Battered Butterflies

By Chastine Perkins

Everything has been taken from Olivia; her parents, her friends and now her freedom. When she is kidnapped, she finds herself hidden away in an underground cavern full of missing children. It becomes very clear that she is in danger. Given the situation, she must surrender to her captors or fight; fight for her life, fight for her freedom and fight for the man she loves.

Damon is a troubled teen who finds himself working in a sex ring. He is a guard whose duty is simply to see that order is kept; the boss demands obedience and structure. However, when Damon is put in charge of the lovely, but irate Olivia, he is faced with a terrifying challenge.

A simple task turns into life or death--kill or be killed.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chastine Perkins
• Release date: Jan 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781301677436

Chastine Perkins

An avid reader and writer. Chastine is working on the second book to the Chained series, along with several other projects. Battered Butterflies should be released in stores, as a paperback, around March. You can follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Chastine.Perkins.AuthorShe is living in Mt. sterling with her lovely family, where she attends college and continues to work and write.

Book preview

Battered Butterflies

By

Chastine Perkins

Smashwords Edition Published by Chastine Perkins

Battered Butterflies

Copyright © 2012 by Chastine Perkins

This book is completely fictional and any resemblance to people-no matter the state of life, places, or events is purely coincidental. The characters are products of the author’s mind and used fictiously.

Mature Rating (Some language, sexual content, violence.)

I would like to thank Brynne Hubbard and Angie Penix, my spirited editors, for reading and rereading my story until they were sick of it. Brynne’s criticism made me stay up for hours into the morning correcting, redoing, and writing over. She pointed out my mistakes and encouraged me to fix, rewrite and redo. Ms. Angie kept me from the painful heartache of spelling mistakes and saved me from my back country grammar.

Without these two my book would just be short moments written on discarded paper and gathering dust on my USB drive. I want to thank everyone on fiction press for telling me what fit and what didn’t, for opening my eyes when I was getting sloppy.

I hope you enjoy the book as much as I enjoyed writing it. I beg that you take into consideration that this is my first novel and while it is not my best, I hope that you enjoy it anyway.

Prologue

Life as I had known it had been crushed in one night; fallen and shaken from me. I can only recall it- as I may or may not have remembered it; trauma tends to mold the memories. I could say, though, that I was an average girl, high school student and I made very good grades; I had lots of friends but a very superficial outlook on life.

The night when that life, my life, changed was also the Night I would be reborn as a new person. I had never thought anything bad could happen to me, a girl raised up in the presence of God; a God who loved all his children and qualified the called. I would also admit that I was perhaps a little reckless in my freedom years when I was still innocent and not hunted.

A lot of things have happened, all of which shaped and molded my person. I believe everything happened for a reason; from being born, to falling in love, getting hurt, and even worse The Event.

Live, because I want you to.

Chapter One

Before…

The obnoxious bell rang in my ears for the hundredth time today, screaming at me that I was late, all except this one which was dismissing us. Thank God, I mumbled. I was anxious to get home, to get away from this. Posters of this evening event were plastered to every wall like the flu; Lance was having a party. He was the quarterback and every girls dream; short blonde hair and, muscular. Every girl drooled over him and swooned at his smile, I mean he was gorgeous.

Out the doors I immediately spotted Clara. She was sitting on the back of her mustang, taking in the warm rays of the sun. Olivia! She waved and continued to gawk at school boys. She was incredibly skinny, tan, beautiful, and she knew it. As I approached I could see that she was actually letting her toes dry from a pink disaster. They look horrible don’t they? I don’t have time before the party to have them done, so I had to do them myself. She gave a sad face but I shook my head.

Forget my unloving feet, what are you going to wear? She hopped down and twirled me in her arms, making me dizzy. Her hair floated behind her in the wind and I couldn’t help but think that she looked like a model. I’m thinking a long, sexy dress. She stopped and made a grand sweep over the length of my body. Long dresses made my gag reflex active. Ok maybe not long.

Clara, I’m not going to the party. I have a ton of work to do. It wasn’t the fact that I actually had work to do, it was more of the fact that I was tired. I needed to get home and if I got bored then I could help out at the club.

Awe, don’t be like that, you haven‘t had any fun since your parents left and besides Lance will be there. She pointed in the direction of a huddle of senior football players throwing a ball. Each one looked as if they could possibly be sporting steroids. Tall, hunky, men were not my type, although as a girl I couldn’t help notice the muscles.

Shaking myself back to reality, I dropped my gaze and set my mind again. No, besides someone has to go somewhere in life. I hated boys, they all were dogs and that was never going to change; Ever since the event I haven’t looked at another boy in that way.

Oh, you mean go to college right? I’m gonna live a perfectly good life with a professional football player as a husband to take care of me. I don’t need college. I looked at my now defensive friend. She was determined to be a trophy wife and she could be, if she wasn’t so damned crazy.

I totally support that, I’m just wondering what if, what if all those guys were in a horrible stadium freak accident and all die? Who will you marry then and who will take care of you? I made a cynical remark, one that would hit her at home. If she was focused on her future then she wouldn’t be focused on me.

Without any notice a brown ball came flying out of nowhere, landing at our feet and a feeling of dread hit me in the face. Oh my gosh, I’m so sorry. Did he hurt you? I had found myself instead of being angry, lost; his stupidity amazed me. It was as if I was the concrete, yes the ball hurt me. God men were stupid, and had bad communication skills.

Uh, yeah. I’m fine, totally fine. He wasn’t that cute up close, I could see the nasty olive green in his eyes, his tan looked splotchy like he laid out in the sun unevenly. Let me see. I took note to the football boys snickering and I could see Clara’s evil grin, she would make an argument out of this.

The ball hit my feet. He glanced at the football that was sitting between us, aware that he was making a fool of himself. There should be a class taught for guys who want to pick up girls and can’t, who get by only on their looks. He smiled as he brushed some stray