Inner Sanctum

Fractured Series

Book One

INNER SANCTUM

John Morris

Charlotte Greene

Dorset, England

Also by John Morris

Fractured Series

Inner Sanctum

Conspiracy Theory

Star Gazer First Trilogy

The Gatekeeper and the Guardian

The Twelve Tribes

The Wrath of Gaia

Star Gazer Second Trilogy

The Centaureans

Billie Steadman Investigates:

The Man in the River

Stand Alone Novels

Islamic State: England

Domicile

The Dreamer and the Dreamed

Copyright© 2014 by John Morris

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations used in articles and reviews

Printed in the United Kingdom (or country of purchase)

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the product of the author’s imaginations or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

Published by Charlotte Greene, Dorset, England

Editor in Chief: Susan Dewey beeberrywoods.com/FiberEtc/

Cover: L. Fabry lfabry.com

Cover girl

Photography: african_fi (Belovodchenko Anton) shutterstock.com/g/belovodchenko

Cover Girl: Alekseenko Oksana

Additional Graphics: Boris Junkovic

http://www.charlotte-greene.co.uk/Agents_BorisJunkovic.htm

Acknowledgements: Terry Dickerson, Monica San Nicolas

Dedicated to my wife, Siu Ying, & every woman who believes they do not live in a man’s world

Language: Fractured series, unlike all other work, is written in American English.

Official author website: www.john-morris-author.com

ISBN Print: 9781910711002

ISBN eBook: 9781910711026

Table of Contents

Foreword

Prologue

Chapter 1 – A Snake in a Different Skin

Chapter 2 – Gather ye rosebuds while ye may

Chapter 3 – In the Doghouse

Chapter 4 – Rosa’s Store

Chapter 5 – April Bekkons

Chapter 6 – A New Life

Chapter 7 – Confessions

Chapter 8 – There But for Fortune

Chapter 9 – Murder Charge

Chapter 10 – Rape in the Hood

Chapter 11 – Sick Society

Chapter 12 – Recuperation

Chapter 13 – Missing

Chapter 14 – Keeping Up Appearances

Chapter 15 – The Best Christmas Present Ever

Chapter 16 – Recurring Nightmares

Chapter 17 – Payback

Chapter 18 – A Bright New Tomorrow

Foreword

Who are you in your heart? Who will you become? Who will travel with you as your boon companion?

Shona Waverly is a fugitive from her mother's plans to sell her as a child sex slave. Searching for her own Inner Sanctum, she creates a family. Rosa becomes the mother of her heart, who teaches her the skills she needs to survive. Annaliese, a fellow seeker, is the sister who will fight at her side. Teves is their guardian. Through a change of identity, participation in the ROTC program, and the backlash of revenge, Shona and Annaliese have an opportunity to evaluate their roots and come to terms with the parents who should have guided them.

Inner Sanctum offers hope, help, and a model for those who struggle to raise themselves. Through confidential sharing, the girls form a formidable team, fighting against past and present injustices. Death, revenge, and remorse are just some of the milestones they encounter.

When Shona, now known as April, realizes that for her life to move on, she must confront her mother, Annaliese has words of advice. April, you don’t need a gun to go see your mother. But April is not so sure.

§

It is refreshing to read a book where the two main characters are strong female role models, and the main topic of conversation is not which boy they like. Although products of adversity, they never back down from any challenge, but rise to overcome everything the brutality life throws at them. It is notable that the supporting male characters never once take precedence; this remains the story of two adolescent girls from front to back cover.

Although categorized as Young Adult, Urban Fiction, the strength of the book, will appeal to a wide range of readers, both male and female.

The book flows seamlessly into Conspiracy Theory, the second book of the Fractured series. Book Two is a fast-paced mystery and espionage thriller, again featuring April and Annaliese as the main characters.

Prologue

Bill

"Do you think about sex all the time, Daddy?"

Bill looked up instantly at his precocious daughter, Shona, his life’s work. Emotions whirled in conflict, alarm, rage, and concern.

He blanched. All air and intelligence forsook him, as he gasped unusable atmosphere like a goldfish amid the shards of its shattered bowl. His sanity seeped away within the moment like water in the desert.

