Today is my stop on the Blog Tour for The Darkness within by Lisa Stone where I welcome Lisa to my blog where she has kindly provided an extract from his latest novel. I was thrilled to be asked by Sabah Khan from Avon Books to take part along with some other fab book bloggers. You can find out who else is taking part in this fabulous Blog Tour at the end of the extract so without further ado, here it is:
Rosie smiled and said a bright good morning to her first customer. She was pleased to be back at work – another step towards normality. She’d taken two weeks off after Shane’s accident. She was due some annual leave and she’d told her boss that she needed it for personal reasons. As well as clearing out his belongings, she needed time to recover and come to terms with what had happened – and hopefully move on. Her mother had suggested she stay with her for a while but Rosie felt she needed to stand alone to prove to herself that she could, that Shane no longer had a hold over her and she wasn’t afraid of him any more.
While Shane had been in the hospital, she’d sent him a letter saying that if he ever came near her again she’d call the police. That night, Rosie had called out the local locksmith and had the locks on her flat changed, so that if upon his recovery Shane did try to visit, he’d find himself unable to enter. Once the job had been done she’d felt an overwhelming sense of relief. At last, her flat was safe. Now all that remained of Shane was in her head and she knew it would take time before he left her completely, if he ever did. She was trying hard not to think about him, to shake off the moments of panic that gripped her when she thought about him coming out of hospital, perhaps angrier than before. She’d told her mother a little of what had happened but not all. Some things – the sexual things he’d done to her – she couldn’t say. She’d found it a little easier to share this with a group for survivors of domestic violence she’d joined online. The anonymity helped and of course they were on the same page as her, having experienced similar or worse. There were two men in the group, which surprised her; she’d never thought that some women could be as evil as men. But while the group had helped, ultimately she knew her full recovery would be down to her. Clearing out the flat and going back to work was the next step.
Mondays were always busy at the bank and the time flew by. As she dealt with each customer’s request or inquiry her confidence grew, and by lunchtime she was starting to relax. Eva was on a different lunch break to her so she went out for a short walk and a breath of fresh air before returning to the staff room to eat her sandwiches and make a cup of tea. Other colleagues who didn’t know her as well as Eva were there and they asked her if she’d had a nice holiday and seemed pleased to see her back. Their kindness touched her. It was a pity she hadn’t been able to confide in anyone and ask for help when she’d needed it. She still felt responsible for letting Shane into her life and allowing the abuse to continue, although the online survivors group tried to reassure her it wasn’t her fault.
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