Parallel (Travelers Series Book 1)

by Claudia Lefeve

Sugar Skull Books

Copyright © 2011 by Claudia Lefeve

Excerpt Glimpse Copyright © 2011 by Stacey Wallace Benefiel

All Rights Reserved

Cover art by Robin Ludwig Design Inc.

eBook formatting by Dellaster Design

PARALLEL is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, and events are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

To my high school physics teacher, Juan Ybarra (aka Dad), who always said science and math weren’t my thing.

“listen: there’s a hell of a good universe next door; let’s go”

e.e. cummings

L
ike any orphan, I wished that someday my real family would come for me. Only, I knew my parents were dead. They died in a plane crash when I was five. But in my dreams, I always imagined my rescue from foster care, I’d learn I was really a princess, and we’d live happily ever after.

Like most daydreams, they’d quickly dissipate and I’d jump back to reality, remembering who and where I was—an orphan stuck with Lester and Patsy Johnson—along with six other foster kids.

If you asked around town, most folks would consider seven abandoned kids lucky to be under the care of the Johnson’s. There weren’t many couples who were willing to open their home to care for our sorry lot. What they didn’t know was that we kept the Johnson’s finances afloat. To them, being foster parents was easier than applying for food stamps.

But as self-righteous as the other families around town were, nestled in their idealistic homes and raising perfect children of their own, they were blind to what was really going on behind the Johnson’s closed doors. The attention they lavished on their wards wasn’t exactly the type the foster care system approved of, nor the good citizens of Alexandria—had their gaze extended beyond their casual observance around town.

Lester was a sadist. To fulfill his penchant for violence, he exploited the revolving turnover of foster kids to satisfy his warped need to inflict pain. His wife Patsy was no better. She was just that—a patsy. She merely took care of the house and turned a blind eye when it came to Lester’s extracurricular activities. She was all too happy to play Betty Crocker, as long as Lester had his attention focused on anyone other than herself.

“Emily! Get down here!” We heard him call from downstairs.

I watched Emily’s face crumple as Lester called her down to the basement. That’s where he always took us. She was only seven years old and was no match for Lester, even on his bad days. He always came up with some house infraction—like the time he claimed I didn’t take out the trash—and used that as an excuse to beat us until he was satisfied.

“It’ll be okay Emily.” I looked at her sad brown eyes. “I’ll walk down with you.” What I really wanted to do was take Emily and run.

“Etta, I didn’t do anything, I swear,” she said in a whimper.

My heart went out to her. How do you explain to a seven year old that men like Lester didn’t need an excuse?

“I know you didn’t, honey,” I said, unsure of what to do next. Ignoring Lester just made things go from bad to worse. I had taken up residence in the Johnson home only two weeks ago—I was what social services dubbed a ‘repeat customer’—but it didn’t take long to realize that Lester preferred the younger kids who couldn’t fight back. I only had the pleasure of dealing with Lester a couple of times, but I knew that the longer you took to respond the worse off you’d be.

Inside, my body seethed with rage. How could the social workers turn a blind eye to what was going on? Didn’t they notice the bruises and broken spirits when they were thrown back into their custody? Having played the system for years, Lester knew exactly what he was doing and took great care not to send the children back with tell-tale marks, but sometimes it was unavoidable. And yes, when Lester tired of a particular child and the foster kid got a bit older, he’d thrust them right back to the disgruntled, underpaid, and overworked social workers.

So the faster I got Emily to the main floor, the better off her punishment—if you could call it that—would be.

I reluctantly hustled her down the stairs and there stood Lester, standing at the foot of the stairs waiting for her. If I’d had the guts, I would have kept on right past him—out the front door.

“Well, well. What do we have here, huh? Looks like someone’s meddling in other people’s business again.” Lester was not only nasty on the inside, but on the outside as well. His beer belly did nothing to help his already oafish build. Every time he managed to get close to me, I could smell his rotten breath mixed with a hint of Miller High Life and stale Pall Malls.

As we reached the foot of the stairs, he pulled Emily from my protective hold, forcing her to release my hand, and led her toward the side of the stairwell towards the basement door. It tore me up, watching Emily being dragged down the basement stairs, to the point where I felt numb. There was nothing I could do for her.

“You’re next girl,” he sneered back at me.

It was as if I were frozen, knowing what was about to happen, and being powerless to stop him. I couldn’t tear myself away from the open doorway, continuing to watch as Lester and Emily descended down the stairs, with his oil stained mechanic’s hand cupping Emily’s back, ushering her ahead of him.

