The Break

By Ann Jet Sieg

Fifteen-Year-Old Nova has created a Self-Preservation guide that she has learned to live by. Not by her own choosing, but one of necessity. For five years, Nova has been on her own. Other characters come in and out of her life, but never stay. Pretty soon, Nova will embark on a tumultuous adventure that she has no power to control.
Will the young motorcycle club member that takes an interest in her be able to help?
This coming-of-age story is filled with unexpected, edge of your seat drama. NOTE: References to drug use, sexual situations and crude language are within this text.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ann Jet Sieg
• Release date: Mar 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311866219

Ann Jet Sieg

Author of Edge of Your Seat Fiction, practicing a philosophy of the simple life. Animal lover, cake baker, outgoing introvert that loves to play in the dirt. Would you like to come on an adventure with me?

Book preview

Chapter One

Henry and Ginger dropped me off in front of my house at three thirty-eight. A neat row of four shiny choppers lined our cracked driveway, blocking my mom’s beat-up old brown Ford Tempo that squatted in front of our dilapidated white garage.

I threw open the heavy wooden front door, letting it smack against the back wall. The guys I knew as Fat Gater and Latch looked up from the rickety laminate wood table that they stood by in the middle of the disheveled living room. Drugs were laid out on my black lacquer vanity mirror my sister had given me for my thirteenth birthday.

What seems to be the problem, Nova? Fat Gater asked in a hoarse voice-probably the result of sniffing drugs all night and day. Fat Gator wasn’t actually fat. He was thin with an oily pitted face, no facial hair and stringy brown hair pulled back in a ponytail. The black patch on the front of his greasy denim vest spelled: D.A. The large one on his back had their club name above a bearded skeleton holding a rifle with a green marijuana leaf background. Another patch bore his name: ‘Fat Gater’ embroidered in the same hue. The Dutch Assassins fell into the 1 percent category of motorcycle clubs that don’t abide by the law.

Hmm. I never have a moment alone with my mother who, by the way, is never sober enough to even know I’m there. Think that could be a problem? I retorted.

Latch leaned down and snorted the stimulant, wiping the white residue off of his beak of a nose with the back of his twitchy claw-like hand. With almost no hair on his head, save a shadow of silver stubble, he was the heavyset one of the pair that always rode together. Latch was a more pleasant of the two and talked like he might have been normal a long time ago.

I turned away from the dysfunctional duo and faced the cracked white painted door adjoining the living room. As usual, the circa 1920’s door remained sealed. Two more bikers loitered in the dingy yolk yellow kitchen that connected from the corner of the tiny living room. I walked past a scantily clad red-haired biker bitch that was passed out on our worn tan leather couch. My bedroom happened to be located at the back of our ancient kitchen. The fractured black and white linoleum floor squeaked in protest as I stomped into the kitchen.

The two younger inhabitants were quite good-looking. The newest member of the Dutch Assassins was Bolt from Shreveport, Louisiana. Bolt was nineteen, had short light brown hair, a thick brown mustache and gray eyes that crinkled when he laughed. He didn’t often speak, but when he did, it was with a southern accent that dripped with Cajun spice. His muscular shoulders extruded from a sleeveless black shirt portraying a topless biker bitch granting a blow-job to a frightful skeleton. That didn’t make sense.

Slither was twenty-something and had lengthy black hair peppered with streaks of premature gray that hung in thick ropes over his also bare and likewise powerful shoulders. The duo was inked up like their D.A. brothers and both donned greasy denim jeans. I’d never seen either one of them partake in drugs that everyone else in my house assumed to be fond of.

The pair was in mid-sentence, having a conversation about belt drives, when I attempted to slip past their intrusive forms. There was little space between Bolt and the dingy yellow wall for me to squeeze through, so I brushed the back of his tattooed arm while attempting to scramble into my room.

Hey there, Nova, Slither said in a creepy voice.

I’d love to stay and chat, but I have more important ways to spend my time…like watching my wallpaper peel, I mouthed off back to him.

I caught Bolt looking down trying to stifle a chuckle as he roughly wiped beer foam from his ample mustache.

You’re a mouthy little bitch. Just how I like em’! Slither called out to me as I slammed the door shut behind me.

My bed was a waiting cloud of billowy comfort. It took me in like a temporary shelter from the stormy madness happening right outside my bedroom door. I buried my head in my Russian-blue satin pillow, breathing slow and deep.

My decent room was one of the luxuries I could afford, thanks to my deceased grandma, Betty. My sister used her inheritance to run away. I used mine to create an alternate life… a life I could bear to pretend was really mine.

Typically, I wouldn’t see my mom until the sun set, but today she was in rare form. She barged into my room, letting the sick light of the kitchen/meth lab into my safe haven. Her raven black hair was in disarray. What used to be a smooth mane of black silk was now a shoulder length spray of thin ratty hair. The shadow of a woman bustled around my room in frantic motion as she yanked drawers open and partially shut them, leaving colorful bulging clothing remnants hanging in tumultuous drapery.

