The last thing Denny would remember was running.
I sprinted across the street and slipped inside, unable to breathe as I took in the living room directly to my left. It had furniture draped with cloth tarps scattered around the room. They were still moving in. The happy family. The one I would never have. Because I was broken. And though that was all true, it seemed out of place in the wreckage around me. The furniture ill placed. The darkness beyond the staircase. If Kenna wanted free of her own nightmare, why keep up the farce? The furniture, the paint cans on the floor—she’d been willing enough to play along all the way to how it looked.
“She was right.”
“Who?”
“Kenna.”
“Right about what?”
“We’re all children of whores.”
The hair on my body rose. I looked up the stairs, but they were empty. They went up three stories, however, and I could only see up two. I tiptoed across the wooden floors and flattened my back to the wall beside the staircase. There was darkness on my right. The lights were on upstairs and there had been a single glass sconce glowing beside the front door when I came in. My plans had shriveled up the moment I walked into this house. As far as I was concerned, Kenna was gone. Denny and Trent had taken off as she lay in the street, her blonde wig covered in fake red blood. Dash’s back had flattened to the wall. I couldn’t see him from the building I’d hid in. But I knew. I could feel his devastation as strongly as I felt my own. I didn’t have to see his eyes to know the life had left them.
I closed mine and breathed in and out. Some monsters never stopped hunting. They learned to look up and down, and left and right, and didn’t cease their desire to hunt. This should have ended when Dash saved me. Instead, it made Denny even hungrier for the end he wanted. He was a trust fund baby. All that he had, and never would, was tied into his father.
And I was in the way of that.
I hadn’t meant to be. I’d met a man in a coffee shop and thought he was the answer to all my problems. That had been my mistake. To put my hopes and dreams in a neat little bundle and think no one would break them was asking for them to be shattered. Truth and lies were so interwoven, I could no longer see where my own began and everyone else’s grew. We were all whore’s children. My mind flew back to coming home to that empty trailer. It killed me then, of course it did, but the part that put ice in my heart was that she’d taken The Wizard of Oz with her. She’d taken the only thing in my entire life that kept me grounded and left the inlay to the VHS case discarded on the floor.
I kept that inlay. It’s how Dash knew it was my favorite movie. Because though he had tried to erase my past, I existed to him, and that was all that mattered. All that had ever mattered.
Denny wouldn’t take that from me.
I opened my eyes and wiped the tears away.
He’d have to kill me first.
Looking down at my feet, and then at the soft beige carpet of the stairs, I decided to slip the walking shoes Kenna had given me in the bag, and set them where it was the darkest in the hall on my right. Then I took a deep breath, and began my ascent.
It went against everything I was to walk toward the trouble.
I ran from it my entire life. It was in my DNA. Run!
“You run. You’re always supposed to run. Not give me your last fucking breath.”
Dash didn’t get it. He probably never would. My last breath didn’t matter without his. If nothing ended tonight, we would have to spend the rest of our lives running. I was too tired to run anymore. My feet were bloodied and my soul bruised. I wanted to stay right where Dash and I landed and immerse myself in all that he was. His gold eyes, his deep, deep voice, the hunger and love that poured from his heart—I would stop running for even one of those. I’d never think of running again for all of them.
When I got to the second story, I paused. There was a sound directly above me, like paper shuffling, and heavy feet on the floor above me. I flattened myself to the rail and listened, but whoever it was cursed and stomped away, leaving the space around me quiet once again. I continued quietly, pressing my toes only into the spots I tested first. If it made even the slightest noise I stopped, unbreathing. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I wasn’t leaving this house running.
When I got to the top of the second story, there was a smell around me. Something pungent and overwhelming. I covered my nose and looked around fearfully. There was a long darkened spot in the carpet, and the gasoline had soaked into the fibers. The scent burned in my lungs. I tried to understand the layout of this floor, I heard grumbling to my right, and slipped into the first room I found. The door had been ajar, and the room was dark. But the light from the hall bled in enough to show I was in an empty unclaimed bedroom with four walls and no window.
Why wasn’t there a window?
“You always were gullible.”
I spun around to find Denny standing just inside the door. The red gasoline can in his hand dropped to the floor. It was the first time I’d looked into his eyes since my last run. His light ashy brown hair was messy and wayward. His bright baby blue eyes were reddened and swollen. There was a bruise on his left eye and his breaths were heavy. He looked dark and reckless, so unlike the perfect man who paid for my coffee.
In his right hand, there was the same gun he’d used to kill me. He’d emptied his clip. Which meant he’d refilled it. There were real bullets in that gun.
But there were real ones in mine too.
He didn’t move from his spot. “You fell for it like the whore Kenna said you were.”
“Did I fall for it?” I hadn’t known that to be true. “I thought Kenna acted the way I knew she would all along. Maybe she’s gullible.” I pointed my gun at him. “Or maybe you were.”
He frowned at me just as he stiffened. Behind him, Kenna stood, still wearing her blonde bloody wig. “Get into the room.”
“Ken,” he said softly. “No fucking way are you betraying me. We’ve been in this shit from the beginning. You’re pregnant. We made a deal.”
