"Lee Edgar - Andromeda Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Edgar Lee)

Her English mother drank a lot. The children, five of them, had very
much brought themselves up, never being able to rely on either parent.
Maria, the eldest, had been more of a mother than a sister to the
others. This meant that the shock of finding her good-for-nothing
father in bed with her eleven-year-old sister was all the more
profound.
She had tried to kill him with a carving knife. When she failed, he
had stripped and viciously raped her and left her in hospital with a
perforated spleen and numerous broken ribs after knocking her down and
then repeatedly kicking her round the floor for what had seemed to
Maria like hours. She remembered the swearing, the repeated pain, the
screaming of little Heidi, naked on the bed, begging her father to
stop.
Her mother was too drunk to visit the hospital, so Maria had had to
walk eight miles home after releasing herself, knowing that her younger
brothers and sisters would be neglected without her.
That was almost a year ago. Poverty had increased over that
intervening period, following the fatherтАЩs permanent disappearance to
the ends of the Earth to find a family more тАЬ appreciativeтАЭ .
Sarah Blackman, however, was somewhat less understanding of MariaтАЩs
predicament. In the period following the Consortium War in Europe, she
had met many children who had encountered similar circumstances but had
not resorted to using drugs, had not turned to crime, had not found it
necessary to bully other, seemingly weaker, youths. Sarah also knew
that bullying has always been the most extreme form of cowardice and is
normally only undertaken by youths in packs where numbers represented
strength. A bully will never, ever, take on someone who is big enough
or tough enough to fight back.
She, on the other hand, could not tolerate wimps and loved a
challenge. To Sarah, family was everything. Family came first, last,
and everywhere in between. That is why she was waiting on the first
floor balcony of the bock of flats when Maria and two friends arrived
home from тАЬ trawling the mallтАЭ .
She smiled when she saw them, loving the odds, and knowing she could
eat all three of them alive without even breaking sweat. The girls
stopped when they saw her, wondering who this dark-haired young woman
was leaning against the wall. They eyed her up and down with contempt.
Obviously not a local, she was too clean. Also, her leathers were
unmarked and her fingernails painted evenly.
тАШWho are you?тАЩ Maria demanded to know.
тАШI have come for the photographs,тАЩ replied Sarah calmly and sweetly.
MariaтАЩs hand went instinctively towards her left jacket pocket. тАШWhat
photos?тАЩ
тАШThe ones you took of Margaret Hardy.тАЩ
тАШYou a cop?тАЩ
Twenty-one-year old Sarah smiled as she eased herself from the wall.
тАШNot today.тАЩ
тАШThen we ainтАЩt telling you nuffink, so sod off, bitch.тАЩ
тАШThatтАЩs not a very nice was to talk,тАЩ said Sarah, ambling casually
towards them.