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  The Sparrow and the Raven

  KA Graham

  THE SPARROW AND THE RAVEN

  © Copyright 2018 KA Graham

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, including electronic or mechanical, without written permission from the publisher, except in case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This is a work of fiction which is only recommended for those 18 and older due to violence, strong language and adult content. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), places or actual events is purely coincidental.

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. It may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return it to the seller and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Edited by: Mindy Seal

  Formatted by: Tattered Quill Designs

  Other books by KA Graham

  Through The Eyes of Madness

  A Dark Suspenseful Psychological Thriller

  (co-written with Barb Shuler)

  No one sets out in life to hit rock bottom.

  I found the man I loved, got married, and that was all I got. It went south so fast I never saw the bottom coming, until I was face first in the darkness with the devil himself.

  I became a spiraling tornado of chaos. Love, lies, and drugs. It twisted around me, as did his arms. Nothing was the same, nothing will ever be the same…

  Cooking With love (Shaded With Love Volume 6)

  Covers/Pages Design by: Jessica Hildreth

  This coloring book, featuring 100 designs and recipes inspired by your favorite authors, bloggers & Editors.

  This story is dedicated to anyone who's ever lost themselves to someone else, but found their way back. Everyone deserves their happy ending, whatever that may be. Never give up on finding your peace in this crazy world. Love can find us in the least expected ways, you just have to be open to it. Find love within yourself and always treat others the way you'd want to be treated. Leave no room for hate in your heart. Choose love and light over the darkness. If you need help to get out of an unhealthy or dangerous situation, please think of yourself and accept the help. You deserve happiness and love. Always.

  Acknowledgments

  To my parents~ Always number one. Never failing me and being the best friends and supporters of this crazy chick. I love you both, always and forever.

  To my twin sister from another mister, MC. Thank you for your help, friendship and badassery. Couldn’t have done this without you. Me loves you long time. Seriously. Like forever.

  To my beta readers ~ Morgan Terry, Brandi Harvey, Laura Nelson, Barb Shuler, and Mindy Seal. Thank you for your ideas and input, super appreciative. Love you ladies.

  To Michelle Heard aka #EvilQueen ~ Thank you so much for the time you put in on helping with teasers and graphics. Love you, friend.

  Paging Through The Days ~ Cover reveal and release day promotions.

  To all the bloggers and readers, taking a chance on me and my crazy voices. Thank you a million times over. Much love to you all!

  About The Sparrow and the Raven

  The struggle between good and evil.

  Isabella

  Life's constantly throwing me curveballs. It's what I do with them that determines my destiny. Everyone has dreams of the perfect life. Depending on what your vision of happiness is, you try your hardest to achieve it.

  I thought I had found that special someone, until the bottom fell out and I woke from my dream; realizing I'd actually been living a nightmare all along. Nothing seems real anymore as I walk through the haze of what has become my life.

  When I sank to the bottom where the darkness eclipsed the light, I began to struggle against the quicksand of sorrow, hoping I could make it back to the top.

  Dominic

  In the blink of an eye, my life turned out for the worse. I was drowning in the chaos of what had become my life. What do you do when you've lost everything you once held close to your heart?

  After turning to alcohol, sex, and cheap women to soothe the ache, I decided I needed to find the man I once was before there was no coming back. My soul bled for the other half of my heart.

  She entered my life like a tiny hurricane in need of direction. Could this be what I've been searching for? Could she be my salvation?

  Contents

  Reader Warning

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Playlist for The Sparrow and the Raven

  Meet KA Graham

  Reader Warning

  This book contains adult situations (including sexual situations, physical and mental abuse and drug addiction) that may not be suitable for all audiences. You've been kindly warned. If you’re still hanging with me, I hope you enjoy Isabella and Dominic’s story. Carry on!

  Prologue

  Sitting in the waiting room of Pacific University Hospital, surrounded by the smell of rubbing alcohol and medicated hand soap, instantly makes me nauseous. My parents are dead, and there’s no coming back from death. It’s permanent heartbreak for those left behind, and it will never be the same. I just saw them this morning, so how can they be dead? I didn’t get to say goodbye.

  I shouldn’t have had to say goodbye. The best part of me was ripped away in the blink of an eye.

  I stare blankly at the wall, wishing this was all a horrific nightmare. I slap myself repeatedly, but it’s not a dream, it’s my hellish reality. My violent action causes one of the patient advocates to come to my aid, he helps me off the ground and into a nearby chair. I look at him like he’s crazy, but I’m sure he’s thinking the same thing about me, the girl that was just slapping herself in the corner of a hospital waiting room.

