The Summer of Annah by Tinthia Clemant

Author:Tinthia Clemant
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Romance
Publisher: River Lady Press
Published: 2018-10-15T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

ANNAH rubbed at her neck with the soapy loofah until the pain became too much to take. Despite the repeated cleansing, her skin still crawled. Why hadn’t she left well enough alone? Being in the dark hadn’t been such a bad thing. She’d gotten used to imagining the marks were the result of a car accident, as was the amnesia. But no, she had to push. Now what?

A towel lay on the bathroom floor, and she stepped from the shower and on to it, her body dripping cold water and creating a pool around her feet. The hot water had long ago run out, but even the frigid ice pelting her skin hadn’t helped. The truth couldn’t be scrubbed away, not when it was now branded into her brain.

Leaving the towel lying in a wet heap, she walked into the bedroom and used the full-length mirror to study her violated body. She wished she could step outside her world and see herself as a stranger, the physical evidence belonging to another person’s hell, but it wasn’t possible. Her brain was having a party conjuring all sorts of graphic images, from his evil grin to his hands encircling her throat. True, she had no idea what he looked like, but that wasn’t stopping her mind from compiling vivid images.

The story about the attack had a few holes, supposedly because she’d been doped up with pain medication and hadn’t been able to give the police a full account of what had happened. For example, nobody knew how she’d ended up in the basement. Had he pushed her down the stairs or had she fallen? With her own memory loss holding the details out of reach, the only other person who could answer the questions was locked up in a penitentiary in New York State. Some things weren’t hard to decipher. He had to have hit her, accounting for the bruises on her face, and the ruptured spleen must have come from a blow of some sort, perhaps a kick. And the marks around her neck? She didn’t need any clarification on that part. He’d tried to strangle her. Bottom line, he’d tried to kill her.

He must have looked frightening. Had his eyes bulged? Were the veins of his face bulging with blood as he tried to crush her windpipe? Had he laughed? In the make-believe scenario her brain was creating, he had, and it had been a skin-crawling kind of laugh, one filled with menace; the sound of a crazy person.

She leaned against the mirror and gulped for air. There had to be a way to exorcise the demon.

********

“Wasn’t it you who said we should hold back the details? That telling Annah would only cause her unnecessary anguish?” Eric clenched his jaw, the muscles tightening into a knot. He couldn’t believe what he’d just heard. After their long discussion that morning, Pam had gone ahead and done the complete opposite of what she’d argued for. And now she sat on his couch, acting like it was no big deal.

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