A Peek-a-Boo Into "Broken Wings" & Trailer

Title: Broken Wings
Author: Kadian Tracey
Length: Full Novel
Status: Coming Soon
Genre: Sweet Romance, Rubenesque (BBW), African American

Blurb:
When Monique Winston’s world collapsed with the death of her mother she knows now that she has to stand on her own two feet. But before her mother left this world, she taught Monique two important things. One, Monique should Never trust a black man. Two, Monique will never be good enough for any man. And if Devaughn Cole think he’s just going to waltz in and murky her life more he has another thing coming.
Devaughn Cole is laid back, handsome and stinking rich. He is the latest brotha to leave the hood and make it big in the music industry. Afraid of loosing who he was, he returned to the hood to build a house. After his latest tour, he just wants to go home and relax. But when he meets Monique Winston, he finds that there's more to this full figured beauty than meets the eyes but she is broken, mind, body and soul.

Will he be able to fight her demon past? Or will she open up herself to a whole new world of possibilities.

**EXCERPT**

Thump. Thump.

What was that sound? It was a horrible sound; one could only guess but it sounded like what you would hear if the world was ending.

The little girl glanced around trying to find out what the sound was and when she realised the source of the noise;, she tensed in fear.

The sound of Monique’s heart was thumping in her ears was only trumped by the thundering storm outside. She hated and feared storms for they meant only one thing to her; trouble. It always rained when something bad was going to happen and as she stood there staring at the broken glass she knew for sure something bad was about to happen. The sound her heart made as it raced was ungodly and deafening to her causing her to whimper in pain. It wasn’t the kind of hurt that came from a stubbed toe or a fall; but the kind of pain you got when your heart was breaking. It was the worse kind of pain for any human being, especially a child.

What would her mother do this time? Would Monique be beaten? Would her mother force her to stand in the tub filled with iced water on one leg? What would be her punishment? The last time she got the bathtub punishment she had fallen and took her head off the side of the tub.
Monique knew that no matter what her punishment was, she may just as well be dead for it would be horrible. It would be a kind of punishment that no one else could think of but the mind of a diabolically evil being.

It was that simple because she knew her mother would not stand for the fact that Monique had been clumsy. It wasn’t as if the cup held any sentimental values but that had never stopped Monique’s mother from torturing her before. As a matter of fact, nothing did.
It wasn’t that Monique was a clumsy child, but the storm had startled her. The thunder and the lightening had made the child jumpy.

Other ten year olds were out, playing or doing homework while listening to music, but not this ten year old. Instead of hanging out at school with other children or rushing to catch the school bus home, Monique had to rush home from school to do all the chores her mother should have done during the day. Her mother hadn’t signed her up for the school bus so she had to run home; it was a two hour trip. Monique had to make sure the dishes were clean, the house was clean and the laundry done and folded. That meant, she rarely had time for homework because by the time she had done all that work, her little body was too tired to do much of anything else other than sleep. Monique’s grades were slipping dangerously to failing but her mother hadn’t cared. The teachers had sent letter after letter home but after awhile of watching her mother chuck them into the garbage, Monique had stopped giving them to her. Monique would sneak home and dig a hole behind her house to bury the letters in.

Sometimes, the woman would wake Monique up in the middle of the night and order the child to go downstairs and get her some milk. Like a good girl, Monique obeyed even though she was afraid of the dark.

Monique was forced to grow up really fast with the fury of a woman scorned on her back all the time.

Maybe she wouldn’t hear the crash that was loud enough to wake the dead. Maybe her mother was sleeping and thought she had been dreaming.

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

“What’s that sound?” mother snapped and the Monique heard footsteps rushing towards the kitchen. Her eyes darted around the room as she wondered why she couldn’t move. She wanted to move; she had to move. Normally she would scramble to clean it up but not that evening. She was scared to the spot she was standing on. Monique begged her feet to corporate.

Move it girl! Danger! Danger Monique Winston! Go!

Run!

Her mind yelled at her over and over.

No luck.

“You broke another one!” her mother snapped rushing forward to grab the ten year old girl painfully by the arm. Monique wanted to scream that she had been good and hadn’t broken anything in a really long time but her mind wouldn’t let her mouth speak. Even when her mouth opened, no sound left her lips and Monique panicked.

“What am I going to have to do to let you be more careful?” her mother continued, completely oblivious to the little girl’s fear and pain. “You are a clumsy good-for-nothing! You will never amount to anything!”

Monique felt her mother yanking her backwards and a yelp finally left the girl’s mouth. Even though she didn’t know where her mother was taking her she did know one thing. Where ever it was, she didn’t want to go. She would rather die than go. Hell would be preferable to where ever it was that her mother was taking her; she knew that all too well. Her feet were dragging on the ground as her free hand tried to grab a hold of the door-frame. Success! Monique grabbed on and held on for dear life.

But her mother had other plans. The woman smacked Monique hard across the face and Monique let go to grab her face. That allowed her mother to continue hauling her from the kitchen. Her face stung as if felt as though someone had tossed hot water into her face. The little rubbed the sting furiously as she sobbed and screamed in fear trying to get rid of the pain but it only caused the skin to grow hot and hurt more.

