a new mood ring. We’ll walk in with nothing and leave with beautiful things. My mother is in the habit of collecting those—her favorite being me.

      She’ll use me like bait, asking horny men if I look like her and if they’ve ever seen a little girl as precious as this. They will stare at me in ways I know aren’t right but don’t exactly get. I will mumble my name—Bree for the Irish saint, meaning strength and power. I’ll wish it was true, and that I could be anywhere but there. I sigh, too loud for my mother’s liking.

      What’s wrong with you anyway? We’re going to have fun today. Cheer up, buttercup, she says. Maybe your mates will be there. You can find someone to play with.

      Mates. That’s a joke too. I spend my afternoons after school making sure my mother is okay, hiding her nearly empty bottles, and praying she hasn’t brought the wrong bloke home while I was away. I’d never bring a friend to our house. No way. I have enough problems at school.

      The other girls hate me. They say I’m the teacher’s pet. I’ve tried to be friends with them. I can’t help it that school comes naturally, and I don’t have any trouble with reading and other things like they do. What they don’t get is I need to be smart. My brain is all I have. Without it, Mum and I would starve to death. It’s my brain and knowing how to pay the bills or make my voice seem older that gets us extensions on the electric bill. I’m the one who fixes things when Mum says no worries and doesn’t worry a second more.

      To the girls at school, I’m the blue-eyed, blonde-haired teacher’s pet that all the boys have a crush on. If they only knew the truth. I want nothing to do with boys. I’ve seen what men can do. They can destroy a family. But they are mostly all I have at school because the girls hate me.

      Yep. Maybe, I say, trying to calculate how much longer it will be before we reach the harbor. It’s technically winter in Sydney, but the weather is perfect today—a bright and happy 23C degrees. The market will be full of people from the city peddling things like wooden crafts, baked goods, vegetables and flimsy boomerangs for tourists. If I’m lucky, I’ll at least get to listen to the aboriginals playing their digeridoos. Something about the music that comes from those simple flutes soothes me.

      It’s Mum’s turn to sigh. She hits the gas, ignoring my crappy attempt at placating her. It is what it is, I suppose. I remind myself that we always manage to make it to the market without an accident no matter how much she’s had to drink. As much as she likes to say she has no luck at all, my mother is actually really fortunate. How she hasn’t been locked up by now for driving every day this way is beyond my eight-year-old imagination.

      Twenty minutes. It will be okay. We can do this. She’s got this. Just close your eyes and take a nap. It’ll turn out alright, I say to myself, wishing I could believe my own lies. Honestly, I can’t. I squeeze my eyes shut, anyway, figuring if we’re going to die, I’d rather not see it coming. We pass the turn off for Kings’ Cross, the seedy sex district where Mum once worked as a cocktail waitress. It could be worse.

      It takes less than twenty minutes to finally reach the market. I savor a rare moment of joy as Mum finally parks our tiny, beat up car in a lucky spot up front by the entrance.

      Ready, mate? she asks, smiling.

      My mother is beautiful. There’s no doubt about it. It’s easy to see what men see in her. The problem is that under her porcelain skin and symmetrical emerald eyes lies a deadness—sucked up by the bottle and whatever hurt her so deeply. I smile back, vowing that I will never turn into her.

      Yes! I say. This time, I mean it.

      I SIT QUIETLY OUTSIDE Dr. Parker’s office, wishing they would hurry up. I hate the sounds coming from

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