Full Circle (Shattered Lives, Book Five) Read online

  Table of Contents

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  PART TWO

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  PART THREE

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  EPILOGUE

  Praise for the Shattered Lives Saga:

  “…a skillfully crafted conclusion to this series.” —Books N Pearls

  “Ms. Blakeley has managed to paint raw human emotions in words.” —S.G., Amazon Reviewer

  “How the hell does one writer make a reader kneel on the carpet, head on the floor, struggling to breathe through gut wrenching sobs?” —E.F.B., Amazon Reviewer

  Shattered Lives: Full Circle

  Kindle Edition

  Copyright © 2017 by Rissa Blakeley. All rights reserved.

  Published by Rissa Blakeley.

  Cover Design by Covers on the Side

  Edited by Kim’s Fiction Editing Services

  Vector Artwork by Gert Erasmus Photo Editing

  Cover Photo © timonko sourced via Adobe Stock

  Book Layout & Design by Ryan Fitzgerald

  The following is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living, dead, or undead is entirely coincidental.

  Except in the case of brief quotations for the purpose of critical analysis or review, no part of this book may be used, reproduced, or transmitted via any means (electronic, mechanical, or otherwise) without express, written permission from the author.

  All artwork used in the Shattered Lives series cannot be reproduced without written permission from the author, the cover art designer from Covers on the Side, and vector artist from Gert Erasmus Photo Editing except in the case of author-approved promotions, critical articles, and reviews.

  Due to the dynamic nature of the Internet, website links contained within this book may be outdated and/or no longer valid.

  Edition: February 2017

  Table of Contents

  Foreword

  FULL CIRCLE

  PART ONE

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  PART TWO

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  Chapter 45

  Chapter 46

  Chapter 47

  Chapter 48

  Chapter 49

  Chapter 50

  Chapter 51

  Chapter 52

  PART THREE

  Chapter 53

  Chapter 54

  Chapter 55

  Chapter 56

  Chapter 57

  Chapter 58

  Chapter 59

  Chapter 60

  Chapter 61

  Chapter 62

  Chapter 63

  Chapter 64

  Chapter 65

  Chapter 66

  Chapter 67

  Chapter 68

  Chapter 69

  Chapter 70

  Chapter 71

  Chapter 72

  EPILOGUE

  About Rissa Blakeley

  Militia!

  With certainty, any writer will tell you the first draft of everything is pure garbage. Essentially, you want to delete the whole damn thing and pretend it never existed. When I arrived at a crossroads with Full Circle, I was utterly distraught. It boiled down to death or be dead.

  I chose death.

  Well…partial death. Like, 90% death. I believe I killed about twenty-seven trees printing the one hundred and thirty thousand word draft—not to mention the ink cartridge—only to pull out my hair and want to scream to the point my throat bled because I needed to feel something…anything from the mountain of atrocity sitting quietly in front of me.

  I stopped the hardcopy read-through and stared into space for what seemed like days. After over five years of expelling a multitude of emotions on my laptop screen, I just wasn’t feeling Full Circle at all, so I set it aside.

  Then something occurred to me… I needed more experience to be able to pull off this book. The complicated plot lines needed to bleed together and prove, once and for all, it truly went full circle. That’s where The King’s Fate (Corvidae Guard #1) came into play.

  The author coordinating the anthology The King’s Fate was going to be in had to pull out for some seriously amazing things happening in her life. I took it as a sign and pulled out, as well.

  After finishing The King’s Fate, I thought, Now what do I do? The Full Circle manuscript taunted me from across the room, as if Henry were glaring at me with a smirk, tearing and crumpling each sheet and setting fire to it, while I helplessly watched my efforts go up in flames.

  It was time to make some changes.

  I couldn’t allow Full Circle, the last full-length novel in the Shatt
ered Lives timeline, to end on such a tropey-drively-bleck of chapters upon chapters of meaningless word vomit. Shattered Lives deserved more than that.

  It needed life.

  I needed life.

  You needed life.

  My emotions unraveled and I wrote what I would consider my best writing to date.

  For some of you, Blind Faith left a vast amount of distaste in your mouths due to the major cliffhanger, but as they say, “It is what it is.” I am only the messenger. The characters guide me. I just tell their story.