Then, as if she hadn’t suffered enough, she felt her feet leave the ground. The next thing she knew, Monique felt herself flying across the room and the shocked child began flailing. She began reaching for a doorframe, a chair, a table, a prayer, anything. She needed something to stop her flight and without pain. But she wasn’t that lucky. With nothing to grab onto, she flew through the air like a rag doll going full speed and out of control. As though she was in a movie, going in slow motion or in a science experiment where someone had cruelly stopped time, a million thoughts flashed through Monique’s mind. A thought, such as all she had to do was wake up before the pain set it and it would never have happened. But she wasn’t dreaming and that point was stressed when she slammed into the far wall. She heard things falling but couldn’t care for her small body was riddled with pain.

But it didn’t end there. The first pain came from hitting the wall. She knew at that moment how a baseball felt; going full speed one way then all of a sudden something hard and fast stopped it only to hurl it into the opposite direction.

The second pain to come was the worse of all and it came from bouncing off the wall, sailing through the air once more and hitting the ground hard. Her mind couldn’t form a single thought for she was too busy curling up into a ball and letting the darkness crowd in on her. When she hit the ground she had heard the snapping sound and knew instantly that she had broken her ribs again.

What would her excuse be this time?

****
It was a few years later, and Monique had managed to meet one friend. Thunder and lightening rolled over the small area of space like a horror movie.
Something bad had happened.

The rain poured down over the grave-yard as the people in black huddled in a tight formation with their heads bowed. They were whispering the “our father” prayer in unison, signalling the end of the funeral service for fifteen year old child. Osaka was only fifteen why was she dead? Then, as though nothing had happened, they all walked off leaving Monique standing there wrapped in a blanket of confusion and bitterness. Osaka was all Monique had. Tears flowed down her face to mingle with the rain water dripping from her face as she fell to her knees. With the water soaking through to her skin, she dropped the red rose in her hand and sobbed, “you weren’t supposed to die,” she whispered.

“How could you leave me?” she questioned angrily. “How could you leave me alone with her? You promised! You were all I had left and now you’re gone. What am I supposed to do in this world without you? How am I supposed to be strong and carry on without you? Would you listen to me? I sound like a bloody Michael Bolton song... Why?”

Monique stopped speaking to listen for the answers to her questions but as she sat there shaking in her cold and anger, no one answered any of her questions. The silence only infuriated her more. She slammed her closed fist down into the mud.

“Damn it! Answer me! Why in the hell won’t you answer me?”

But the only answer that came back to her was her voice echoing off the trees and tombstones around her. “I hate you! Do you hear me! I hate you!”

Rising from the ground, she took off running for the front gates of the grave-yard. Dashing pass the other people who had stopped to speak to each other, she rushed across the street with cars skidding to a stop to avoid hitting her and a chain reaction crash but she couldn’t pay then any attention. All she knew was that she had to get out of there or else she would surely die. She would not be able to breathe again and die.

Her short life so far had been filled with hate, carnage and abuse.

“I wish you were dead,” her mother had yelled on many occasions. “I wish I had killed you before I popped you out.”

She was nine the first time her mother had told her that. Monique had dodged the plate that her mother proceeded to toss at her, with practised skill and walked from the room sobbing. Her self esteem had been shot to hell by that woman but still she loved her. She was Monique’s mother. That night she had sobbed all night and the next morning her eyes were red and puffy as she rushed out for school without breakfast. Her mother had forced Monique to fend for herself for as long as Monique could remember.

Her body slammed into something and she hit the ground. Looking up she noticed that she had crashed into a fence. She didn’t care; she stood up and began beating her hand into it for she never thought her life could have gotten any worse than it already was. How could it be?
But on the day she had met Osaka, Monique had managed to get some money from her mother and darted into a local convenience store to buy some instant noodles. She didn’t have enough money and that was where she had met Osaka. Osaka had then rushed to her mother, asked for money and came back to give it to Monique. Osaka was thirteen at the time and lived just a few doors down from Monique. The two became fast friends.

Stumbling to her feet again after sliding to her stomach in the mud, Monique turned down the street that her house was on and when she was finally inside, she slammed the door behind her before sliding to the ground to bury her face into her mud covered hands.

“Well look at you,” her mother mocked but Monique was not in the mood to be belittled then. She got up and tried to walk by her mother. The woman grabbed Monique by the back of the neck and yanked backwards. Monique slammed into the ground again but she didn’t cry. At that moment, she was too numb to care. Her mother had an asinine grin on her face and Monique knew it then; the woman was sent to earth to torture her.

As she sat there trying to make her teenage body feel again, she thought about ending it all. But a part of her thought against it for it was like Monique was a glutton for punishment. She wanted to stick around to see how much worse her life would get. That was the downside of her life, but believe it or not, that would be a walk in the park comparing to what was coming. For right then, the higher beings were at it again. Getting drunk over port and meddling in her happily ever after. What happily ever after? Monique Winston was their toy, their puppet and in another life she must have done something horribly unforgiveable and would pay with this life.

She was only twelve.