Broken - LS Silverii Page 0,2

from her shit-bag parents and found a job. Over the next few years, the gangly blue-eyed girl developed into a tall, slender, sun-kissed blonde. Some even considered her stunning. Most of those people were strip club owners and pimps.

She’d seen what selling pussy got since Abigail’s mother worked as a whore. Just because Nevada made prostitution legal, didn’t make it right. And her heroin-shooting father wasn’t even her biological dad. His limp dick would nod out while her mother rode the erect ones for cash. Abigail’s DNA belonged to some other John, not John Black.

Hard working and loyal, she’d established a solid reputation among her employers. Never failed a surprise drug test. Always returned cash if the customer miscalculated the totals. Soon, she was able to apply for an apartment with one month’s rent down as a deposit. But it wasn’t so much the deposit that prevented her from finding a place to crash, as it was the apartment managers who always wanted their sweat-soaked cocks sucked before considering letting a vacancy. She’d rather stay homeless.

Like anything good in a woman’s life, men fucked it up. And then along came Ricky Geneti. Straight from Brooklyn, he’d been stationed out of Nellis Air Force Base. Young, dumb, and full of big ideas to hit it big in the world, his passion energized Abigail. His dreams extended beyond the incorporated city limits of Las Vegas.

He’d travelled across the country after all. She still felt like the lanky teenager compared to his worldliness. Abigail loved that he didn’t make her feel stupid. He promised her the moon—and she already had stars in her sweet, wet baby blues.

Her apartment set atop a pawnshop and a liquor store. The rooms sucked, but it was clean—there’d be no garbage cans serving as her pantry. The place was safe because it was high off the filth-infested streets, and the owners of both stores carried weapons for their personal protection.

Ricky sneaked off the military base as often as possible. His older brother’s borrowed Z-28 Camaro made it from his base to her home in under thirty minutes. His enlistment would end soon, and their life—together forever—would begin.

Soon after Ricky was dishonorably discharged by the Air Force for being habitually AWOL, Abigail got knocked up. When she shared the wonderful news with her burgeoning entrepreneur, Ricky’s Z-28 Camaro somehow couldn’t seem to find the pawnshop apartment anymore.

Forced from the safety of her elevated abode, Abigail moved further outside of the incorporated city limits and into a minority housing area made up of mostly Hispanic families and migrant American Indian workers who shuffled on and off the Paiute Tribe’s reservation to live in the adobe-looking flats lining Highway 578.

Named after Abigail’s favorite actor, her son, Jack, had grown up in that housing area. Mother and son were befriended by many of the families; wives often babysat Jack so Abigail could continue working two of her remaining jobs. It wasn’t until his third birthday party that Ricky arrived in his brother’s borrowed Z-28 Camaro to play daddy.

Chapter 3

Eighteen-wheelers dusted along Highway 578. The created rush of wind jerked at the three helium Happy Birthday balloons tied to a knotted fence railing. Twenty small kids chased each other until one fell down then nineteen scurried for parents to offer alibis. It was a wonderfully mixed community. Still the only Nordic-looking resident, Abigail and her Sicilian-toned boy blended into the polychromatic culture of transient living.

The late afternoon sun relaxed to allow Jack and the community kids to enjoy a fun birthday celebration. Abigail squinted against the brightness, and her broad smile etched a few lines across her otherwise smooth face. She busied herself holding down a borrowed tablecloth that flapped each time a vehicle zipped past the vacant lot adjacent to the highway.

She’d finally found a small slice of dingy heaven she could call home. It was better than what she’d known growing up, and the only dumpster on the property wasn’t for diving into after meals. Abigail chuckled as she watched Jack try to keep up with the older kids. She swatted away flies that dive-bombed the off-the-shelf birthday cake. The ice cream was melting fast, so she tried to rustle the gang over to the rickety picnic bench to begin the celebration.

Swiping long, twisty strands of blonde hair off her face, she watched the slow roll of the old sports car. It crunched across the hard-dried mud and pea-gravel highway shoulder until the faring scraped against the entrance to the beveled-bottom