I stepped into the light, showing him my belly. His eyes shot to it, to my wig, to my hair. Rage twisted horror settled on his handsome face.
“In the room!” Kenna snapped, shoving her gun into his back and tearing her wig off. “And drop the gun.”
“You lied?” he growled, doing what she said. “You whore.”
She kicked the gun into the dark. “On your knees. Now!” The gun exploded into the carpet, sending beige fabric into the air as Denny screamed and fell to his knees. “Of course I lied. Like you did when you asked me about my life. When you asked me who meant something to me. You knew my mother was a whore all along. You knew she overdosed and that I had no one when Raynard wouldn’t claim me. So he bought me shit. He didn’t give me a place to live or food when I was hungry. You knew I was desperate. You used me to get to Kinley all along. All along!” Hurt and fury collided in her dark eyes. In that moment, she looked like Dash.
Dash’s anger had never been so dark, though. So evil.
“You’d come over and we’d screw. You’d pay me, and then we’d talk. Did you think I wouldn’t find your notebooks? You schmoozed all of the girls that had contact with Kinley in that home. You didn’t even know I was Raynard’s daughter until I found out on my own.” She slammed the gun on the side of his face, making Denny cry out shrilly. He clutched at his head and cowered. “You used me. And when I gave you this kid, then what? Would I just ‘overdose’ like my mom did? Would I disappear like Dash’s mom? Or all of the other women who make deals with a McKing or a McDonald?” She grabbed a fistful of his hair and pressed her mouth to his ear. “Answer me or I’ll shoot your cock off. Trust me, it wouldn’t be missed. Eh, Kinley?”
I ignored her. So far, I wasn’t sure, and I had this feeling, I’d walked into another trap. My heart dropped. I just had to get out of here and get to Dash. I had to get to my king.
“Yes!” he screamed, shrinking away from her. But the e
ntire time his fists were balled.
It chilled me.
Denny was on his knees, with a gun at his head, but he was clenching his fists. It made me wonder if he’d ever hit her. Or had he made her think he had all the power? I knew better. I knew Denny lied better than anyone in this room. I’d felt his fists.
“How? I’m curious.”
“Seriously?” He cringed when the gun pressed harder into his scalp. “You’d get a client that was into strangulation. You’d let him. He wouldn’t stop. Easy. Simple.” He began to show his true self. “He’d get a cut. You’d be out of my hair, and your father’s. I’d give my father a son. I’d be paid forever. But this one got in the way.” His cold eyes met mine. “You had a mark on you since you were a ten-years-old. Your mom sold you out to Trent to save her own ass. But you disappeared. We couldn’t find you until you were fourteen when you went into the system. You remember that one night on campus in college when you were almost robbed?”
I shook my head. Not in confusion, but disbelief. “I ran. They wanted my wallet. But I ran. I never went out at night again.”
“They wanted your wallet to make sure it was you. But you ran so damn fast they couldn’t catch you. You cancelled your night classes. You kept close to others. After college you disappeared again until we found Kenna.” He shrugged, as if to say you know the rest.
I stumbled back in horror. “I was only a child.”
Kenna met my eyes. “You don’t know yet?”
“Know what?”
“Trent’s your biological father. You’re his blood. That’s why he wanted you so badly. He bought you.”
And suddenly I knew. My mom hadn’t left me.
They’d gotten rid of her.
I fell to my knees. The anger I’d felt, the betrayal. She had sold me out, but she hadn’t left me alone. That my bedroom was the only one left made sense now. That was the only room Trent needed. That sick bastard. Dash had his father pegged as the bad guy—and that was still true—but my father was the mastermind. The pawns on our board had been aimed at the wrong king. Signing a contract with Trent had only really made it so no matter what I did, I’d be in his debt somehow.
The only thing that kept me alive was Dash.
Suddenly, having an affair with him wasn’t a mistake. It was giving in to love for the first time, as if my soul and hunger knew the man I let have me on my desk was the same one who would save me. But Dash was blinded, like me, and there was no way I could let him finish something he hadn’t even started.
As I’d faded from them, Kenna hadn’t stopped talking.
“All I wanted was for him to want me one time. Just once. But then I met you, and I thought maybe I didn’t need my father. Maybe my father needed me.” She yanked so hard on his hair and pulled him back, baring his throat and Adam’s apple. “All you wanted was Kinley. You blame your father. But it was you. You wanted someone you could never have. You resent her. Look at her. Look at her!” She thrust his head forward so my eyes connected with Denny’s. “Tell her the truth or I’ll shoot it off.”
When he hesitated, a shot rang out. In the middle of his legs there was a burning hole in the carpet. Smoke wafted up from between his crotch.
Denny screamed. His fists unclenched. Tears pooled in his eyes. “Okay! Okay. I’ll tell her.” He pulled in a breath and looked at me once more, locking his baby blue gaze with mine. “I’m impotent. I paid the doctor to tell you that you were, or my father would have taken you from me. Had me killed off. Something. I didn’t want him to have you. I—”
Another blast went off between his legs.
