House of Steel Read Online Free PDF Page A

the
portrait. The rest of the small group of ten students had gone home
around five, meeting their families for dinner, but Mr. Rowan had
contended he would give her a ride and explain her tardiness to her
parents.
    As she had finished rounding the slightest
glint on the lamb’s eye, she had sensed the presence of Mr. Rowan
leaning in behind her. She had stepped forward, closer to the
painting, before she had felt the weight of his hand on her hip.
Delaney had jerked forward as he shushed her and wrapped his entire
arm around her waist, grabbing to pull her into him. She had let
out a gasp before he had covered her mouth with a piece of duct
tape. He had shook his head in disapproval as his eyes hardened
deep inside his blemished face. Those eyes. She could still see
those eyes.
    Delaney had squirmed beneath his arms as he
pinned her down, her small frame not matching his robust physical
strength. He had reached for a votive candle that had been burning
in a rack near them, setting the small glass jar next to her hair
that fanned across the concrete floor. She had screamed again to no
avail, the tape stifling any sound her throat willed her to
produce. She had kicked her legs, trying to wiggle her way free
when he had tilted the flame to the end of her hair. Delaney had
smelled her hair burning before he had snuffed it out with his
hand. Her hair. What would Ann Jones say about her hair?
    “Kick again, and I won’t put the fire out.”
His words had broken the fight. The smell of menthol had permeated
her nostrils as the cough drop clanked against his teeth. He had
unbuckled his pants, pulling them down before Delaney had realized
what was about to happen. She had caught a glimpse of the tattoo
inked on his neck, 1 John 1:9, before she had closed her eyes. Her
body had recoiled as she felt his calloused hands fondle her
developed chest. She had squeezed her eyes tighter. Let me go
home. Let me go home. He had poked and prodded her before she
felt the searing pain below her waist as he raped her. The tears
had poured down her shut eyes, wetting her hair next to her
temples. She had waited until he stopped moving back and forth to
open her eyes.
    “Now that wasn’t so bad, was it?” he asked
as he had stood up, buckling his pants. She had lain on the cool
slab, immoveable as her body bled while he merely handed her a
paper towel, indicating that she should clean herself up. Her mind
had screamed to her to run. Her body disobeyed.
    “And my precious, Delaney,” he had continued
in a low and steady voice as he kneeled next to her, “If you even
make a whisper about this, your family and friends will discover
that you are just a little whore. That you begged for sex in
church. You wouldn’t want that, would you?” He had run his fingers
along her face before he had stood up before the rack of votive
candles. He had lit another candle and bowed his head in
prayer.
    Delaney’s body had trembled as she
surrendered to his orders. She had climbed out of his car after a
silent six blocks and bit her lip raw as she walked the painful
steps to the front porch. Ann Jones had met her on the porch,
returning the wave to a smiling Mr. Rowan before he had driven off.
Later that night, with eyes steadied on her reflection in her
bedroom mirror, Delaney had chopped six inches from her flowing
locks much to her mother’s dismay. Ann Jones simply shrugged it off
to the rebellious teenage years. She was her first and only
daughter after all.
    In the following weeks, Delaney had made
every excuse to miss Mr. Rowan’s art classes that she had once
reveled in. She’d treaded cautiously every moment for three weeks,
only going to school and back home again with the guardianship of
her brothers, until the Tuesday morning she had seen his pitted
face on the news. The smells churned deep inside her. He had been
captured and charged with sexual assault and narcotics possession.
As she had gazed at the profile of her father watching the