Bury Me

by Tara Sivec

  Bury Me

  by

  Tara Sivec

  Other books by Tara Sivec

  Romantic Comedy

  The Chocolate Lovers Series:

  Seduction and Snacks (Chocolate Lovers #1)

  Futures and Frosting (Chocolate Lovers #2)

  Troubles and Treats (Chocolate Lovers #3)

  The Chocoholics Series:

  Love and Lists (Chocoholics #1)

  Passion and Ponies (Chocoholics #2)

  Tattoos and TaTas (Chocoholics #2.5)

  Romantic Suspense

  The Playing With Fire Series:

  A Beautiful Lie (Playing With Fire #1)

  Because of You (Playing With Fire #2)

  Worn Me Down (Playing With Fire #3)

  Closer to the Edge (Playing With Fire #4)

  Romantic Suspense/Erotica

  The Ignite Trilogy

  Burned (Ignite Trilogy Volume 1)

  Branded (Ignite Trilogy Volume 2)

  Scorched (Ignite Trilogy Volume 3)

  New Adult Drama

  Watch Over Me

  Contemporary Romance:

  Fisher’s Light

  Worth the Trip

  Romantic Comedy/Mystery

  The Fool Me Once Series:

  Shame on You (Fool Me Once #1)

  Shame on Me (Fool Me Once #2)

  Shame on Him (Fool Me Once #3)

  Bury Me

  Copyright © 2015 Tara Sivec

  Digital Edition

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system without written permission from the author, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review. The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  License Notice

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be resold or given away to other people. If you wish to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Disclaimer

  This is a work of adult fiction. The author does not endorse or condone any of the behavior enclosed within. The subject matter may not be appropriate for minors. All trademarks and copyrighted items mentioned are the property of their respective owners.

  Editing by Lisa Aurello

  Cover Design by Michelle Preast

  www.MichellePreast.com

  Front Cover Photo by MH Photography

  http://on.fb.me/1HWjMQj

  Back Cover Photo by Delia D. Blackburn Photography

  http://on.fb.me/1GIJN3G

  Back Cover Model – Karolina Galuszynski

  Interior Design by Paul Salvette, BB eBooks

  bbebooksthailand.com

  Prison Access/Research/Photo shoot Location – Ohio State Reformatory

  www.mrps.org

  For James –

  Thank you for believing in me. Sorry if reading this makes you fear for your life when you fall asleep before me. Sleep with one eye open. Just kidding!

  Maybe.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Other books by Tara Sivec

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  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

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  “All things truly wicked start from innocence.”

  –Ernest Hemingway

  Summer of 1965

  Prologue

  I push my legs harder, my bare feet slapping against the wet earth and splashing through puddles as I weave in and out of the trees, the bright security lights around the edge of the property guiding my way into the woods. Branches and leaves smack into my face and slice across my arms, but I ignore the slashes of pain, swatting them away as I run faster. Icy rain drenches me, dripping into my eyes and a loud clap of thunder rumbles above me, but I can still hear the angry shouts not far behind.

  I have to keep going. If I’m caught, I’m dead.

  As I move deeper into the woods, the fluorescent lights guiding me disappear, plummeting me into profound darkness. Tripping over a tree root, I slam face first into the mud, my body shrieking in protest as pain shoots through me.

  No time to hurt, no time to rest. Keep going.

  Footsteps splash through the mud, getting ever closer, the voice growing more furious as threats are screamed at me. I scramble up from the muck and keep running, lightning lending brief flashes of illumination so I have some idea of where to go.

  This isn’t fair. I did the right thing, but no one will ever be convinced of that. Secrets never stay buried—they should have known that. So many lies, so much pain and they just DIDN’T CARE! I made things right and now I’m going to be punished for it.

  “YOU WILL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID!”

  The enraged voice echoes through the woods, pushing me to keep going even though I can’t catch my breath and my muscles throb with every step. The woods become denser until there’s nothing but pitch black surrounding me. Lightning no longer penetrates the thick canopy and I halt in my tracks before I run smack into a tree. Holding my breath, I wait and listen, my heart hammering inside my chest.

  There’s no more shouting, no more pounding feet, only rain battering the trees and splashing into the muddy ground all around me. I wait it out for a few seconds.

  Only quiet.

  Relief washes through me. It’s too dark, too muddy, too wet and too hard to find someone who will do anything to get away. My short-lived relief quickly gives way to rage. Years of pain, humiliation and scars that will never heal and just because I forced them to see the consequences of their lies, I’m going to be tossed aside once again like I’m nothing to them.

  A twig snaps to my left and the adrenaline raging through my bloodstream forces me to whip around to confront the monster in the woods. My eyes strain through the darkness to discern a shape, but it’s different from the one that was chasing me. Maybe I’m not going to die out here. I should be happy that I’m no longer alone in the woods with the devil at my back, but I’m not. There are always consequences to doing bad things, even if done for the right reasons.

