Novel 1.1

Her half smoked blunt slowly burned next to her fifth rum and cola of the afternoon.  She sat outside her hotel room while attempting to avoid the hellish heat of the Oklahoma summer.  She took one last drag and headed back inside.

Hope slumped down onto the lumpy hotel bed that was starting to feel decently comfortable.  The roach on the wall only slightly catching her attention--they were beginning to resemble wall decor.

"How did I get here?" she asked herself, and not for the first time.  A month ago she was in a nice house, small but quaint.  She had a good job and good friends.  It all changed so quickly.

She pushed those thoughts away, not wanting to think about the mistakes she had made.

Opening her purse she saw that she only had twenty dollars, two cigarettes, and half a pack of gum left.  With only a single night left at the hotel, she was at her wit's end.

Zach had disappeared three nights ago; taking her GPS, two hundred dollars in cash, and her brand new Mazada CX7 that she had bought after three years of grueling over tables and hungry, ungrateful rednecks.  The keys to Zach's old Ford pickup had been carelessly tossed onto the nightstand.

Ritzi, her 2 year-old, fawn-colored pit bull terrier, slept at the foot of the bed.  Watching her precious baby girl chase squirrels in her dreams, Hope was once more relieved that Zach hated the dog.  The sentiment was shared by Rizti.  Of all the things from her past life, Ritzi was the one thing she had not lost when she ran off with Zach.  The dog had seen her through more hardships than one animal should have to endure. 

The nights her step father had come home from the bar smelling of whiskey and sex and beat her mother, Ritzi was there with her to protect her from the same torture.  Nick only tried to lay hands on her once, and he forever wears the scars from her protector on his left ankle.  Thankfully his drunken stupor had kept him from remembering how he received the gashes.  That, and the large number of stray dogs roaming the streets between their house and the bar, kept Ritzi from being blamed.  He ran off with a trashy bartender not long after that.

Ritzi was there while she recovered from her near fatal car wreck.  She alerted Hope's mother if anything was needed, while sleeping at the foot of her bed day in and day out. 

Ritzi had almost died when the house burned down late one night.  Hope's mother had fallen asleep with a cigarette in her hand.  Ritzi woke them both, and all three were eventually rescued.