Thirteen-year old little girls should never ask fathers such questions. A new and uncertain look in her troubled eyes stifled his ostrich reflex. He looked at his baby, all senses aware. For the very first time he saw a young woman looking back at him.

His thoughts focused in that nanosecond parents have available to respond to life’s impossible questions. Instinctively, he knew this was a defining moment for his only child, a moment of bravery that begged immediacy, and delicacy, to soothe the heart unsure of taboo’s lines.

Knowing this, he did what any father would do, he scrambled for time. "Is this one of those protean, protein, or whatever you young girls label yourselves as these days, questions?"

She saw right through his imitation gruffness. Damn.

With what he hoped was bravado and not experience, she flippantly answered, "Oh Daddy, you are such a Crustic. The term is Proteen. It’s a girl who’s not legal, but all the men want her—what you would call jailbait, but a lot more aware. She sighed a bit wistfully and he started to relax. Then he heard her punch line. It’s going to be forever until I can legally have sex. You are very old, and know nothing about the world today, but I still love you, even if Mommy doesn’t anymore."

He was losing control of the conversation fast. In all honesty, he was unsure of even being able to see the reins. Blessedly, by luck, fate, or happenstance, she finally let him out of the corner, right before a potential T.K.O. of his parenting confidence.

Anyway, she rushed onwards, courage sapped by his obviously brilliant and deliberate ploy of saying nothing. "Tell me how often you think about sex, Daddy. Girl Magazine says it’s every seven minutes for a man, and that’s just gross. Yuck."

As her father, Bill was more concerned about why she was asking the question, rather than his response. She was still a child, for God sakes! Her budding chest, and recent flirtatious manners on monthly visit days, made him question. His baby was growing up.

He had to answer. He grasped the nearest straw his mind focused upon, Shona Waverly… He stopped, because his girl was asking for the truth. He looked up and locked her eyes to his own, both of them sharing some almost intangible inner commune.

In that instant, Bill knew what to do. He rose and asked his daughter to fetch him a sheaf of paper and pencils. He went through to the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door, looking down at the large bottle of Celebration Ale he had placed there some years back, and reached for it knowing time had moved on. He flicked the top and took a long slug.

The kitchen table was set into the corner, as his bike took center stage of this room he hardly ever used. He threw the seat on the frame, and covered the dismantled engine with the gas tank, knowing Shona would take the only free chair. His bulk dwarfed the Super Glide chopper, to which he had planned to add a touring pack.

Bill gulped his first bottle of alcohol in eighteen months, or was it twenty since She left him? He could never remember dates, but he remembered every detail of catching her running around on him, the rows that followed, and how wronged he still felt. His ego had taken a severe knock, but he realized in that moment, the time had come to reassert his manliness—he would once more live his life the way he wanted to.

Morosely, he reached over to the drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, and lit one. It was stale, but the heady rush was purifying, the first for three years. That was something else he had never been allowed to do when his ex-wife lived with him. Seated upon his Harley, ice-cold beer in one hand, and in the other a smoke, that was how a real man should feel living. He felt truly alive for the first time in years. It was time he left the past behind, and looked to the future. There was no avoiding that his future contained a daughter who was becoming an adult.

Bill’s eyes strayed to the clutch left to dry over on the back of the stove. He had put that there just after Sally left him, planning a freedom trip, but life had become a black hole where she used to be. The crash of porcelain followed by a cut-off scream saw him rising from the saddle. Streams of curses followed, so he knew she was all right, and sat back down.

Shona stomped through moments later and used her arm to clear a space on the kitchen table, where she put down a ream of artist’s paper and her father’s sketching pack—the pencils and crayons he use when beginning a motorcycle drawing. Bill downed some beer as she approached him, and he took a draw of the cigarette as she positioned herself directly in front of him, straddling the front wheel with her legs.

This thing! She held up ‘Rep’, as he (or she, or it?), entwined its body around her arm in an effort to seek leverage.

Bill looked at the snake, Your Mother made me buy that wretched thing for her on our second honeymoon. You remember, just after she joined that snake cult? It was virtually the only thing of hers, or mine, she did not take with her when she left.

