Black Horse (Breaking Black) by Addison Kline

she slept.
     
    “Breathe! Avie!” Randy yelled.
     
    “It happening again!” she said in a panic.
     
    Colton wrapped her in his arms. “Shhhh…. It’s going to be okay. We’re going to take care of it.”
     
    “You and Shelly are gonna go up Pappaw’s Ranch, and hide up there til this is over.”
     
    “What?” asked Averi in disbelief.
     
    “Girl, you and I are gonna stay out of the way. Let the fellas handle this old crazy…”
     
    “Fuck that! He wants me, let him come! I’ll kill him myself!”
     
    “Avie,” said Tim, “You’re not thinking clearly.”
     
    “No, Tim. I’m thinking quite clearly. Let the bastard come. For the first time in twenty years, we are a family. We are not separating.” Colton looked at Averi with a concerned look on his face.  “Goddamn it, Averi…”
     

     
     
     
     
    Chapter Fourteen
    Mother of Grace
     
    November 22, 1989
    Motel Lorraine
    Broken Arrow, Oklahoma
    Dusk
     
    A curtain ruffled at the window of motel room 13. A man peered out with intense brown eyes, a look of fear and danger glaring from his face.
     
    “We will rest here for tonight, but we must leave before first light.”
     
    Jessa nodded in understanding, her pretty face mottled with scars and bruises. The skin under her left eye was a sickly green color, an old bruise from her husband’s fist. A gruesome slash, angry and red, overtook her fair skin reaching from the edge of her eyebrow to the curve of her lip. Her arms and legs were riddled with black and blue; the battering effect of a tumultuous marriage and a failed attempt at escaping his abuse. Her hands were ruined with burns, the effect of being locked in a garage that was lit on fire. Intentionally . Tom McClain was a sadistic son of a bitch.
     
    A young boy, only three years of age, sat on her lap, pulling at her black hair and caressing her cheek sweetly. She laid him down on the bed and covered him with a soft blanket. She spoke to him in a soft voice that soothed him. A sweet smile curled from his pink mouth.
     
    “Colton, you must listen to mama…”
     
    Colton looked at his mother intently, his wide eyes taking her in. For being so young, his eyes had an unexpected depth to them. He had seen much in his short life. If it wasn’t for his mother, lord only knows where he would be.
     
    “We need to rest so that we can go back in the car tomorrow. Mr. John is really tired from driving all the way from Texas.”
     
    “I don’t want to go back in the car.”
     
    “I know, love, but we have to.”
     
    “To run from Dad?”
     
    “To keep you and me safe. Mr. John is a good man. He won’t let anything happen to you.”
     
    As Colton drifted of to sleep that night, he worried a little less about the strain of recent events. The sting of his father’s hand, the piercing shouts of his parents’ arguing voices and his mother’s devastating screams from the bedroom when his father would torture his mother every time she had tried to flee. Jessa watched as Colton’s eyes drifted to sleep, and the thoughtful boy’s appearance gave way to that of an angel. She protected him as best as she could, but she couldn’t help but fear for his road ahead.
     
    John approached Jessa as she watched over Colton. He placed a hand on her shoulder, and she flinched. A natural reaction after the abuse she suffered under the reign of Black Horse.
     
    “You’re a good mother, and you will survive this.”
     
    “I hope you’re right.”
     
    “You’ll see. Once we get to Vermont, things will be different.”
     
    “I’m so thankful for you, John.”
     
    “Don’t thank me yet. We’re not out of the woods yet.”
     
    John wasn’t her boyfriend or her lover. But he wanted to be. He loved her from the moment he laid eyes on her in the first grade. He wanted to protect her, to share a love with her. But most of all, he wanted her to be safe. John was a police officer with the San Antonio police department. He took a leave of