Redheads are Soulless

Redheads are
Soulless

Heather M. White

Copyright © 2012 Heather M White.

This publication is protected under the US Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights: you are not allowed to give or sell this book to anyone else. Any trademarks, service marks, product names or named features are assumed to be property of their respective owners, and are used only for reference. There is no implied endorsement if we use one of these terms. The names and events in this novel are fictional and not based on anything else, fictional or no-fictional.

C
over Design by: Heather @ SupaGurl Books

More information can be found at the author’s website:

http://heatherstiara.blogspot.com

As always,
first and foremost, I want to tha
nk my awesome husband for his support
through this whole journey
. Without him, NONE of this would be possible!!! I love you, always!

Tess from My Pathway to Books – you’re the little sister I never had! Thank you for your support while writing this book, and for listening to my crazy plot ideas! And for just putting up with my crazy in general!

Heather at SupaGurl Books… WOW, what else can I say! Thank you for your amazing cover design and for all your help with promoting this bo
ok! (as well as all of my other books
). YOU ROCK!

There are SO MANY others that I have met along this journey, and I love you all!!! Thank you for supporting me, and for reading my books!

Check out my other books:

The Destiny Saga:

When Destiny Knocks –
book 1

When Destiny Strikes –
book 2

The Vampire Hunter Series:

My Fairytale Life –
book 1

Preface

For me, dying seems
like an easy way out. I only wish th
at death would have come sooner,
b
efore I met him, before he changed my life. It almost seems unfair that I have to leave him
now, j
ust when I found my place in the world.

I fought to stay alive. I fought for
him
. As reality slowly slipped away from my grasp, I tried hard to hold on.
I couldn’
t leave. Not now – not yet anyway.

I had to s
ee his face one more time.

I had to say goodbye.

One

T
ypical Friday
N
ight

Friday nights are
always predictable for me. They have been the same for me since I was ten years old
,
the night my father
died
.

I remember everything about that night. It was storming, and my parents were fighting. They
never fought, ever. They were so in love. I was scared to hear them yelling at each other. I didn’t want
them
to get divorced.

I locked myself in my bedroom
, but the paper thin walls didn’t muffle the sound
s
of their screaming.

Every time the thunder rumbled, they’d scream louder.

Every time they screamed louder, I would shake harder.

I couldn’t take it anymore…
I just wanted them to stop fighting.

I walked into the living room where my parents were arguing. They
didn’t
even
notice I was out of bed, or that I had walked into the room.

“Please stop,” I cried.

They didn’t hear me.
They just kept arguing
, and screaming
. My father was cursing at my mom.
I had
never heard him say a bad word before. F
or a moment, I was scared for my life.
And t
hat’s when I saw
it
.
M
y dad had a knife in his hand.

His hand went up.
I knew
h
e was going to stab my mom in the chest.
I don’t know how, but I could feel it.
I had to stop him.

“NO!” I screamed.
I had never been more afraid in my life.
Suddenly, he dropped the knife
so quickly
it was as if
the knife
w
as on fire. That’s when
he looked over at me.

I
was startled
to see that his eyes were bright red instead of their natural color of brown.
“What did you do?” He yelled at me. He put his hands on my shoulders and started to shake me. “You little monster, what did you do?”

I cried uncontrollably. “D
addy,
please stop. Y
ou’re hurting me,” I screamed at
him. He didn’t stop. I just wanted him to stop.

I wanted
my
dad back.

This
man
was not my dad,
o
r at least not the dad
that
I knew.

Finally, my mom intervened.

“Stop
it! You’re
hurting
her,” she yelled at him.
When I looked up I saw that s
he held a gun with both hands, she too was shaking uncontrollably
.
“What did you
do with my husband
?”

With his body facing me, he twisted his head all the way around to look at my mom.
I could hear the bones in his neck
cracking as his head
turned around 180 degrees
.

“He’s not coming back,” he said laughing.

His voice
…
There was something definitely wrong with his
voice. It sounded… bitter. And my dad was not a bitter person.

The
words
made me mad. I had never been
so furious
.

My dad
, or the person who
looked
like my dad,
moved his hands away from my shoulder
s
immediately, and let out a scream.

I looked down at my skin. Steam was literally coming off of me. I held out my hand and touched his face. When I did,
he
screamed
louder
. Only the voice didn’t belong to my dad.

“I will be back for you,” the
angry
voice warned me.

Then, my dad’s eyes turned back to their
natural color of brown before his
lifeless
body
fell to the ground.
That’s it, he just dropped dead.

Nobody knows the truth about that night, except for my mom and me. I try to block it from my memory, but every Friday night I
am
reminded of my past.

My mom
has never been the same
. Who could be, really? But she didn’t even try. It’s like she gave up on life.
Not even I was enough reason for her to keep going.
I tried not to be bitter, but at times, it was impossible.

I lay on my bed, staring at my phone. It would ring, and soon.
It always rang around this time.

11:59
.

Ring. Ring.

When I answer
, I simply
say
, “I’ll be right there.” I hung up my phone and left the comfort of my tiny bedroom.

