Falling - On the Banks of Lake Saint Clare (Falling - Book One)

On the Banks of Lake Saint Clare

F
alling

By Ellisa Clare Reese

Copyr
ight 2012.
All rights resersrved. No part of this book can be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission
of Ellisa
Reese Publishing, except for brief quotation and articles and reviews.

This book is
dedicated
to

My wonderful children
–

Kayla, Seth and Ben

Special thanks to
my
dear friends Jana and Alyssa Osterhout
for surviving my countless hours of
my endless
editing in
St. Louis
. To my dance
family
that have had to listen countless hours about the book
.
A future thank you to all the customers
and employees
at the store
,
who will have to listen to my countless hours talking about my book.

And most of all
,
the biggest thank you to Erica Campbell
-
Price for believing in the book so much that she pushed me hard to get to this point. And for her wonderful
cover.

Love to you all!

* * *

“This is only a nightmare, Alex, just wake up. Just wake up.” I kept telling myself. You can do this. Just open your eyes and make this nightmare go away.”

I could see him push his jeans over his hips and felt him spread my legs apart. “He’s going to kill me. He’s going to rape me and kill me.

I started choking. With every cough, I could feel what seemed like gallons of blood pouring out of my mouth. I fell back to the ground, feeling my head hit the cement, but didn’t feel any pain with the impact. My throat started closing up from all the blood gushing down it. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t get even one more breath. I tried coughing again, but it seemed I was even too weak to cough. “Please, don’t let him rape me. Please, don’t let him touch me anymore. I tried to roll over so I could quit choking on all the blood, but I kept feeling him forcefully push me back. Think Alex. Think of what else you can do to fight him. I was so exhausted and feeling more and more dizzy as I felt blood gushing from my head. I realized I couldn’t feel the pain any longer. The pain was completely gone, only cold. It felt like I was being immersed in frozen water.

I faintly heard someone say,” Is she dead?”

“
Yeah,
I think so,” he said, breathless, covering my mouth.

“
Don’t waste your time.
She’s pathetic.”

I tried to open my eyes, hoping he was gone. I was so cold, “I am so sorry, Michael. I tried to fight. I really tried to fight. Oh my God, I’m going to die.”

“
Abbie
! Call 911!” I heard my friend,
Kaitlyn
screaming.

I tried to open my eyes to see what was going on but I couldn’t move.
My body was completely frozen.

“My friend needs an ambulance fast!” I heard
Abbie
screaming hysterically. “We’re
i
n the alley! In the alley! Hurry! Please Hurry! Alex, please tell me you are alive!.... I don’t know the address, it’s the alley behind the feed store….I am calm!” I heard her scream. “I don’t know…What do I do?....
Abbie
Jackson….Alex Dillard…., she’s 17….I don’t think she’s breathing ….There is so much blood…..I can’t tell where its coming from
.
There is just too much…..She is really bad….I can’t tell….I don’t know….Please, please, hurry…I think she’s dead… I hear the ambulance… they are here….Thank you!”

A man said. “Alex? My name is
Kent
. I’m a first responder. I’m here to help you. Can you open your eyes? Alex?
She’s not breathing.
”

I felt bright light shining in one eye and then the other.

“Pulse is really weak. She’s lost a lot of blood. Turn her over. Back over,” the man said. “Lift.”

I heard another siren and a door slam. I wanted to know what all the excitement was, but I couldn’t move. I kept thinking it had to be a dream

“Is she going to be ok,”
Kaitlyn
was crying. “We let her leave alone. It’s out fault! Where are you taking her?” I heard
Kaitlyn
crying harder. “Alex, we are so sorry!”

“Sir, you are going to have to stand back.”

 
“Please, just give me one second with her, please,” I heard a familiar voice say, “Alex, you have to fight for me. You have to do this for me. Don’t you dare stop fighting.

”* * *

Chapter one

The first time I saw Michael we were at the local grocery store my family owned. He was shopping with his mother. It was so adorable watching this huge guy walking through the store with his mom, trying to pick the best tomatoes, sorting coupons and checking prices. While I was waiting for my Dad to get off work, I followed him, wondering who he was, mesmerized by everything about him.

I called my best friend, Erica while they were on aisle nine, “This guy is a totally hot. He’s really tall, taller than anyone in this town.” I peeked around the corner, watching him talking to his mom. She was laughing and playfully slapped his arm “Michael, behave yourself!” He started laughing, which made me smile. He instantly went from hot as hell to totally adorable in less than a second. “I don’t know how to put it, but he is my new dream guy.”

“Like your new wet dream guy, you mean?” Erica laughed.

“It’s very safe to say that,” I blushed as I walked past him. Even though I knew there was no way he knew what we said, it still embarrassed me.

“Dad’s going to freak out when he sees I knocked half the pork and beans display over while getting a better view. It’s a good thing there is no camera on aisle three.”

