Free HARD FAL by CJ Lyons Page B

enough to maintain control. Beside her, she spotted the helmet of the motorcyclist as he zigzagged down the ramp. The sharp turns and June’s struggles had slowed him down. Good, she could still beat him to the riverside path. He must be planning to take it downriver to make his escape.
    Or maybe he had a boat waiting at the landing? But that meant accomplices and planning—could they have put this all into motion during the hour that June and the others had been inside having lunch?
    The ground sped past too fast for her to finish her thoughts. Then she was out of time and flying through the air, her height enough to spy the dark waters of the Monongahela beyond the large concrete wall that suddenly appeared in front of her. Damn, she knew she’d forgotten something. Guess that solved the whole what was going to stop her from driving into the river problem.
    Now it was a how was she going to keep from slamming into a concrete wall when she finished flying off the side of the slope and hit the ground problem.
     

 
    The Girl Who Never Was: Memoirs of a Survivor
    by June Unknown
     
    Why Your Real World Wasn’t Ever Mine
     
     
    EVER SINCE THAT night in the mall, just about every adult I met who knew my truth acted like they’d rescued me.
    Hellhole. Prison. Dungeon. That’s what they called my home.
    To me it was the world for the first ten years of my life. And for the next nine years, I tried desperately to go back—at first literally, and then when I understood that was a lost cause, figuratively.
    I hated this “real” world. Everything moved too fast, sounded so loud I’d be exhausted from my constant startles and jerks. Space made no sense and I got sick every time I rode in a car or elevator.
    And the people. So many people. Strangers all of them, yet they crowded against me, sometimes touching me, talking at me with words I didn’t understand, asking me things I didn’t know how to answer. Often they’d just stare at me with the look Daddy used to get when I was a Bad Girl and disappointed him, made him re-do a picture or video or just didn’t act like a Good Girl should.
    Daddy would usually just shrug and ruffle his fingers through my hair, tell me “it’s okay, Baby Girl,” (unless I was really, really Bad, but I don’t like to remember those times). Not these people. They’d get that look, frown, then talk above me, over my head to whatever adult was around, as if I wasn’t even there.
    But they’d never leave me alone.
    And there were so many rules that I didn’t know about and no one told me. Like wearing Dress Up clothes all day and night. All those buttons and zippers and laces and layers—inside out, backward, I had no clue what to do with them all. When it was time for Dress Up, Daddy always dressed me, gentle pushes, arms up, turn around, hold still, there you go, beautiful.
    Here, all I got were yelling and spankings and laughed at.
    Clothes were just the start. Social Worker and the grownups in the houses I went to—a new one over and over with new daddies and mommies and sometimes other kids, they were the worst, knew I didn’t belong and made me pay for it every minute—they all talked to me about Good Touch and Bad Touch, but when you have no idea of the difference between private and public, and the only touch you’ve ever had came served with declarations of love, I didn’t understand.
    Just like I didn’t understand about closing the door when using the toilet or being in there alone—I hated being alone almost as much as I hated being with these noisy, smelly people—or taking a shower by myself or not walking in when someone else was in there. Daddy and I did everything together. He was never, ever out of my sight, day or night, always within reach, except when I was a Very Bad Girl and he locked me in the basement, which was almost never.
    Being sent to my room or forced to sleep in my own bed, all alone, all night long—these were torture. I needed to be with