Mom! What the eff are you doing? I screamed as I jumped off my bed like a sprung maniac and ran to stop her from decimating the only decent items in the house.

She dropped a little, her bony shoulders hunched forward in anxiety.

I can’t find my ruby ring your father gave me, my fake mother muttered as she continued to dig.

I pulled her wasted milky arm behind her and reached towards her other wrist. She twisted away from me, resisting my interference while attempting to continue her fruitless mission.

What makes you think it’s in my room? I yelled into her ear.

She stopped squirming for only a moment and tried to look at me. Her once golden complexion was now sallow and dry. Her dark eyes were empty sockets of indifference.

I hid it in here.

I let go of her gaunt arm and just stood there as she went back to rummaging through my precious commodities. I was certain of why she had concealed it in here. She knew, at some point, if left to her own devices she would end up selling the ring for rent, or food, or even worse, to bail one of her boys out of jail. She might even be planning a trip that she would abandon me here alone for weeks, as she had done before. I hoped to God that was the case. Peaceful time in an empty house was too good to be true.

My mother didn’t need the valuable ring for drugs because the woman had an endless supply at her disposal. She also wouldn’t find the jeweled band. What my matriarch didn’t realize, in her incoherent state, is that I had organized my room so that if it were in here I would have run across it by now. She had already blanked out where she’d stashed the ring, or she already sold it a long time ago.

This wouldn't be the last time I'd have to clean up my mother’s wreckage. It sucked that I was the adult in the house and I wasn’t even of age.

The empty woman concluded her fruitless search and turned to leave without putting anything back in its rightful place.

Mom, I said without expectation.

She turned around hugging me with spaghetti arms, her vacant eyes scanning my bedroom. Her hair smelled like bitter oil and cigarettes. I squeezed her back. Even though she was a screw-up, I still needed a mom.

Self-preservation guide rule #1: Never believe people are inherently good. There is always a dark side.

Chapter Two

Like most typical weekday nights, I escaped my house around eleven o’clock, rapping on my best friend’s darkened window. My ally offered me a secure place I might get some sleep before school the next day. I knew oodles of teens, my age, who considered me lucky to have unbridled freedom but, to be honest, I just wanted parents that gave a damn about me staying out late.

The story I recall began when I was ten years old. To look at me back then, you would've likely believed I was some kind of self-centered rich bitch. But, who I was at home and who I portrayed at school were two different characters.

Our ruination began when my dad got himself committed five years ago. Before that, we were a passable brood: a father who complained about his dull job, played golf with his work buddies on the weekends and attended my school plays. Mom was a stay-at-home mother who hosted a women’s book club every Wednesday at six and never stayed out past ten. My parents didn’t carry on as if they loathed one another but, at the same time, I don’t recall them acting like they enjoyed each other, either. Ours was an uncomplicated existence, but it worked for us. Hell, our family was probably closer to normal than most, those days.

Now, my life is anything but safe or comfortable. Sometimes, when I think about what I might have done differently, my heart begins to pound and I start worrying that I won’t be able to quit going over everything in my head. My mind is like an endless dryer cycle containing a pair of smelly rubber soled shoes, driving me mad with the noise, and always falling the same way.

When my dad was admitted to the hospital, his doctors said he would be out in a couple of months. After he had returned home, I expected our routine to continue as before, but nothing was ever the same again.

I was just a little kid, having to call the cops on my own father who was convinced our neighbors, the Heizelmans, were witches. His personal vocation was persecuting the sorcerers before they invoked a curse on his family.

When the police arrived, they found him outside Mr. and Mrs. Heizelmans’ bedroom window, holding cute little me up to the glass. The cops immediately discovered fire starting supplies in the satchel he was carrying, and just like that, he was gone from my world.

Different psychiatrists have assured me that most people with schizophrenia are harmless, never inflicting personal abuse on others. Lucky me, I found out my father just happened to be in the small percentage of sufferers who would be likely to take their suspicions on the offense. I loved the medical terminology they spouted because it was all crap. They should have just called him what he was: a homicidal freak. Since he was a repeat offender, physicians concluded that he was a threat to society and locked him up. A year after my dad went away, my shell-shocked mom joined an outlaw motorcycle club.

Chapter Three

Okay, I can’t say my life has sucked the entire time. After all, I had a locale where everything was as it should be: Shaker Creek High School in Springfield, Missouri.

Everything that mattered to me happened because I made it happen. I excelled in school, was part of the elite crowd, and led the Drama Club and Choir… A self-made debutante, I was destined to be a famous singing actress.

My best friend was Ginger Smith and we’d been inseparable since the first grade when my family moved in the house seven doors down from hers. I question what might have happened to me if I hadn’t had Ginger to take me in. If I couldn’t have slipped into her bedroom at least four nights out of every week, I wouldn’t have been able to keep up my facade. I mean, I was glorified at school, but at home, that was another story.

