Fury: The Awakening (The Scorned Series Book 1)
FURY
THE
AWAKENING
Book One of the Scorned Series
FURY
THE
AWAKENING
Book One of the Scorned Series
R. E. SARGENT
Whitechapel Publishing
Copyright © 2018 by R.E. Sargent
Kindle Edition
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2018
Whitechapel Publishing
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
To Mom and Dad – Mere words cannot convey how grateful I am to have such wonderful and supportive parents. Not only did you give your children a wonderful childhood, but you were both fantastic role models who taught us about respect, self-worth, hard-core work ethic, life-skills and how to be good people overall. All of that help and support has continued into our adult years. I love you, admire you and respect you. Thank you for all you’ve given us, as well as others in need. I am truly blessed to be your son.
Table of Contents
Half-Title
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
PART ONE
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
PART TWO
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
PART THREE
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
Chapter Sixty-Two
Chapter Sixty-Three
Chapter Sixty-Four
Chapter Sixty-Five
Chapter Sixty-Six
Chapter Sixty-Seven
Chapter Sixty-Eight
Author’s Note
About the Author
PART ONE
CHAPTER ONE
With tears streaming down her already flushed face, Stephanie Duran drove towards her apartment. It was the one that she shared with her fiancé. She was partially blinded as the moisture from her tears clouded her vision and her heart almost beat out of her chest as she sped around a corner—the rear end of the car fishtailing—and the tail of her Camry almost sliding into a ditch. The rain pouring down was more than her wipers could keep up with.
Stephanie’s mind was filled with anguish as she made her way closer to the apartment and the uncertainty that was waiting for her. She was afraid the anonymous person that called her work was telling the truth and she was hoping they were wrong.
“Please God,” she said aloud. “Don’t let this be happening!”
Stephanie pulled into the complex and found a parking spot out of sight of her apartment. She glanced at the rows of buildings, three stories high and units as far as she could see. Hers was on the top level. She dashed through the rain trying to avoid the numerous puddles, took a moment to compose herself, and made her way up the stairs. The sound of the rain masked her footsteps. She hesitated on the landing, just outside her door. If she was wrong, she was going to look like an idiot. Stephanie decided to take that chance.
Her hands trembled as she slowly slipped her key into the lock and unlocked the door. She listened but heard nothing. Deciding there was no reason to put off the inevitable, Stephanie pushed open the door and stepped inside. Her soaked clothes dripped water onto the tile entryway, forming a small puddle. Visually scanning the living room, she noticed it was uninhabited. The stereo was on low, playing a Michael Bolton tune. Leaving wet footprints on the carpet, she walked to the back of their two-bedroom apartment, where the master bedroom was located. She leaned her ear against the closed door and listened. Nothing. Stephanie grabbed the door handle and opened the door slowly while stepping into the room. Again, she found nothing. Maybe the caller was wrong after all.
It was then she heard voices and the water running in the bathroom. Stephanie hesitated for a minute wondering what she was going to do and what she was going to say. While she paused, she lost all nervousness and anger took its place. She fought to keep control of her emotions and took a deep breath before pushing the bathroom door open. The steam was thick and for the second time that day, she was momentarily blinded, until the cooler air from the bedroom pulled some of the steam out in swirls.
Stephanie could make out two bodies behind the distorted glass door of the shower. She could see enough to know that one of the bodies was female. She could also hear giggling as they washed each other’s not-so-unfamiliar body parts.
Her heart sank as she walked over and yanked open the shower door. The sight that greeted her eyes was something she’d never forget. Her fiancé, Jeff, had a look of shock on his face like a kid being caught watching cartoons in the middle of the night. She ran her eyes down his body and noticed he had an erection. Switching her gaze to the girl, Stephanie realized that she didn’t recognize her. She was blonde, but clearly not a natural blonde, Stephanie noticed. The girl had high cheekbones, long hair and a thin waist, but she wasn’t going to show up on the pages of Playboy any time soon. She wondered why Jeff would want to cheat with her. After all, Stephanie was quite the looker herself, and she gave Jeff the best of her when it came to their relationship.
Finally, breaking the awful silence that stood between them like a curtain, Stephanie spoke.