  With that in mind, I pretty much chalked up the original Full Circle draft to Henry misbehaving and getting jealous over the attention King Zachariah and Monty were getting. He can be so immature.

  Admittedly, Blind Faith was an exceptionally difficult piece to write. I worried and fretted over one particular plotline—Henry’s confession of his own sexual abuse, including him assaulting Elaina. I even picked up another beta after asking every single one what they thought of that particular scene because I was terrified of the possibility reviewers would hang me out to dry.

  Take a moment and imagine having a confession of forced rape, assaults, and plans for a fake suicide parading through your mind, shaking giant pom-poms…Rah, Rah, Sis-boom-bah! It went to the beat of only Henry’s drum. I didn’t want it to. I wanted him to wake up and stop behaving this way. Shut him down. Make myself numb to him. Quiet his antics.

  But, once again, realization hit me like a fourteen-inch cast iron frying pan… Authentic storytelling doesn’t always lead from the mind, but bleeds from the heart.

  In my true heart, I am as broken as these characters. Maybe not to their extent. While some issues are similar, there are many differences. I was the one who needed to deal with the horrid first glances at the dubious future of the Shattered Lives saga. I needed to release the reins and allow Henry to guide me.

  The whispers and images he sent made me ugly, angry, challenging…changeable, but I dug deep, Henry holding my hand the entire time. He showed me his story and his emotions, making me understand that redemption and happily ever after don’t necessarily need to be packaged up with pretty paper and bows.

  At times, Full Circle will feel intense, dark, disturbing. I had to write three storylines and intertwine them together, while also dealing with the thoughts, flashes, and whispers of the end. Fear, love, and hate bubbled beneath the layers of manic and obsessions. It was a much different game than “you show me yours and I’ll show you mine”. The discovery teetered on the knife’s edge of brutal insanity for all of us.

  My beta readers, Elizabeth, Nicole, Kristin, Michelle, and Stephenie, are responsible for allowing me to see and feel everything once more. Their words and suggestions brought more to this story than I ever imagined for it. I’m in their debt.

  So here it is… Full Circle, the final full-length novel in the Shattered Lives saga. Raw emotions painted by yours truly. I hope you see this as a piece of me I’m tearing out and handing over to you…bloodied and beaten, but not defeated. Regardless, I can stand tall knowing, with a little urging, I gave you the best work I could.

  Which leaves me to say…

  My dear readers,

  We’ve come a long way together. I love you whole, and I love you broken.

  ~RB

  For Rissa’s Militia

  Special thanks to Lisa Nolen.

  Foreword

  When I started indie editing back in 2013, I just hoped I’d get clients. Honestly, I didn’t have a lot of confidence in myself back then. One day, I got a message from somebody named Rissa Blakeley, asking if I was taking new clients. Through the conversation, I learned she had a book she wanted to publish entitled Broken Dreams. It had already been edited by somebody, but she wanted me to look at it because there were some things the editor added she couldn’t understand. Let me just say I’ve never seen so many semi-colons in one book in my life!

  Fast forward almost 4 years… Some clients have come and gone, but Rissa is one of the few who stuck with me. We’ve both learned a lot through the years, and we have a great working relationship and friendship.

  With the Shattered Lives series coming to an end, I feel like I have friends I’ll never see again. Rissa has a way of telling a story that makes you feel as if you are the one living it. I’ve gotten so close to Henry, Elaina, and… UGH!! Okay, I might as well admit it. She’s gotten me to love Gunther. I promised her I never would, but I can’t help it. There, Rissa. I admitted it in a public forum. Happy??

  I’m so proud of the author she’s become. I know she has a lot of writing planned in the future, but I think her Shattered Lives series will always be everybody’s favorite group of people. Continue to follow her. You might be surprised at what she has in store.

  ~Kim, Kim’s Fiction Editing Services

  PART ONE

  “I love you whole, and I love you broken.”

  —Elaina, Broken Dreams, 2014

  Chapter 1

  -Somewhere over the Atlantic Ocean-

  Screaming…

  Loud. Intense. Startling.

  When I finally realized it came from me, I slammed my body into the back of the seat, placing a hand over my chest as my heart thundered and sweat poured down my face, my throat feeling as if I had swallowed shards of glass. Gripping the edges of the seat in front of me, I panted, trying to find a happy medium between hyperventilation and death.

