Excerpt: Justified Paranoia

From chapter 2

Living so far down the West Coast had it's advantages; no one bothered you much and legality was negotiable, between you and your conscience. It led to a strange lifestyle based on fishing, hunting, growing high value 'cash crops', and supplying the more dubious branches of the tourist trade with unlicensed pounamu.

There were disadvantages too; Internet coverage that, when it was working at all, crawled along at sub-optimal dial up speeds, no one to talk to and, worst of all, no one to hear you scream.

Julie kept the laptop out back, carefully wrapped in plastic inside a box and buried beneath a bush under a pile of leaves. It only came out when Frank and Jason were miles away on one of their 'trips'. It was her lifeline, a part of her that wasn't there for the taking whenever the two of them wanted.

It hadn't always been as bad as this. When Julie had first hooked up with Frank there had been a magnetic attraction that made Frank's rough edges seem strangely appealing. The first six months in Nelson had been fun and she had no hesitation when Frank suggested The Coast and that his son go with them. Julie had always thought Jason was a bit of an odd-ball but Frank had been the off-setting stabilizer and Julie had no hesitation about them all going to The Coast together.

At first it was ok but soon Jason started taking liberties and, if Julie said anything, Frank would laugh it off. Gradually things got worse until one day Jason raped her in the barn. Thinking that Frank would step in and do something, she had told him what had happened. That had earned her a beating and the title of "House Whore". That was when they both started treating her like one.

Soon after that she had tried to do a runner but the boys had come after her and dragged her back to the house The knife scar that ran from just below her throat to her navel was the price she had paid for that escapade. Since then she had been thinking and waiting; next time there had to be no chance of them coming after her; she needed to get away clean. Now, she was nearly ready.