“Listen, Homewrecker,” she said to the girl. “If you’re going to be letting him poke you with that little thing, you should probably do it somewhere else. I don’t appreciate you doing it here. Also, I sure hope you have your own pl
ace, because it looks like you have a new roommate. You were made for each other.”
The girl was too stunned to speak as was Jeff. Stephanie turned towards him and saw his mouth hanging open.
“As for you, Jeffy-Poo, I want you to cover up that poor excuse of a boner and get out of here. You’ve one hour to get your things and get down the road. If you take anything of mine, you’ll be hearing from the cops.”
Stephanie waited while he tried to say something, hoping it wasn’t going to be the same old tired line she heard in all of the movies. It was.
“Stephanie, Honey, this isn’t what it looks like!”
By this time, he was covering up his now-limp penis with his hands while the girl was trying to cover up her private parts as well. She was one hand short.
Stephanie turned towards the door and started walking out, but paused at the doorway to say her final words.
“One hour. I want no excuses, no lines and no justifications. If I find you here when I come back, you’re going to regret ever meeting me.”
Jeff tried to respond, but Stephanie cut him off.
“Maybe you weren’t listening. If you’re here when I get back, you’re going to have a lot in common with John Wayne Bobbit!”
Stephanie paused for a second and noticed that Jeff had finally shut his mouth. Without looking back, she walked out of the room and through the front door, slamming it behind her so hard, it rattled the front window. As she walked down the stairs, she decided she wasn’t going to cry. Jeff wasn’t worth being miserable over. She was tired of always being the victim and being hurt, because of other people’s actions.
As was typical with Oregon weather, the torrential downpour had ended and the sun was peeking through the clouds. Stephanie walked back to her car, still dodging the standing water. She knew she could find plenty of men out there to replace Jeff. She wasn’t going to let it ruin her life. Her teeth clenched as she thought about how she wasted the last two years with someone that turned out to be a loser.
As she got in her car and started driving back to work, she thought about her past. Her last two boyfriends hadn’t lived with her, but the last one had also cheated on her. The one before that had found sports to be more important than her. Stephanie knew where she ranked with him and went her separate way.
Stephanie had also been married once for about three years, to a man named Brad Hayes, who had been a really good husband for two of those years. Stephanie wasn’t sure what happened, but he slowly began to change and started getting abusive, first verbally and then physically. Being a person of high self-esteem, Stephanie decided she wasn’t going to be anyone’s punching bag and she got out, changing her name back to Duran in the process.
She thought about all of the bad luck she had with men all of her life. She was thirty-one years old and so far, couldn’t seem to find the right one. She was a very giving person in a relationship and definitely not a psycho girlfriend or wife. Everyone she’d hooked up with so far had seemed wonderful at first, but something always happened. She was beginning to wonder if it was her, although she felt like it really wasn’t.
Stephanie worked in a corporate office as an Executive Assistant to one of the Vice Presidents of the company. She was extremely well paid for her skills, which hadn’t always been the case. She’d been an Administrative Assistant for most of her life, but she’d only been in her current role at her current company for a couple of years now.
Stephanie didn’t resemble the typical Administrative Assistant. She was of average height, trim and had soft brown hair that cascaded down over her shoulders. Her luminescent green eyes almost looked artificial, but they weren’t. When Stephanie walked into a room, many heads turned. She was extremely well-liked by men and women alike and had many friends. She just couldn’t find a man that was good for her and she was starting to think there wasn’t any such thing.
Upset, she reached for the volume knob and cranked up the stereo, trying to alter her mood before she got back to work. A song from the band Disturbed blasted through the speakers and she hoped that the angst of the song would dissipate the pain she felt. It didn’t help.
CHAPTER TWO
As Stephanie neared work, dread kicked in and she couldn’t fathom retuning. She was extremely dependable and never missed a day, so she knew it wouldn’t be a problem if she phoned in. Reaching into her purse, she took out her cell phone and called her office. After a brief conversation with her boss, she got the go-ahead to take the rest of the day off and he told her to take the following day off as well, which was Friday. She’d have a nice three and a half-day weekend, which she’d need.
Not heading in any particular direction, Stephanie decided to just drive around for awhile until she could go back to her apartment. She’d have the locks changed as soon as possible. She didn’t want Jeff showing up and walking in anytime he wanted.