  Before I can command my feet to move toward the shape—the safer of the two evils—I hear another sound in the opposite direction and foolishly turn my head. Something heavy and solid crashes against my skull and I feel myself falling. Darkness descends over me one last time, covering my eyes, clogging my ears and stealing the breath from my lungs.

  Nothing will ever be the same again.

  Nothing will ever be good again.

  It will all be bad.

  Bad

  Bad

  Bad.

  Chapter 1

  “Ravenna, it’s good to see you up and about.”

  I stand in the alcove that leads to the east cell block, the jangle of keys on the large brass ring my father holds as he unlocks the row of cells on the first floor echoing in the cavernous room. Strange as it sounds, my family lives in a prison. I’m sure there�
�s a joke hidden in there somewhere considering my current mental state and the memories my mind has conveniently locked away from me, but I’m too on edge to think anything is funny. The Gallow’s Hill State Penitentiary, built in 1886, is where my family has lived since my father was hired as the warden over twenty years ago. He was brought on in the middle of a high-profile class-action lawsuit filed by the prisoners claiming inhumane conditions and abuse from guards and the former warden. Even with my father’s positive changes and new regulations to safeguard the prisoners, the state ruled in favor of the inmates and the Gallow’s was forced to close its doors five years after he took over.

  “The next tour of the facility is in thirty minutes and Ike hasn’t shown up yet. How many times have you told me to fire him and get a new tour guide?”

  My father chuckles as he pulls down a heavy steel lever and the entire row of rusty cell doors slowly creaks open. I wish I could laugh and share the joke with him but the truth is that I have no idea how many times I might have had this conversation with him in the past. My hand unconsciously reaches up to my forehead and the tips of my fingers graze the small bandage held there with medical tape. According to my parents and the doctor, the bump hidden beneath the white gauze is to blame for the confusion and overall uneasy feeling I’ve had since I woke up two days ago.

  Sitting alone in my room for the last few days with nothing to occupy my time while I healed, I tried to force the memories that were buried deep in my subconscious. Scenes from my life flashed behind my eyes at random times, each one of them so fleeting and confusing that as soon as I attempted to reach out and grab one, it disappeared faster than I could take my next breath.

  Stepping into the vast five-story-tall room, I walk past my father and look inside each cell as I go, wondering about all of the criminals who spent time here long ago and why my father was so intent on making us live here after the prison shut down. Having no other family to help us and no other job prospects when the prison was closed, my father convinced the state to turn the facility into a historical site and tourist attraction. We could continue to reside in the living quarters attached to the prison as long as my father agreed to manage the upkeep and run all tourist activities. With people around the world fascinated by the prison’s history, as well as those who believe the tales of it being haunted, our tours are always sold out. It makes the state happy because the money this place brings in is a nice chunk for them, and it makes my father happy because we’ll always have a roof over our heads, regardless of how strange the contents under the roof are.

  The sound of my footsteps on the cement floor echoes around the giant room. Glancing up as I walk, the setting sun streaming in from the tall windows illuminates with an orange glow each of the five open levels that mirror the first floor. Row after row of paint-chipped cell doors stretches out in front of me as far as the eye can see. The only difference on the upper floors is the addition of metal railings to protect people from falling to their death when they walk along the narrow three-foot ledge in front of the cells. Not that it helped much back in the day, since there were plenty of reports of accidents that probably weren’t accidents at all, considering why the Gallow’s is no longer a working prison today. Still, the railings provide some comfort to tourists as they precariously walk the ledges of each floor and stare into the rooms where murderers and rapists spent the remainder of their days.

  Stopping in front of one of the cells, I stare inside the shadowed six by eight room. Everything in the Gallow’s was kept exactly as is when it was closed to add to the eeriness factor and keep tourists coming back. Some cells are in worse condition than others—everything from crumbling stone walls to holes in the floor from an attempt at fixing the plumbing—but for the most part, each cell contains a toilet, sink, and the metal frame of a bunk bed. A few even contain crude drawings, etched words of help, or slash marks indicating how many years the prior inhabitant spent inside that room. On the stone wall right above the toilet of the cell I’m standing in front of, a satanic face stares back at me, complete with horns and a forked tongue sticking out of its mouth. The words “You will pay for your sins” directly above the face makes my heart beat faster, but not in fear. Laughter bubbles up in my throat and I have to cough to hold back my abnormal reaction to the nightmarish drawing that I feel like I’ve stared at a hundred times before. It’s etched into my brain and I can almost feel my fingers tracing over the words on the cold stone.

  My father’s voice breaks into my thoughts. “Are you okay, Ravenna? I can’t even remember the last time you were in one of the cell blocks.”