The tension mounted as Shona fixed the snake with her eyes, watching it writhe against her hand. I always hated this thing. It is repulsive. Mom says it is not poisonous, but I do not believe her. Tell me the truth?

Bill replied at once, "It is venomous, and growing. All of this family of snakes are venomous. It is only poisonous if you were to eat it, you must remember the difference between the real meanings of these two words.

It would probably not kill me, but I guess it could. Realize that I am a large man. You are what, one half my weight or less, although you are big for your age. It might kill you, or at least leave you hospitalized for days. It belongs to your mother, and I want it gone. It is a constant reminder of her. She refuses to take it, let me find it a good home, or release it into the wild. What am I supposed to do? I will tell you what I will do. It goes today, regardless of what she says. Bitch!

He watched as Shona brought it to her face. Even from a few feet away, he saw the snake’s infrared sensors flare. The tail rose vertically and quivered as if shaking the air. It was still too young to make much of a sound, a rattle.

In slow-motion horror, he watched as somehow, the neck extended, and the mouth opened, revealing long and prominent fangs of death. Shona was a match for it. She reacted instinctively while also staying out of range of the limited strike. That was, until she tried to throw it away, momentarily forgetting it was spiraled around her forearm. In that split-second, he knew she saw her mistake, continuing her arm reflex to bring the snakehead crashing into the cupboard she had fallen back against. Before her hand hit the wooden door, Bill saw the bite.

Shona reeled as the snake whipped free, coiled, and struck her ankle. Bill was already on his feet and reaching for the first thing that caught his eye. He ripped all six darts out of the board, and threw them in quick succession at the head of the disappearing reptile. The third dart caught it well in the neck, causing the serpent to coil once more and rear to face him. This time he heard the rattle as the loathsome creature came of age.

Bill grabbed a pry bar from by the door, and recklessly began hitting the snake with it. His first blow struck a fatal wound to the head, but he kept smashing the creature’s skull until its head was a splattered pulp. His anger turned to fear, and he rushed to his daughter full of concern.

Daddy, my finger is hot, but my ankle really hurts. Will I die?

Bill replied unthinking, No, you will live. Do what I say, and keep very still, relax, and keep calm. It’s only a two-bit young Rattler, no threat to you, Angel.

Bill made her laugh, but remembered his Marine training, survival, and first aid skills. He knew this was extremely serious, but acted otherwise. He whirled Shona to the sink and washed the two wounds as best he could. Her ankle was already swelling. He picked her up and carried her through to the sofa, settling her down gently as he told her once more to relax.

Bill took a moment to stroke her moistening forehead, hiding his deepest concern, so as not to alarm her. He needed her as relaxed as could be. He rested her foot and hand on the floor, and told her to keep them lower than her heart at all times.

I will Daddy.

Masking his growing disquiet, Bill looked down at the paired puncture wounds, so fresh and malignant on her left pinkie and ankle. He rushed to the junk drawer and threw out a bag of rubber bands, before finding the ace bandages. He took one and wrapped it first around her calf, several inches above the wound, and repeated with her forearm. The bandages were not too tight. He checked by trying to push one finger through against the tourniquet.

He was worried, but reasoned most rattlesnake bites were not fatal to humans. They were usually a defensive strike, and often no venom was released into the prey, as with her finger. Her ankle was obviously an attacking strike, but Bill thought it unlikely much venom had been injected. That was what he was hoping for. It was either that, or a mild reaction. He knew she needed immediate hospital treatment, so grabbed his keys and returned with two wet cloths that he tied loosely over the bites.

He was about to pick her up, when she keeled over and tried to vomit. She lost her balance and crashed to the floor, gasping for air as her vision began to blur. Her finger seemed OK, a slight bulge only, but her ankle was already discolored and continued to swell around the puncture wounds.

His only child was now in mortal danger. Dammit! Damn her Godforsaken mother!

He took a moment to slightly tighten both bandages, to slow the flow of blood, but not stop it completely—hoping against hope to stem the tide of venom coursing through her adolescent body. As soon as he was done, he took her in his arms. She felt limp and moist. She was wracked with pain.

With his life’s treasure held securely in his arms, Bill ran past the quickest mode of transport he would have had, were it not in pieces. Instead,