Jeff had told her for months how much he loved her. He professed that she was the only one he could ever think about. He’d proposed to her three months earlier on a brisk winter evening as they were sitting by the fireplace at a romantic restaurant. Stephanie thought she’d finally beaten the odds and had found the one. It was difficult for her to accept the fact that all she’d found was another loser.
“Asshole!” she yelled as she hit the steering wheel with her fists. A barrage of profanity escaped her lips as she tried to splice together vile word combinations that made no sense, but made her feel slightly better. She turned up the stereo and stomped down on the gas pedal.
Even though Stephanie worked in the big city of Portland, Oregon, she was really close to some nice rural settings as well. She thought about how she was able to enjoy four distinct seasons. The spring and fall colors were brilliant and bright. When the beautiful snow blanketed the landscape during the winter, it didn’t outlive its welcome. Although the state was wet, the rain was necessary to help maintain God’s handiwork, which was scattered throughout the land. She could not see herself living anywhere else.
Stephanie snapped back to the present and found herself on a narrow road leading through some older homes. The street-lined houses fell behind her as the road turned to dirt. Her stomach was jostled as she drove down the rutted track, weeds poking up through the center where the tires failed to touch. She drove slowly over the bumps and found it was easily passable. The beauty of the scenery caught her eye as she drove through unfamiliar territory, as if the car was taking her where it wanted her to be. Spring was blossoming all around her and the reds, oranges and purples of the landscape took her mind off her problems. Seeing a clearing ahead, she pulled off the road and got out of her car.
The earlier downpour seemed to be a thing of the past and although the ground was wet, the sun was shining from between the clouds and it was so bright she needed sunglasses. The golden rays touched her face and warmed her, not only outside, but inside. Looking out to the wilderness, Stephanie watched a butterfly as it flew lazily through the air. The tall weeds and grass blew slightly in the breeze. The trees cast shadows over the beautiful landscape. Stephanie felt at ease for some unknown reason. The serenity of the landscape made her relaxed. This was a place that Stephanie was glad she’d found and she’d need to frequent it more often. The events from earlier in the day temporarily left her mind.
As the stress drained from her body and she was calmer, she was getting ready to leave when she spotted something between the trees. She couldn’t make out what it was as it was about a quarter of a mile away and mostly camouflaged by trees, but it looked like a building. Curious, Stephanie got in her Camry and drove down the road a little farther until the building came into sight.
“What in the heck is this doing out here?” Stephanie murmured to herself.
Before her was a two-story house, obviously built in the early nineteen hundreds. There was a huge wooden wrap-around deck that went around the entire house. The second story also had a deck that extended out from the left side. The wooden-framed windows were mostly
void of glass with an occasional shard stuck in between the pieces of the frame. The plank floorboards of the deck were all cracked and split and weeds had found their way up through the cracks. A crumbling brick fireplace extended all the way up the side of the house. The entrance had a door that hung at an angle and there were weeds five-feet high covering the entire yard. A telephone pole had wire running from it to the house, but the wires didn’t extend from the pole to a power source. She wondered how long ago it’d been disconnected.
The house intrigued her. She was curious as to the story behind it. Who had lived here? Why was it abandoned for so many years? Who owned it now? Stephanie wanted to go look at the inside, but she didn’t want to trespass and wasn’t sure it was safe. She felt a sadness she couldn’t describe as she climbed into her car, but her feelings didn’t seem to be connected to the earlier incident with her fiancé.
As she drove back towards the city, she knew that she’d found a special place. It would have to be the place she went to think and feel at ease when the stress of everyday life was getting to her. She turned her head back to take one last look at the house and then rounded a curve and the house dropped out of sight.
As she made her way back to civilization, she called a locksmith and asked him to stop by and change the locks on her apartment. He agreed to meet her there since he was in between appointments. She was on her way to a new life and wouldn’t let this bring her down.
As she neared the apartment for the second time that afternoon, all Stephanie could hope for was that Jeff was gone. If he wasn’t, she knew it’d get pretty ugly. She hoped, for his sake, that he had the common sense to leave.
CHAPTER THREE
As Stephanie arrived at the complex, she noticed that Jeff’s truck was gone. Thank God, she thought. Now I don’t have to put up with his crap. She was hoping he’d gotten all his stuff out.