Van Helsing Rising - Helen Scott Page 0,19

park. My father had been ex-military. My mother had run the second she could and never looked back to see if the daughter she’d left behind was just as miserable with the drunken asshole. My father had no idea how to deal with a girl, how to show love or kindness, so I’d spent my life like a broken piece of glass. No one could get close to me. I hurt everyone and everything I touched. And when I turned eighteen, he wished me happy birthday by telling me I had an hour to get my shit and get out.

So, I did.

I packed a bag and began trekking out of our little town. I walked along the freeway, thumb out, knowing I might have to do some awful things to get to a bigger city, where I might have a chance of getting a job as a waitress and sleeping on someone’s couch.

But no one stopped for me that day.

The fall chill hung in the air, and as night started to fall, my fingers and toes got colder and colder. My teeth were chattering together so hard the sound filled my ears, and I remember rubbing and rubbing my hands on my arms, but knowing I wasn’t getting any warmer.

I was in the middle of nowhere, between my old town and a town up ahead. It was one of the many times in my life that I’d felt legitimately scared that I might die. I imagined someone coming across my body on the side of the road and muttering about some truck prostitute.

And then a car had slowed down and stopped just ahead of me.

It was some fancy car that screamed of money with tinted windows. And even though every instinct inside of me was saying danger waited for me in that car, I moved forward. Because that’s the only thing that had kept me alive that long…always moving forward.

A massive man in a suit had gotten out of the car. Even late at night, he wore sunglasses. He’d opened a door in the back and gestured for me to get in. My stomach had sunk, but I did as he told me. In the car, a man sat. He was much smaller than the man outside, but there was something about him that felt even more dangerous.

He’d smiled at me. “I’m Henry Wevill. What’s your name?”

“Dani,” I had told him.

“Well, Dani, it’s dangerous for a pretty young thing like you to be out alone, hitchhiking along a highway at night.”

“Yes, sir,” I had said. “But I didn’t have another choice.”

“How so?” he asked, his voice almost a purr, that even now I remember unsettled me.

“I have no one,” I told him honestly.

He lifted a brow. “No one at all?”

“No.”

Even as I said the word, it felt like a mistake. If this man knew no one would look for me, what would he do to me? But there wasn’t time to think before the next question came at me.

“And how old are you?”

“E--eighteen,” I said, the word coming out shaking.

“You’re older than my typical women, but you’ll do.” Then he leaned closer and set a hand on my thigh. “You’re very lucky I found you, Dani, because I am a very wealthy man, and I can give you things you’ve only ever dreamed about.”

I remember biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. “Okay.”

He squeezed my thigh. “From now on, you’re one of Henry’s girls, and no one will ever hurt you again.”

As we pulled back on the road, I remember looking back at the side of the highway and wondering if it would've been smarter to die there in the dark. At the time, I wasn’t sure, but over the next few days, weeks, and years, I thought of that highway often, knowing without a doubt I made the wrong choice.

Some things are worse than death. Being owned by that man was one of those things.

But even though he broke me down, I never gave up. I tried to escape over and over again, but it was impossible to get free. They broke my bones. They bloodied my body. They left gashes a private surgeon stitched up without meeting my gaze.

The men here wanted to know why I’d joined this project. How could I tell them that it was my only chance at freedom? They’d think I was weak. They’d think me being fucked by some old guy just to survive was pathetic. No, they could never