Empire Read Online Free PDF Page A

desire.
        
        "I don't hate you." She forced herself to say. "I didn't go out. Where would I go? I was here. I was watching TV- -"
        
        "Bullshit." Lee turned the recliner to face the television. "My DVD's still in there." One of his pornos. She'd never be caught dead watching that. Cheryl was busted.
        
        Lee smirked at her. His DVDs were all he had left, the rest of his things traded away for drugs. As such he spent a few hours of every day jerking off in his chair, usually while high, and Cheryl would get a beating if she happened to walk into the room. He'd probably sooner trade her away than that smut.
        
        Chewing the white pills from his jeans pocket, Lee swallowed them dry. "So, want to tell another lie, or just tell me who you've been fucking?"
        
        "I didn't do anything. I didn't go anywhere. Why don't you believe me?"
        
        Lee stood up. Trying the guilt card with him had been a mistake.
        
        His eyes clouded over and he gave her a familiar, numb look. Then the backhand sent her sprawling.
        
        Cheryl stayed on the floor while Lee yelled. Her ears were ringing but he was probably berating her for making him raise his hand. Tears stinging her eyes, she briefly considered telling him the truth. Fact of the matter was that Lee was all she had, the only one she could ever turn to - but he'd never buy the truth, not when she was a godless whore.
        
        She'd been raped four months prior while on a run to Midtown. Her attacker had worn a moth-eaten ski mask over his face, held her facedown in the refuse of an alley. Had whispered while he was inside her, "Could kill you where you lay bitch, feed you to the rotters. Kill you." He came on the word KILL and repeated it feverishly, then he melted into shadow and was gone.
        
        Cheryl hadn't known she was pregnant until that very morning, until the miscarriage.
        
        Thank God Lee had been passed out, because she had screamed to wake the dead, even with a rolled-up towel clenched between her teeth as she lay on the bathroom floor. She'd screamed even louder and cried and beat the tiled floor when it was over and she saw it. Transferring the towel from her mouth to between her thighs, she used another one to clean the mess and then wrapped it - him, her? - in a dinosaur blanket. Then she'd gone out to the landfill.
        
        What would Lee say if he knew?
        
        "I knew you weren't just getting fat, bitch. Fucking whore. Rape. Rape! Ha." He'd punctuate every word with his fists. Things would be worse than they'd ever been.
        
        "I..." She mumbled, though still unable to hear, "I heard a noise. A cat. I was just looking for it."
        
        "You better not have given any of our food to a fucking stray." He snapped. "I didn't." She replied. "I couldn't find him...I wouldn't have fed him anyway."
        
        "Goddamn right. I'd skin and eat the little bastard before taking him in. You better feel the same way, Cheryl, because I'm the provider here. I take care of YOU. You don't have a goddamn thing to be giving away to anyone." He dug his toe into her ribs, making her whimper. "Except that filthy cunt."
        
        He left her on the floor and went into his bedroom. She stayed there another hour, just to be safe.
        
        
    6.
    Dirt on Dirt
        
        The signage on the Holy Covenant Community Shelter was illegible, every letter of every word punctuated by bullet holes and smeared with crud. It was just as well, seeing how the shelter didn't have much left to offer. Just a roof and some blankets - there'd been a time when Reverend Palmer was able to convince her charges that such meager provisions were a blessing. Nowadays she could barely say it herself without bitter laughter.
        
        Oates, a bearded black man in his late sixties, was helping her