Dark Rage

By Iman Llompart

Astra Ariany Welsh is a biracial woman who can only express herself through aggression and anger. She starts to wrestle to release her frustrations but soon after starts to suffer from blackouts and hurts people during them. As her "rages" become a part of her, she beats and kills a cop, which immediately lands her in jail.

Cole Hanson's life has been riddled with secrets and regret but refuses to let that affect his charming and approachable personality. After five years of trying, he is finally able to release Astra from prison even though she is Cole's fathers murderer. Cole thinks Astra is innocent, but why?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 16, 2015
• ISBN: 9781514409817

Iman Llompart

I was born in Spain and raised in Mexico. I am biracial, so I like to explore those kinds of relationships in my writing. I am also very interested in human behavior and emotional vulnerability. I connect with characters who have problems expressing their emotions and I like to come up with reasons or scenarios as to why that is the case. I relish diversity and uniqueness and I hope my writing expresses that.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

You are a monster! a middle-aged woman yelled from the back of the courtroom.

You deserve to burn in hell! someone else shouted.

The room was filled with angry onlookers and family members of the victims. As the perpetrator was led through the double doors, she heard people starting to chant. She could hear the judge trying to silence the crowd as she was taken down the longest hallway of her life to face her fate.

Astra Ariany Welsh woke up with a gasp. She sat up in her dirty, uncomfortable twin bed and looked around. She felt her heart sink when she realized that her dream wasn’t a dream but a nightmare. She was in an eight-by-ten cell with three dirty gray brick walls and a door. The bed was up against the right side of the wall, the sink was on the left side of the cell, and the toilet was behind the head of the bed. All in all, her accommodations seemed quite comfortable. She figured she needed to have a bit of her dry humor to keep from going into the depths of insanity. Astra flopped back down on the uncomfortable bed and stared up at the ceiling. She had been in solitary confinement on and off for the better part of her sentence served, which, at the moment, had been three years. She was twenty-two when she was thrown into this dump. It looked like she was going to waste in here not only in her twenties but also for the rest of her life. As the years passed, this idea became more and more concrete to her. She would rot in here and leave nothing for her family to be proud of.

All of a sudden, Astra could feel the tears welling up inside, and try as she might, she couldn’t stop them from coming out of her tormented dark-brown eyes. She allowed exactly three tears to roll down her caramel-colored skin before she wiped them off furiously with the palms of her hands.

Don’t cry, she whispered. She couldn’t help but smile as she thought for the thousandth time how ironic it was that her initials spelled AAW when she was anything but. When she was young, she was incredibly happy, back when she was a child and stupid. She wished she could somehow blame her childhood on her present conundrum, but her parents were nothing but kind, and everything was almost idyllic. After she hit her teenage years, everything changed, and she learned to express herself through anger. The rejection from her family had done this to her. Everything she projected out into the world screamed aggression, coldness, and rage, so she thought it was completely screwed up that her initials portrayed something that was the complete opposite.

Fucking tangles, she muttered as she smoothed her shoulder-length dark curly hair with her hands. She sat up and swung her legs over the side of the bed. She had nothing to do but kill time, so she decided to tackle her tangles.

She was in the middle of pulling the tangles out when she saw a tray sliding under the metal door to her cell.

Thanks a fucking lot! she yelled. She watched the shadow of the boots walk away from the bottom of her door before she made her way over to the tray. As usual, what was in it was some sort of brownish gunk in a metal bowl with a spoon and water in a plastic cup. She sat back on her bed and put the tray on her lap.

Astra ate her delicious meal and washed it down with the water. She made a face and shook her head from side to side. Ugh, how can you fuck up water?

Astra got up and slid the tray halfway under her door. She made her way back to her bed, undid the covers, and got in. She pulled the sheets up to her chin and screamed. She used to be able to take her frustrations out with wrestling, and she was good at it; people knew who she was, but now, she barely had contact with anyone, and violence was what got her locked up in the first place. Sometimes, she did simple workouts to keep her sane, but letting out a good, healthy, angry scream every night always left her tired and made her feel more at ease.

The next afternoon, Astra was let out of solitary for a few hours to get a little bit of daylight and air. She was looking forward to it. There was very little to no daylight in her cell, and it depressed her to no end, like it would with any other human being. She made her way to the yard, where it seemed most of the inmates were hanging out. They were all grouped up, and she was the odd man out, but she was used to it. A lot of the inmates were wary of her. She found an empty table and sat down. She started to feel dizzy, and she was used to the feeling. She had been getting dizzy spells since she started wrestling. She looked around and made eye contact with a pretty blond white girl who was giving her the evil eye.