  I felt dead. I had been walking a slippery slope between life and the inevitable, and someone pushed me toward a path that wasn’t necessarily a good one.

  Then it hit me… Faked suicide and all the ramifications from it.

  Henry Daniels made a deal with the devil, selling his soul, his heart, his life… Everything he once thought would make him happy.

  Was his choice destined to fail? Because, at the moment, it surely seemed to be the case.

  In feigned reality, I was dead, but there I sat, heading back to the East End of London and the program facility to strip away everything that made me hate the man I had become.

  I prayed I would get my wings so I could learn how to fly. It was my last chance, my only hope to achieve something I craved.

  Normalcy.

  The exchange for Henry Daniels’ death was me, Luke Richards.

  Could I be him again?

  Could I live as Luke?

  Would my wife, Elaina, accept me as Luke?

  To be honest, I wasn’t so sure of the answers to any of those questions.

  Elaina didn’t know me as Luke. While our traits were strikingly similar, Luke was a tortured boy. One who lost the war. One the head-fucks resurrected into this thing, this animal, this infected human teetering on the knife’s edge of insanity.

  Images flashed through my mind… At the age of fourteen, my third set of foster parents ignored me, so I ran. Establishing first contact, the head-fucks watched from afar as I brawled my way through the harrowing streets of the East End, stealing what I needed to survive. They patted me on the back when I won battles, giving me tips when I lost. The words and advice felt good, even to my teenage angsty self.

  Mostly, I just wanted someone to love me, but I didn’t know or understand the true value behind parental love. It happens that way when you can hardly remember anything before the age of five.

  When anyone older gave me compliments, it made me pine for more approval. I wanted to be a son but, sadly, no one wanted me to call them mum or dad.

  Then two men approached. At first, I didn’t know who they were, both dressed in black tees and workout pants, having more muscle than I could ever imagine. Later, I realized it was Gunther and Kellan.

  I was skeptical, but they knew my name and history, telling me I had been handpicked for a mission.

  “What kind of mission?” I asked. They told me it was one so important, the government didn’t even know about it.

  I was enthralled. They picked me. The parentless kid. The knob who used to pick fights to see if I could feel pain. I was f
inally important to somebody. Someone saw my worth. It was my turn for greatness.

  Little did I know the father who once abandoned me would mold me into a death-defying, killing machine.

  I had stretched the truth with Elaina. She had no idea how many people I killed. My excuse? They were sick, infected with a virus that would make even the strongest of individuals fall into a mindless hunger.

  Literally.

  Alone in my youth, I was now alone in the fight for my life.

  As I continued to pant in the seat of the plane, voices began to break through, sounding like a woman having a heated discussion with a man. It all became clear as I turned my face toward the stifled conversation. So many peeked around her, trying to get a good look at the one disturbing the peaceful flight.

  “I do apologize for the alarm, but he has night terrors,” Erik said in a hushed tone.

  Still out of breath, I turned and stared at the plastic tray attached to the seat in front of me.

  “Are you sure he’s okay? He looks—”

  Erik cut her off. “He’s fine.” I jumped as a hand landed on my shoulder. “Luke, how about a drink? It might make you relax.”

  “No,” I breathed out, my voice not much more than a strangled whisper. Shrugging his hand away, I kept trying to swallow, but my throat just got drier and drier, making it impossible.

  “Are you sure? It might do you well,” Erik said.

  “I can’t.”

  “You sure? My treat.”

  “Yes, for fuck’s sake! Thanks to you and the fucking program bullshit, I’m a bloody alcoholic!” I shouted with rage.

  A completely new round of whispers ran from passenger to passenger. A few spoke at an intentionally louder volume, saying unkind things.

  Insane.

  Mad.

  Deranged.

  Psychotic.

  Unsound.

  The plane got smaller than it already seemed, and I felt every stare directed at me.

  I looked up, seeing the people in the seat in front of us staring over their shoulders, eyes wide, brows lifted.

  “I apologize. I didn’t realize,” Erik mumbled.

  I scrubbed my face and turned toward the window. “If I have one sip, it’s over with,” I grumbled, slamming my fist into the wall of the plane.