The Foundling

By James Kinsak

Josie escaped her life as a teenage prostitute but still bears the scars, including a damaged uterus, an inability to ever bear children. So when she finds a baby in a basket at the doors of a church, a sudden overwhelming need makes her take the child as her own. Then strange things begin to happen.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Fiero Publishing
• Release date: Dec 15, 2014
• ISBN: 9781502235381

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The Foundling

James Kinsak

Copyright © 2012

Published by Fiero Publishing

Cover art elements copyright © Dmitriy Melnikov / Fotolia

Cover and layout copyright © 2012 by Fiero Publishing

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real persons or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission of the publisher.

The Foundling

James Kinsak

Last chance, lollipop!

Dink’s gnarled hands grabbed Josie by her tee-shirt and she felt its cotton cut into her armpits like knives as he dragged her up from the bed. You get your skinny ass up and onto the street and turn some or you’re out! Hear me! He slapped her so hard that her head snapped sideways and she momentarily lost her vision, just saw gray and red, and her ears rang in a weird, loose pulsing—dingle-INGLE-ingle-INGLE…

I’m…I’m sick, she said when she caught her breath.

"Yeah? Well me too, Josie-poo. But you gotta do stuff. Got responsibilities." His breath was right against her face, his raw-boned body smothering her. She didn’t want to open her eyes. Everything hurt too much, from her nauseated tummy and aching joints to the new stinging and ringing in her head.

No…

"No? You saying no?" He wiped his hand over his crooked nose and mouth. "You say no to me again, bitch. Come on. Just say it!"

Then he was pinching and slapping her all over her body, making as much pain as he could without leaving marks, though there were always some. Josie just rolled with it, back and forth, crying out, her eyes streaming. Until finally Dink lost his patience and punched her so hard in her stomach that it was like she could feel something inside her detach. Some organ. Some part of her. Her uterus?

Her eyes flew open at the same time as her mouth and she spewed bile and the remains of her tiny breakfast of corn chips and salsa straight into Dink’s face. He threw himself backwards off her with a scream, banging his head on the dirty lino as he hit the floor, swiping at his already-messed-up face and eyes like a madman.

And some tiny part of Josie that wasn’t numb or screaming in pain made her roll off the bed and run. Survive. Because as soon as Dink was done wiping off her puke, he’d come after her again. He wouldn’t care anymore whether he left marks on his meal ticket. One of his meal tickets.

Bitch! she heard him screaming as she scrambled out the door and down the stairs of the walk-up—one floor, two—then "Cunt! Whore! [something]…dead!"

She reached the ground floor and