I knew
exactly
where my mom
was
. It’s where she always was, every Friday night –
Billie’s Honk
y Tonk Bar.
She would be waiting on the same stool she always sat at. Always throwing herself on every guy that walked by.

I got in my 1960’s model Ford truck, and I shut the door carefully. My door was hanging on by its last hinges. It was only a matter of time before the darn thing fell off. And I don’t need one more reason for people to make fun of me.

People always make fun of me.

They make fun of my old, slowly rusting, pickup. The make fun of my alcoholic mother. They make fun of the clothes
that
I b
uy at
yard sale
s
. They all think I’m a freak.

And m
aybe they
a
re right… Maybe I
am
a freak
.

Sofia Black – the girl with the dead dad, and the crazy mom. There is no escaping reality. This
is
my reality.
I live with it,
and I deal with it –
not
because I want to, but because I
have
to.

I turned right, into the bar. I took a deep breath to calm my
shaky
nerves before stepping inside.
As frequent
ly
as I picked her sorry
butt
up, it never got
any less embarrassing.

Yep, there was my mom. She had her hands on Mr. Franks, my geometry teacher.
He tried pushing her away, but she wouldn’t budge.
My face flushed with embarrassment.

“I’m so sorry,” I apologized to him as I pulled my mom’s fingers off him.

“Sofie, we were jus’ havin’
fun,” my mom’s words w
as
slurred
as if her tongue were swollen
. The scent
of alcohol was strong on her breath.
I wanted to say something mean to her, but it wouldn’t do any good – she wouldn’t remember anything I said tomorrow.

Mr. Franks cleared his throat. “See you at school,” he sai
d a
wkwardly
before walking away.

School – awe yes. Where he always gives me sympathetic looks. He’s seen me in here ev
ery Friday night since I was 10
, always picking up my
drunken
mom. It seems as though my mom isn’t the only one with a drinking problem
in this town
.

All my
teachers know about my mom. Because of it
, they treat me differently than the other students. They don’t treat me like a freak, but they do treat me like a porcelain doll rather than a person. They think I’m going to break because I’ve
had
a couple of bad things happen to me
in my life
. Well, guess what, I’
m a lot tougher than they think. I’m not made of glass, and I’m not going to break… Not today anyway.

“Come on, M
om,” I said as I helped her up from the bar stool. “It’s time to go home now.”

“Awe, but I don’t wanna
go,” she
whined
.

As we walked out of the pub, she put all of her weight on me. I was used to it. I was strong enough to support us both physically. Emotionally supporting us is what I had problems with
.

I thought back to the
10
year old me. The one who got
her first
phone call at midnight saying
her
mom was drunk and couldn’t drive home. That night
,
I walked the 4 blocks to the bar alone.

Since I was only 10 at the time,
I had
help carrying my passed out mother
to the car. I was scared
.
I didn’t want her to die
like my dad
. The bartender assured me she would be fine after she slept it off.

That
night
w
as my first experience at driving. I had no clue what I was doing
, and
I could barely reach the pedals. By some
miracle, we
made it home safely
, but only after knocking down Mr. Dunn’s mailbox. Crazy old man still looks at me cautiously every time I drive by
.

B
oth my mom and
I
slept in the car that night.
Since then, my mom’s alcohol tolerance h
as gotten significantly higher, a
nd
much
to m
y dismay, she
hardly ever passed
out anymore. I missed th
ose
peaceful nights.

“Why d’
ya always gotta ruin
all
my fun?” Even through her slurred voice, her southern accent was still strong. Despite living in Peckville, Alabama my whole life, I had thankfully never picked up the accent.

“I
didn’t
ruin your fun
, Mom. Billie did
. He called me to come pick you up,” I answered her
, annoyance strong in my voice
. I strapped her seatbelt on, she complained, but at least she didn’t try to take it off like she normally
did
.

I walked around to the driver’s side and got in. I put on my seat belt and looked over at my mom. Her arms were crossed
over her chest
, and she was pouting.

So it was going to be one of
those
nights, where she pretended to be mad at me. I sighed and pulled out of the parking lot
.

We passed Sonic on our
way
home. Sitting on the outside patio
,
I saw some kids from my school all laughing and having a good time. I envied them. While they were
all
enjoying their night, I was praying for the stren
gth to make it through another Friday night
.
The worst part of the whole thing is
that
I
know
I w
ill
be doing the same thing
again
tomorrow night.

I sighed, and pulled into the driveway of our tiny house.
It wasn’
t much, but it was a home, my home.
If you didn’t know better, you would think that my house was condemned. The outside look
ed
as though nobody has been inside for ages. The white paint job had slowly worn over the years, and there was hardly any
paint
left
at all
, just rotting wood. The few shutters that
were
left on the house
were
barely holding on, and the termites were slowly eat
ing
away at the foundation.

Before I could get around to the passenger side of the truck, my mom had
already opened the door and tumbled
out. She cursed as she fell onto the gravel driveway. I helped her up, and inspected the damage. There were a couple of cuts on her hands and knees, but
nothing serious
.

“Let’s get you inside, and I’ll clean you up,” I suggested.