  I don’t even remember leaving the morgue, or arriving at the room I’m now in. Having to identify your parent’s bodies is something no child should ever have to do. Grief and shock have a funny way of creeping their way into your veins, and suffocating you from the inside out, until you're left with nothing but a void.

  We were supposed to be meeting for dinner, but instead I'm here, and they're gone. What the fuck is happening?

  “Ms. Kramer, my name is Jackson Masters. Is there anything I can get you? Something to drink maybe? Can I call someone for you?” He looks at me with care and compassion in his eyes, not a single sign of pity or sorrow, which comforts me, in a strange way.

  “I don’t have anyon
e else, it’s just me now. Can you take me home? I have to get the hell out of here. Please?” He agrees to take me home, seeing as how his shift was ending and he could see my need to escape in every twitch of my body.

  I have nothing left. My parent’s bodies may be in the morgue downstairs, but their souls have already gone to a better place, hopefully. May they rest in eternal peace. I love you, Mom and Dad.

  4 Years Later…

  “Isabella, where the hell is it? I know you have it! Where the fuck did you put it? Tell me now, you stupid fucking bitch!” He can yell and hit me all he wants, but I flushed that bag of poison down the toilet, smiling and laughing like a lunatic while I did it. It may be a temporary victory, and he’ll probably have more by this evening, but right now he doesn't and I’ll take what I can get.

  “Jackson, you need help! This isn’t you! What happened to the caring, loving man that helped cure me of a broken heart? We had so many plans for our future. I'm completely gutted.”

  “Fuck you, Isabella! You have no idea the pain I’m going through right now. You’re killing me!” He takes a step closer to me, but before his fist is able to make contact with my face, I kick him with all I have, landing a perfect shot to his junk. When I say junk, it’s no lie. He’s a cheating, drug-addicted bastard, who fucks anything that walks these days. The bottom fell out of our perfect life so fast, I’m still wondering how I ended up here.

  “Don’t ever touch me again! I love you, but I hate what you’ve become. I’m leaving you, and you won’t stop me, or I’m calling the cops. This time I’ll go through with it, I promise you that. I’m done, Jackson. Believe that!”

  As he lays on the floor, in the fetal position, I kick him again, and it feels damn good. In the end, I know I’ll eventually pay for it, but for once he feels my pain. He feels the shame I’ve felt for the last four years of my life. I wish this was truly the end of it, but we all know it won’t be. Stupid girl that I am. Stupid, stupid girl.

  “If you love something, love it completely, cherish it, say it, but most importantly, show it. Life is finite and fragile, and just because something is there one day, it might not be the next. Never take that for granted.

  Say what you need to say, then say a little more. Say too much. Show too much. Love too much. Everything is temporary but love. Love outlives us all.”

  R. Queen, Darkchylde: The Ariel Chylde Saga

  1

  Farewell to you, my old life and love.

  The air is crisp and cool, as I step out the front door, making me hesitate for a brief moment. I soak it in. “Fuck being an adult”, I think to myself, which I do a lot these days. Out loud, sometimes too, not caring if I look like a crazy person.

  No adulting today sounds like a good plan or a fantasy. Wishing it was that simple, I will my shaky legs to walk to my car, and crank the heater up to hell on fire temps. The heater in my shit motel room is broken for the second time in a month, and I feel the chill in my bones. The Oregon winters seem to be getting worse every year, and I'm thinking a move to a warmer climate would be super awesome. If I had actual balls, they’d be frozen off by now... like seriously!

  Driving to my not-so-amazing job, I busy myself thinking there has to be more to life. I must’ve pissed off the man above in a past life to deserve the disdain I feel from day to day. Being a bottom of the totem pole employee, at an all-male office is grating on my last nerve. Sometimes, I still find it hard to believe that I even graduated, given the fact that I had to deal with Jackson’s shenanigans on a daily basis. However, I didn’t go through four years of business school to be the punching bag for a bunch of assholes every day, not to mention the focus of their disgusting sexual fantasies.

  “Isabella, the coffee is cold.”

  “Isabella, where are my files for the McGregor account?”

  “Isabella... Isabella... Isabella…”

  Sometimes, I just want to scream, “Get it yourself, you fucking asshole!”

  But I need this job right now, so I keep my mouth shut and play nice, which is a struggle on its own. The pigs I work with make it well known I’m their toy to play with, and an occasional pat to the ass or an “accidental” brush against the tits has become a regular thing.