Being removed from the scene was more desirable than being present when cops showed up to break up a squabble or to back up a noise complaint from the neighbor. A daytime visit from family services inevitably followed those nights I was there.

Most of the time, on the evenings I was at large, my mother didn’t even realize I was gone. If the police showed up, there was no kid for them to be concerned for, so she usually got slapped with a warning. The next day, she would completely forget I hadn’t been there. I kept waiting for her to get sent away to jail because her good karma had long been used up. I guess she was just freaking lucky that I was always on the lookout for her pathetic ass.

I have an older sister named Nora, who escaped the chaos four years ago when she graduated high school. Lucky me-I got left behind. She left town the minute she had her diploma in hand, and never looked back. Before our primary service was shut off, I would receive a telephone call from Nora about every six months when she checked to see if I still lived and breathed.

Sometimes, I could have sworn I heard stark disappointment in her voice that that I was still there. She probably thought I would have been better off running away like her, even at my age. The ironic part was, even though my sister never called to talk to her and didn’t even ask about her, my mother talked about her all the time.

Chapter Four

One morning at school, before things got…weird, I remember thinking to myself how glad I was that it was Monday. Most of my friends were occupied with grumbling about school or sending me Snap Chats reminding me of their teen-aged despair.

What I didn’t tell them: If attending that institution for twenty-four hours had been an option, I would have signed up for it in a heartbeat. My friends already thought I was a nut because of my relentless scholastic enthusiasm. Every time they teased me about it, I recall thinking: I’m not the one who’s crazy. If only you knew.

Ginger’s older brother Henry drove us to school that serene Monday morning. He was a free-thinking senior who didn’t feel like it was beneath him to drive his little sister and her best friend to school whenever she asked. I wouldn’t say he was exactly a hipster. There was no real category that Henry fit into. That’s why none of my friends appreciated Henry except for Ginger, and she was constantly bitching about him.

Being contrary wasn’t how you made friends at that school. But I guess it didn’t concern Henry because he’d been that defiant rust-headed boy since the day I met him. I respected him because he treated me as an equal, and I adored his sarcasm. I actually used some of his comebacks when he wasn’t around.

Ginger and I had separated into distinct cliques at the beginning of the school year. I didn’t know what or who had initiated her preference, but she didn’t want to be associated with the rest of my friends anymore. She claimed they were bloated snobs and that I was pretentious for hanging out with them. I couldn’t help it; being popular made me feel worthwhile. My brand-new status almost made up for all the strife I dealt with at home. I took painstaking measures to avoid any possibility that my friends might catch up with me at on my own turf (except for Ginger).

Not only had I persevered but also I was superb at being a deb. Even older students at Shaker Creek looked up to me; they acknowledged that I deserved respect. Behind those brick walls, was the only venue where I had some control over my chaotic existence.

The Riches also gave me hell for staying loyal to Ginger. The last time I invited Ginger to Botanas, our hangout, she had spent two hours trading insults with Laila and Veronica and it got ugly because all three were getting wasted. Personally, I think Ginger got the worst of it. Ginger never accepted my invitations back to Botanas again.

Laila Burton was the wealthy lush of the group. She legally changed her name from Laurel to Laila because she read somewhere it meant as intoxicating as wine. With a platinum pixie cut, Laila was a miniature bombshell. I had to admit, I was a little jealous of her inhibition.

Veronica Helmsley, a rich bitch with enormous breasts and poker-straight honey blonde hair, was quite promiscuous. Fortunately for her, she didn’t mind the slut title because she was the reigning queen.

I was the characteristic girl next door with long black hair, a natural tan and the only freshman of the group. I suppose I seemed like an old soul because I’d had to grow up faster than the other ninth graders.

Eric Morrison, the Varsity Letterman of the group, didn’t come from a wealthy background, but he was the best looking jock. Half Korean and half African-American, Eric was the embodiment of hotness and to top it off, he was intelligent.

Kurtis Farrow was also an athlete, his main sport being football, but his primary focus was acting. As my co-star in theater, Kurtis would likely become a renowned actor…just to prove he could. This was because he wouldn’t have to work a day in his life if he didn’t want to. His uncanny resemblance to my all-time favorite actor, Paul Newman, stole my heart. I was positively smitten.

That recollected Monday, I wore a silver Wildfox open-back sweater accented with a rose print tangerine silk scarf. Underneath, I sported a daring tangerine-laced Cosabella camisole and a pair of D&G jeans Veronica had given me because they were too small for her booty.

In first hour, it was an absolute requirement that students took notes for the World History test. Veronica, instead, insisted on blowing my phone up with texts about her latest tryst with a guy from an all boy’s school. Apparently, segregated boys were the most sexually repressed and most eager to please in our age group. I wouldn’t know because I was a true-to-life virgin. I was likely the only celibate deb in my clique unless the ladies were misrepresenting their conquests, and I highly doubted that.

Just to be clear, my virtuousness was