  It seems odd to hear my father say he can’t remember me ever being in this area. I knew that drawing was in that particular cell and I walked right up to it, knowing it would be there. There’s a feeling of familiarity in here, like I’ve walked up and down the rows of cells thousands of times, memorizing each and every one. I drag my gaze away from the words that inspire in me an unnatural urge to laugh to watch my father walk toward me.

  “Even when you gave tours, you’d stand in the doorway to give your speech and let the visitors explore on their own. You said this area gave you the creeps and you refused to walk inside.”

  I guess that sounds more like me. At least more like the me I’ve been told I am, instead of the one who wants to laugh in the face of Satan and his ominous message. I know I should be rubbing away goose bumps on my arms like a normal person would, staring into the small rooms where the most violent offenders in the state, going all the way back to the Civil War era, lived and died, but that’s the problem. I don’t feel like a normal person. I don’t feel like the girl everyone keeps telling me I am.

  “That’s what I always loved about you,” my father continues, staring blankly above us at one of the tall windows. “Even after living here all your life, you never grew immune or indifferent to this place like the rest of us. You still felt bad about the horrors that happened here before our time and they affected you deeply. You felt everything so much more keenly than anyone I’ve ever met.”

  I’m the eighteen-year-old daughter and only child of Mr. and Mrs. Tanner Duskin. My grandparents were Russian immigrants and moved their family to the United States to give them a better life when my father was just a baby. I graduated at the top of my class in high school last month and received a full ride to Brown University to study literature. I was the president of every academic club they would allow me to be and I have a very limited number of friends because someone with my extracurricular schedule didn’t have time for a large group of people in her life to distract her. I wear sensible clothes that never draw attention to myself, and my long, black hair is always kept in a thick braid that trails down to the middle of my back. I have my mother’s fair skin and bright green eyes and my father’s serious disposition and hardworking nature. And I’m deeply affected by the things that happened in this prison, I guess.

  These perfunctory facts are what I’ve been told about myself the last few days when I woke up in a state of confusion from a two-day coma. They are the list of my attributes, given to me by my mother as if she were reciting a grocery list.

  “We need eggs, milk and bread. You have my eyes, a good head on your shoulders and you’re the most perfect daughter anyone could ever ask for.”

  This is the reason why I’ve stopped asking questions and I pretend as if nothing is amiss in my addled brain. These are the facts I’ve been told and the only truths anyone will give me about myself. This is the girl my parents raised and the girl they pinned all of their hopes and dreams on.

  This is also the girl my father speaks about in past tense, as if she doesn’t exist anymore, even though I’m standing within touching distance of him.

  “I think I’m going to head back up to my room before anyone gets here,” I tell my father, keeping my eyes focused on him, instead of back inside the cell where they want to go.

  “That’s probably a good idea. You’ve had a rough couple of days.”
>
  He turns away from the window and opens his arms to me. I hesitate for a moment before walking into them. When I do, I bury my face in the lapels of his black suit coat and inhale his scent: peppermint from the mints he always keeps in the inside pocket of his coat and the faint, fruity smoke from the pipe he sneaks when my mother isn’t at home, and the reason for the peppermints.

  My father is a tall man and my cheek barely reaches his chest as I wrap my arms around his waist. Eighteen years of hugs, eighteen years of comfort and yet it feels like this is the first time he’s ever held me this tightly.

  A wave of uneasiness suddenly washes over me and instead of feeling comfort in my father’s arms, I feel trapped and claustrophobic. I quickly pull myself out of his embrace and back away from him. He looks down at me sadly, his arms still held open from my quick departure. I force a small smile on my face before turning and walking quickly through the door to take me away from the cell block. Once I’m out of my father’s view, I pick up the pace and jog through the rooms and hallways that intersect, leading me away from the main area of the prison and toward the lobby where I can then take the stairs up to our living quarters. I pass the guard stations, prison showers, and administrative offices as I go, all of them empty with peeling paint on the walls, cobwebs, and a quiet eeriness about them. I know the way through these halls like the back of my hand and I can recite the history and violent acts that happened in each room, but I can’t explain why I woke up covered in bruises and scratches, with a headache that, two days later, still rages behind my eyes.

  Turning the last corner that will take me into the main hallway by the front doors and gift shop, my body slams into something solid and I stumble backward. Strong hands wrap around my upper arms, jerking me forward before I can fall on my ass. Glancing up quickly, I peer into a set of beautiful pale blue eyes. They mesmerize me for a few seconds until the hands gripping my arms suddenly push me away. I stare at the man standing in front of me, feeling a spark of familiarity when I look at him. He looks to be in his twenties and is wearing faded jeans and an old band t-shirt covered in specks of dirt. His blonde hair is cut short on the sides and longer on top, a few shaggy tufts falling down over one eye as he looks at me. Even with a thick lock of hair obscuring some of his face, I can still see his eyes narrow in annoyance at me.