“Oh gosh
.
Erica,” I sighed
,
peeking around the Pepsi tower, “he has the most amazing body I have ever seen in my life. He’s got the most beautiful brown skin and his hair is buzzed, not bic'd and shiny, just a simple buzz with the right amount of stubble. Erica, I have been stalking this guy for thirty minutes and now they are getting ready to check out.”

“Take a picture!”
S
he yelled
.
“Take a picture.”

I walked to the side of the register, hoping I wasn’t being noticed. I pretended to look at the gum, slowly raising my phone to snap it. “Got it,” I said to Erica and hit send.

“Wow,” I heard her say a few moments later. “That is some awesome looking guy.”

I could hear the sarcasm in her voice. I looked at the picture and saw it was a picture of the top of my head.

“Crap, crap, Crap,” I said, watching them walk out the door.

“Oh well,” I sighed, “you will just have to trust me on it.”

“Are you ever going to learn how to use your camera? You have 500 pictures of yourself looking like a dumb ass. You always aim it at yourself.”

“I know, I know. I messed up because I was worried I’d get caught. Now I will never see him again and I don’t have a picture to fantasize with every night. Nice car,” I sighed, watching them pull out of the parking space. I realized I unconsciously followed him out of the store.

I stood on the sidewalk and watched the car move forward when our eyes met. He smiled at me, a kind of crooked smirk that made my heart skip a beat.

“Ask your dad to get you a video of him,” she suggested.

“That would go over great. ‘Uh Dad, I need you to burn a video of this super hot guy that was shopping here the other day so I can show Erica. And by the way, he’s a giant black guy.’ Did that sound racist?”

“Pretty much,” she laughed, “Hey, it’s worth a try,” she said, not getting it.

“The only thing I have to go on is that his name is Michael
,
his mom thinks he is hilarious because he was making her laugh the entire time they were here
and he has a nice car
. Erica, I swear this guy got me so turned on I probably would have let him take my virginity right in front of the Eskimo pies.”

I thought about telling my dad that I thought the guy had shoplifted so I could watch the camera.

Ugh. I can’t be that mean. To accuse a total stranger of shoplifting just so I could see him on camera. I sighed, watching the car pull onto
Main Street
and walked backwards toward the store.

“Hey,” I heard a woman yell right when I smashed into her; her groceries flying everywhere.

“I am so sorry,” I said, picking her stuff off the ground. “I broke your jar of pickles.”

“What’s your deal?”

“I’m sorry. I was distracted by so
mething. I’ll go buy you more.”

“I don’t have time to mess with it. Get your act together.”

I picked up the rest of the groceries and handed them to her. “It wasn’t on purpose,” I explained.

She grabbed them and stormed off.

The next day I went to work. Kendra, one of our cashiers stopped me, “Hey Alex, there was some extremely hot guy in here looking for you. At least I assume he was looking for you.”

“What did he say?” I asked, not really interested.

“He asked if I remembered seeing a beautiful short girl with long straight light brown hair and amazing eyes in here yesterday. He even sighed heavily after he said amazing eyes.”

“He did not,” I laughed.

“Well, he bought a Gatorade and left. Good gosh, he was super hot. If it was you he was looking for, you better hope he finds you.”

“I’m sure it wasn’t me. Oh no, I am late!”

I started running down aisle 2 toward the back of the store, dodging and weaving around the grocery carts and slung open the doors and hit the time clock.

“Alex! You’re late!” I heard my Dad yell from his office.

“Sorry,” I shrugged, seeing that I was two minutes late. “Kendra caught me at the door. It won’t happen again.”

“How can I make everyone else follow the rules when my own daughter is the one that breaks them all?”

“Breaks all the rules?” I wanted to ask. I was two minutes late, the first time ever late in two years, and probably his hardest worker. I had to be. My father owned the store and he had me, his daughter setting the example for all the grown-ups in the store. You’re seventeen; no pressure, Alex.

             
             
             
             
Chapter 2

“How come I’m not getting even one bar?” Erica held her cell phone in the air, waving it to the right then left, trying to get just one signal bar to show.

“Cause we never get service here,” I reminded her, like I do every time she complains. “I have one bar. Want to use mine?”

“I never get tired of sitting at the baseball park,” she said, “
e
xcept for the fact I can’t get a stinking signal!”

“Shhhh,” I said, handing her my phone. “Dad’s looking at us. Just use mine.”

“Look at that,”
Kaitlyn
said, pointing to the batter standing on the baseball field.

“Michael. Dang, he’s a dream,” I sighed, not able to take my eyes off him, and wishing I knew more about him. “How lucky can this town be to get that perfect specimen of a guy?”

“Hey
Abbie
,” Erica asked, “What did you find out about that other new guy in town?”

Abbie
sat up quickly, always wanting to be one up on everyone in the gossip ring. “His name is Brian and he is from
New York
. Cutest little accent and is a bit of a rebel I hear,” she added with a sarcastic tone. “Rumor is he got kicked out of
New York
.”