Free Hope's Vengeance by Ricki Thomas Page A

door. “Hope, can you just give me a minute, I just need to do something.”
    “Of course.” Dawn staggered from the room, lungs aching from the lack of oxygen. Calmly seated, relaxed into the folds of the chair, Hope smiled serenely, her eyes fixed on the door, unaware that on the other side of the wall Dawn was slumped, deep breaths straining her ribcage, pallid hands scraping at her beading forehead.
    Panted words whispery, she repeated her new mantra, once, twice, over and over, reprogramming the glitch in her brain. “Nothing sinister going on. Nothing sinister going on. Nothing sinister going on.”
    There was no spell, no power, no sorcery. Hope was just a normal woman, a regular client. She was just a counsellor, a fine one, and she was going to go back into the room like a professional, and continue to help this troubled woman to be at peace with herself. With a final deep breath, the palpitations subsiding rapidly, Dawn re-entered the room.
    “Are you okay?” The serenity had been replaced with comforting concern.
    Dawn smiled, her golden curls bobbing as she returned to her chair. “I’m fine. I’m sorry about that, had an urgent phone call to make. I’ll give you an extra five minutes at the end to make up for it. Now, where were we?”
    “You asked me about the first rape.”
    Nodding her head enthusiastically, Dawn leaned forward and put her chin in her hand, fingers drumming her sparkly pink lips.
    “Lucy and I went to different high schools, so we lost touch for a couple of years, no falling out or anything, just the way kids do. I bumped into her again when we were nineteen. You see, when I was seventeen I bought a flat with my first husband, Frank, we moved to Maidenhead. Anyway, we split up, and I was a single mum to Penny, and working in Reading, so when we sold the house, I put my share of the profit into a flat back in Reading so I could be nearer my family. Not that they were much help, but that’s a different story.”
    Dawn waved her hand. “Just to clarify, you’re nineteen, failed marriage, baby, moved to Reading. Right?”
    Hope nodded. “Uhuh. A few weeks after moving back, I bumped into Lucy. We were both pushing buggies, and we had a chuckle that we’d both become parents so young. Anyway, she’d got a council house about two miles from me, on the Dee Park Estate, and I started going to her place. She always had friends popping by, we’d put Penny and Callum upstairs to bed, go and get pissed, groups of us, it was a laugh. Just a laugh.
    One of the guys, Peter, we used to talk. He was nice, I thought so anyway, and everyone guessed he was gay. He wasn’t effeminate, in fact he was a big bloke, but he never hit on any of the girls, and he certainly never hit on me. We just talked.
    I was going through a rough patch at work before it happened, and a group of us had arranged to go out pubbing and get pissed.”
    Hope shook her head, forcing her fingers into her temples. “I need to go back a bit to explain first. You see, Frank and I split up shortly after I conceived Penny, and he refused to have anything to do with the pregnancy or the baby. It had upset me at first.”
    Dawn sat straight and waved her hands. “How far are you going back! You’re only nineteen at this point, or is it twenty. Let me get this straight. You and Frank were married, right, were you seventeen when you married?”
    Hope shook her head. “No, eighteen, as soon as I turned eighteen.”
    “And you split up?”
    Hope laughed, embarrassed. “Eighteen!” She sipped her coffee. “We found out just before we got married that I was pregnant. I was ecstatic. I know I was young, but I’d always wanted to be a mum. Anyway, when I told Frank he was furious.”
    “So I’m guessing it wasn’t planned.” Dawn’s recovery was complete, she was hooked on the story.
    “No, I was on the pill. He said that I had to have an abortion. I told him I wanted to keep the baby, but he said if I did he’d leave me,