What the hell are you looking at? Astra snarled.

You, you trash, the blonde responded as she made her way over to her. That was the last thing Astra saw before her world went black. When she came to, she was straddling the blonde and was pulled off by a guard. She tried to claw and wrestle her way off him, but he didn’t let her go. He was tall, big, and never smiled. The guard knew Astra well; he was assigned to her and always had to break her away from fights, which was pretty often. Although he dealt with her quite often, he knew for a fact that Astra didn’t know anything about him. Their relationship was a forced one, so they only spoke to each other when absolutely necessary. He dragged her away from the yard, but instead of taking her back to her cell, he took her to the visiting room.

Why am I here? The guard didn’t respond and just pushed her over to a chair. She plopped down on it and saw someone coming through the clear screen that separated the inmates from their friends and family. As the person got closer, she couldn’t help but stare. When he was about five feet away, she realized her mouth was open and quickly closed it. There was a man making his way to her slowly, like he had all the time in the world. He looked familiar, but she brushed the thought away. He was about six feet tall with light-brown hair and wore light-blue jeans with a long-sleeved navy sweater that accentuated his muscles. He reached the chair and smiled at her before he pulled it back and sat down. Astra could now tell that his eyes were blue and that he had a strong jaw and a nicely shaped mouth and full lips. He picked up the phone on the right side of his booth, and Astra did the same; she noticed that he had a genuine look of concern on his face.

Are you OK? Cole questioned.

Astra had a look of shock on her face, and then she felt something trickle down her nose. She wiped it off her upper lip and saw that it was blood. She quickly masked her shock with anger. What do you care?

The man seemed to be completely unfazed by her anger. Because you are bleeding. Wouldn’t any normal person care?

Not a stranger, Astra responded.

Oh, yes, sorry, where are my manners? My name is Cole Hanson. I was at your trial.

Astra immediately stiffened and almost dropped the phone.

You were convicted for assault and for murdering my father.

CHAPTER 2

The guard dragged Astra through the dimly lit hallway to her holding cell, surprised that she wasn’t putting up a fight. She was so shocked at what had transpired that she didn’t notice she had been thrown into her cell until the metal door clanged shut.

She walked over to her cot and plopped down, exhausted by the day’s events. She ran her hands over her face in frustration. Cole never told her why he was there or why he had seemed glad to see her, his father’s killer. He just didn’t make any sense. Already she knew that Cole was different from anyone she had ever encountered, and she didn’t like it because it meant she was curious about him.

Thank God I won’t ever see him again, or I could really get into trouble, she muttered to herself.

*     *     *

Astra was sitting on the dirty floor of her room with her back against the foot of her bed when the door opened. Her trusty guard was at her door with the clothes she had been arrested in. He walked in and set them on her cot.

Get dressed. You are free to go. The guard walked out and waited for her by her door.

Astra’s eyes widened for a second before she put her stoic mask back on. She dressed quickly and was escorted all the way to the entrance of the prison. The gate was opened and then closed behind her when she was on the other side. She couldn’t believe it. She was free! Astra looked behind her and saw the sign Blackedge Correctional Facility and turned back around. She was standing on a rubble road, and across from the facility was a dense amount of tall green trees. The prison was basically out in the middle of the wilderness, in the middle of nowhere. She felt a little sadness wash over her; this view was beautiful, and she knew she was never going to see it again. She closed her eyes and took a breath of fresh air and, for a second, felt at peace. That feeling was ripped away when she started to panic. She was out in the world now, cut loose. What the hell was she going to do? Before she could go into a full-blown attack, the sound of tires crunching on gravel made her bounce back to reality. A beat-up maroon Jeep Cherokee was making its way toward her, slowing down at the last second before making a full stop. Through the passenger side window, she saw a man who seemed to be in his late fifties. He had unkempt dark-brown hair and a full-grown beard and mustache. He was wearing a dirty plaid shirt and had a toothpick in his mouth. The man didn’t even turn to look at her as he leaned over and thrust the passenger seat door open.

Get in, he rasped.

Uh-uh, she said, backing away from the car. I don’t know you. Do you think I am stupid?

You must’ve done something pretty stupid to end up here.

Why don’t you get the hell out of here before things get ugly.

And what do you think you are going to do? We both know your parents aren’t coming.

"What do you know