  Suck it up, buttercup.

  The worst part is, I hate being called by my full name. That right belonged to my parents, and my parents alone. No one but these assholes call me that, or Jackson when he's angry with me, which is most of the time nowadays. It's just Bella to those who really know me. That's the proverbial question though, who really knows me anymore? I’m not even sure if I know myself. Or the person I once was. The person I use to be was lost the day I let Jackson destroy my head and heart.

  The devil wears many faces.

  The past few years have been pure agony, to say the least. Going through a wreck of a breakup, living paycheck to paycheck to survive, and just mindlessly moving through my stagnant life has become the norm. I wonder how people can just be happy with their normal, boring, repetitive lives? It’s baffling. I yearn for so much more, but at the same time, I would die for just one day of normal and boring. I know, I’m even confusing myself with all my mixed emotions and thoughts. My anxiety is at an all-time high, so much so that my doctor is suggesting therapy. Been there, done that. I’m not knocking it, it’s just not for me.

  The last therapy session I had involved me talking to a stuffed bear, explaining my current emotional and mental state as if it could actually help or talk back. Shrinks get paid big bucks to make you feel like a damn fool. Just my opinion, though. I gave it three tries and struck out each and every time. Plus, it’s not cheap on the pocketbook.

  I'm feeling deep in my soul that the time has come to drop and run. But where would I go? How do you leave the only home you've ever known? Then again, what or who do I have to stick around for? I've lost my parents, have very few friends, and carry enough trust issues that they could fill a bank vault three times over. People always say running from your problems won't solve anything, or make them disappear, but I'm willing to take that chance.

  Jackson made sure that he not only stripped me of my self-esteem, but took away anyone that meant something to me. If my sole attention wasn’t given to him at all times, hell hath no fury. How I stayed with him for all those years, I will never understand, but love is a twisted motherfucker. Jackson is the master of mindfuckery, and I let him convince me that I was nobody without him. Nobody would ever want me or love me. Except Jackson. Therefore, he became my everything. I was convinced I had no other choice in life.

  After a few months apart, the asshole is still trying to control my life. The only way I see out of this mess is to move away, or he’s always going to have a hold on me. I can’t let him continue to have that kind of control. I know it won't solve everything, or erase the memories, but a change couldn’t hurt any more than staying. Here's to daydreaming, or the search for something better. Anything besides the hell I’m currently drowning in.

  It wasn't always like this. I was head-over-heels in love with a man who owned my heart. He treated me like a goddess until drugs and other women became more important to him. I became his fake front, the frame for the picture-perfect normal life he pretended to have, to the eyes of onlookers. He was good at making false appearances and keeping them up for those he needed something from. He’s a looker and a charmer, always using it to his advantages. I know that better than anyone, because I fell for it time and time again.

  You never truly know someone until you’ve lived with them, seen the changes that occur over time, and the power that enables people to do your bidding. Don't get me wrong; not all men are douchebags. I just seem to attract them like a fucking magnet.

  Once the verbal, sexual and physical abuse started, I became a shell of the woman that I remember. Excuse after excuse kept me hanging on, believing that one day I'd get the man I fell in love with back. Abuse is like that - they make you believe it's your fault. You try your hardest to please that
person, but fail miserably every time, leaving you with self-doubt, wondering what your purpose in life really is. You can never do right, because it’s never going to be enough. You will never be enough.

  The day of change never came, and I left my crumpled heart at the door. As he looked on with dead eyes, he charged at me, and I was too slow to stop him. He grabbed me roughly by the upper arms, shaking the shit out of me. Freedom was just a few more steps away, but I failed, paying the price with his venomous words. This was my life. It was like watching a shitty movie, wanting to turn the station, but for some ungodly reason, you continue watching.

  “You think you can leave me, Bella? Who do you think you are? You know what? You can go, because I know you’ll come crawling back to me. You won't survive without me. I’ll make sure of it. Nobody wants a used up slut.” He spits the words at me like venom. Venom from my very own sharp tongued monster.

  He kisses me violently, shoving his tongue down my throat, making me gag out of repulsion. He has such a strong hold on my face, I know there’s going to be bruising. I push him away with all the strength that I have, and he stumbles, more out of disbelief that I've fought against him than me actually overpowering him. The fact he's not only high, but drunk, doesn't help matters. At one time, he wouldn't even touch alcohol, let alone drugs. He said they were beneath him. My, how the mighty have fallen.