Flee From Evil Read Free Page A

then fell to the asphalt and cried.
    Sophie had turned numb. She’d stayed in the car to make sure Tibo was safe. Just like she did today.
    Now, they stepped up the front, wooden steps that creaked with loose boards, and entered the small house—now her home.
    “Why don’t you tell me, then?” Grandma’s voice carried through the halls. Mom’s was low and controlled.
    Sophie tugged Tibo’s gentle fingers, and led him back out. “Let’s go for a walk.”
    Tibo smiled as only he could, obediently following.
    They strolled down the street, noting the water to the right, where the Chesapeake Bay emptied into inlets all around Water’s Edge, Maryland.
    So beautiful here. But something hung in the air like a dark, city smog. Sophie sensed it as they drove from Philadelphia. So thick, so heavy. It seemed to weigh on her mother even more than her father’s death.
    Sophie knew her mother could weather anything in time because she relied heavily on her faith. With Dad’s help, she’d even overcome bouts of panic attacks years ago.
    But today, something changed. Could that something crush her?

 
     
     
     
     
    Chapter Two
     
    Hands held her forcefully to him. His mouth closed onto hers as she tried to scream. It didn’t matter. There was no one to hear.
    He laughed as she struggled to free herself from his grip. He tore at her blouse and unbuttoned her jeans. She screamed again, only to receive the same torment as before.
    He fell against her in the grass, his weight pinning her as she called out.
    Only crickets answered.
    “Please …” as if this monster would heed her polite request. “Don’t do this.”
    He laughed again as he thrust his weight to subdue her thrashing.
    “Why?” Did it really matter?
    “Because I can.”
    Cassandra broke from the sheets that bound her, and clasped them to her breast as though they could protect her. Her heart pounded against the fist at her sternum that held the bedclothes like a shield. Her hand almost moved with the hard beat against bone.
    She labored for air and swung her gaze around the darkened room. Not her home. Where was she?
    Mom’s. Cassandra’s childhood bedroom. Her pulse slowed, but the breath labored on.
    As her eyes adjusted to the light, she took in the same furniture, the same walls—the colors she woke to the morning after …
    The pictures! They were different. She peered at the comforter over her legs. Different too. She bunched it under her arms and trod down the hall to the living room. Also different. Thank goodness her mother had redecorated after her father’s death that fall. Maybe Mom wanted to escape memories as well.
    Cassandra dragged the bedspread across the living room and stubbed her toe with a clatter. Tibo’s cars had been lined up straight out from the wall. Rather than curse the pain the toy pick-up had caused her pinky toe, she grinned at the thought of her sweet little boy and his kooky obsession making straight lines with his belongings.
    The vision of her small son’s smile made her muscles release. Her memory traveled to the words of his newest speech therapist who was certain she could improve his language. That was what they all said having heard him mutter what seemed to be full, grammatically mature and contextually appropriate sentences under his breath, only to never be repeated no matter how many times a person asked him to. More was going on in her son’s mind than he was able to display. She knew it. But how to unlock that information was the question no one had the answer to.
    After rubbing the appendage that took the hit from the small vehicle, she stretched her comforter over the couch, and doubled back to the blow-up mattress where her son slumbered. Leaning in, she pressed her lips to his warm temple. He stretched and curled again, pulling the sheet from his shoulder. Cassandra lifted the cover to his chin as he cooed in his sleep.
    Peace. It seemed to pour from him and into her. So unlike what she’d seen