That’s when I finally snapped.

“Let go of her,” I yelled at the top of my lungs.
Stop, stop, stop!

“What did you say girl?” Lester stopped mid-stair and released his hold on Emily. He walked back up the staircase and glared up at me with his beady little eyes. He really did look like an oversized troll. “What did you say?”

“I said, let her go you fat ogre.” I couldn’t control myself.

STOP, STOP, STOP!
This time the voice was in my head, getting louder, and louder.

“Why you little—” Lester started to say. He tried to reach for me and then, just as quickly as he had climbed up the stairs, he began to clutch his heart and fell backwards down the stairs.

“Emily! Watch out!” I yelled.

I
’m standing in the middle of my new room and can’t help but wonder for the millionth time how I ended up here. The walls are constructed out of cinderblocks, coated with glossy white paint, waiting for its new occupants to mar them up with tacky celebrity posters and bulletin boards. A pair of twin beds line up against two of the walls that lie parallel to each other. With a set of desks and an adjoining bathroom connecting to the suite next door, this place isn’t too shabby as far as dorm rooms go. Only, it isn’t really a dorm. That’s just what the administrators prefer to call the small twelve by twelve rooms. Still, my last foster home was with the Johnson’s, so this is a definite improvement.

Dominion House for Girls is considered the last resort when it comes to foster kids that nobody wants to deal with. The institution-like structure is meant to give the impression of a boarding school, when in fact it’s more akin to a correctional facility for troublemakers. My only concern is my new roommate. I just hope I don’t get stuck with someone with a worse temperament than me.

•  •  •

When I was about ten, I’d been dumped with the Clark family. Their daughter Maxine was thirteen and she had taken a special interest in me. And not in a sisterly way either; the girl couldn’t stop bullying me. If there was anyone spoiled and screwed up in that house, it was Maxine.

Once a month, the Clarks met with several of the neighbors for a potluck dinner. Normally, they hired a sitter to watch over me and Maxine, but on that particular night they decided Maxine was old enough to babysit. This was the opportunity she’d been waiting for and the moment I dreaded. When I stubbornly decided not to go to bed—a decision I now regret—she began to chase me around the living room and had me cornered up against the wall.

“I’m not going to hurt you. I swear.” Her eyes twinkled. “I just want to play.”

“Leave me alone.” I’d already had the pleasure of playing with her before and the only one it was ever fun for was Maxine.

“Come on Etta. If you don’t, I’ll tell mom and dad,” she said. Any time I refused to play one of her little games, she would vandalize something in the house and blame it on me.

“If you come near me, I’ll tell them that you were the one that cut my hair!” The week prior, she’d snuck into my room when I was sleeping and cut a big chunk of my hair off. I knew Mrs. Clark wouldn’t believe that her precious daughter was the one responsible, so I lied and told her I got gum stuck in hair and decided to cut it out myself.

“Yeah right dork, like they’re really gonna believe you over me,” she said.

Maxine had a point.

She had me backed up against the corner, leaving me without a means to escape. That’s when I realized I had been holding my breath and I let it all out in one big whoosh.
Just leave me alone!

Maxine slowly crept her way towards me as I kept chanting in my head,
just go away, leave me alone!

With every step she took, I increased my chant. Over and over I wished for her to stop. And as quickly as she began her hunt, she suddenly stopped in her tracks. Her legs gave out and she tripped over the living room rug, hitting her head on the corner of the coffee table.

As hurt as she was, she didn’t waste any time running next door to snitch on me, leaving behind a bloody trail that ran from the coffee table in the living room out the front door. According to Maxine’s version of events, I had pushed her up against the coffee table for not allowing me to stay up past bedtime. The following day, the social worker had been contacted and I had been farmed out to yet another foster home.

At ten years old, I didn’t know if I was lucky or cursed.

•  •  •

Unlike a lot of foster kids, I’m not what most people would consider a head case. With Alexandria located only a couple of minutes away from Washington, D.C., the sins of the city overflow into the Commonwealth of Virginia, resulting in a ton of neglected children due to crackhead moms, parents slain in drive-by shootings, or dads taking up residence at the county jail. Sometimes, they end up in foster care simply because they’re too much for their folks to handle. Things like that can really screw-up a kid.

According to my file, I’m saddled with the labels of both orphan and difficult. It isn’t intentional. I just have the unfortunate pleasure of being present whenever people get hurt—like little Maxine. Incidents are either chalked up to accidents or blamed on me. Either way, I always get passed off to another family within the system.