Read Forever We Fall: Broken #4 (The Broken Series) for Free Online Page A

and smiled sadly. "It hurt me to have missed so much from my old life. It was hard to see her so happy and in love with her husband, when I was so miserable and afraid of mine."
    "But they were good to you?" Kyle asked in a gruff tone, breaking the silence as he came to sit beside me again. "Ted and Mora, I mean."
    "Yes," she choked out. "Ted protected me from Jimmy's fists more times than I can bear to remember, and Mora kept Lia for me on the nights I knew it wasn't safe for her to be at home." Tracy's eyes locked on mine. "You have to know, Lia…you have to know I did everything in my power to get you out of there," she sobbed. "I tried to run with you, but he always dragged me back. I tried to hide, but he always found us…and when he got me home the beatings were harder, the threats became more real and the fear I felt became too much.
    "The day I left was the day he found my birth control pills." Smiling sadly, she added, "I went on birth control as soon as Lia was born. Jimmy wanted more children – a son – and I knew I couldn't bring another child into that house." She shuddered violently. "It didn't matter what I wanted though. He would have his son whether I was willing or not." I tightened my fingers around hers in sympathy.
    "He went into such a fit of rage that day," she whispered. "He went through all of my things and when he noticed most of our clothes were missing I had to admit I'd been planning to leave him and was taking you with me. He called me all sorts of names, flushed my pills down the drain, took his belt to me and when I was close to passing out he stormed outside… he came back inside the house about an hour later and took Lia out of my arms, threw a twenty dollar bill in my face and ordered me to drive into town to buy his whiskey," she sobbed.
    "I was about a mile down the road when I realized something was wrong," she whimpered. "I couldn't control the steering wheel, the brake pedal wouldn't work and I crashed into the Benny's bridge…the car nosedived into the creek."
    "Oh my god," I cried, furiously blinking back my tears as my heart broke for the woman in front of me.
    "I can't swim," she choked out. "I nearly drowned. I would have drowned if Ted hadn't pulled me out of the creek– he saved my life. He told me to run. To go before Jimmy realized I'd made it out." Her voice rose and my heartbeat quickened as words of pain spilled from her mouth. "I'd taken enough. I'd had enough, but I was frantic. I knew I had to take you with me. I couldn't leave you behind. But I had nothing to offer you and he would have never let me have you. I was barely nineteen with no money, no job. Nothing," she confessed, her eyes begging me for forgiveness. "In the end I had to make a choice," she whispered. "And I chose wrong."
    "I…" I paused, unsure of what to say. A huge part of me wanted to throw my arms around the terrified woman in front of me and tell her it was all right –that I forgave her for her choices – but something held me back.
    "Ted opened the door of his car for me, offered me a way out, a life-line," she choked out. "And in taking that life-line I severed yours..."
    "Tracy…" Kyle said in a soft tone as he covered our joined hands with his. "You were barely more than a kid." Glancing nervously at me, he continued to say, "It was a matter of life or death."
    "Ted drove me to Denver and set me up in the cottage, made sure I had enough money. I changed my name and buried my past," she said, ignoring Kyle's words, keeping her eyes locked on mine. "And I survived. I lived. I was safe. But I quickly learned that what I'd sacrificed in order to survive – the hole in my heart from your absence – I knew then I'd have been better off dead. I never stopped regretting that choice, Lia, and I never will."
    "Why didn't you go back for her?" Kyle asked, his tone laced with pain. "I'm not judging you, Tracy, god knows I'm not, but why didn't you go back and get her out of there? Or send