“I loved you!” he screeched. “I loved you. But you were a whore’s daughter. You were my fathers. My half-sister. He’d never let me have you. And we’d never work. I resented you as much as I loved you. I wanted you to feel how badly I’ve felt my entire life. You knew how to piss me off. You were a job. You were only supposed to be a job! I thought it was a miracle when Kenna got pregnant. But I should have known she was a liar. She lies so much she doesn’t know the truth. I had to get rid of you, Kinley. Because you’d kill me if my father knew.”
And then Kenna put the gun to his temple and pulled the trigger.
I watched his eyes drain of color, of the rage and disgust and fury he’d harbored. He crumpled onto his side. The sound in my brain dulled. I’d loved this man once. We’d shared a bed together. He bought me coffee when I was starving. But he’d gave me bruises. He’d made me think I was broken. He’d let his father have me just to have a check. He took my dreams and turned them into a leash.
“Kinley! We have to go. Now!” There was a tug on my arms. Kenna was shouting at me. “Let’s go.”
I struggled to my feet. We weren’t supposed to kill him. That wasn’t part of the plan. We were supposed to scare him. Maim him. Let him know what he’d done. I wanted to take back the parts of me he’d broken. But not kill him.
That was the difference between him and I. I was born a Hashawaye. I didn’t inherit the darkness of a McDonald or McKing. I didn’t blow the women I loved up in a tower, or empty my clip into her heart. I didn’t say one thing and then do another. Horror settled in my bones. We weren’t supposed to kill him.
We weren’t supposed to kill anyone.
“Oh, shut up,” Kenna ridiculed, grabbing the gas can in the hall. “He was going to lock you in that windowless room and set the house on fire. Stop crying!” she screamed. “You were always the softer one. You ran when there was a fight. You run away. You don’t like to face shit. But you’re facing this. He was going to kill us both to save his own ass. It had to be done. Give me the matches.”
As I dug them out of my belly clumsily, she waited with her hand outstretched, as hard as I remembered her to be. After I’d handed them to her, I tore the belly off, along with my wig, and listened as she doused the room Denny was inside of with the gas. I smelled the fire a second before she came running out. We sprinted down the stairs, but before we left, she took out a marker and began painting the walls.
“Here!” she shouted, tossing me a thick black marker as I donned my shoes. “Copy what I write. We’re taking down the gang. The fire fighters will get here before the second story burns.” And then she began to write a string of words over and over again.
Denny McDonald. Son of Trent McDonald. Connected arson from the office on E Q Turner St. One body. MK Gang members. Whore house underground on E Q Turner St. Stop them. You have to stop them. – Runner.
I copied my own line, but I made a few changes. Denny McDonald. Son of Trent McDonald. Connected arson to the exploded skyscraper on South Q Turner. MK Gang Members. Protect the women and their children. Take down the gang. You have to stop them. – Queen.
She paused to read mine, and then gave me a smirk. “You his queen?”
Above us, flames snaked down the stairs. “What are you?”
She capped her marker and put it into her back pocket. “I’m not a McKing. Let’s go. We have one more person to take care of.”
Numbly, I ran after her. I forced Denny’s cold eyes from my mind. Mine would be cold too if it were up to him. He’d taken his pain out on me. He’d broken too much of me.
But it was hard to breathe.
Kenna took off without a word back across the street. She slipped into the garage and opened the driver’s side door of a black Benz. I got in just in time for her to speed away. She headed in the other directions of the sirens behind us. She took the corners quickly, whizzing in and out of traffic effortlessly. I held on for dear life.
“Where are we going?”
She stared straight. “Hyde Park.”
Raynard. “Is Trent …?” I couldn’t finish.
“Roasted like his son?” She glared at the road. “You bet. I let the women out from under Raynard’s office first. I called him from Raynard’s phone, and then waited for him. But I only burned his body. The files, everything, were hidden in the walls. I made sure they’ll find them. All of them, Kinley. Th
e MK’s won’t exist after this.”
“Where is he?” I asked next.
“I found him,” she said, just as soft. “He told me to tell you: ‘The clouds still look beautiful from up here.’ What does that mean?”
I frowned. If I knew I’d never tell her. There was a reason Dash had used code to mask his whereabouts. “He didn’t say anything else?”
“He wanted to know that you were safe. But he was hard to talk to. He couldn’t breathe, or think, or talk. He wasn’t making sense. I told him what you said. The hawks were in space. Then that’s when he stopped crying and told me about the clouds.”
Inside, my heart soared. But I shrugged.
“We’re running together,” she said. “At least for a while. Dash doesn’t think straight. You’re a coward. I’m the only one with balls big enough to keep us alive. You can trust me, Kin.”
“I know,” I lied. “I owe you my life.”
That seemed to please her.
“Plus,” she said coolly. “Your prints are on the gun you left in the house. You don’t have a choice.” She tapped her back and then winked at me. “Should’ve grabbed yours.”
Inside, I smiled. Outside, I glared at her. She’d sealed her fate the moment she killed the man she loved. We knew each other in the past. Dash was her brother. She was going to kill her father—a man who hadn’t done anything wrong to me personally. Dash would disagree, but he hadn’t killed him either. Raynard was a name, an evil name, who’d done evil things, but Kenna sped toward her father with a loaded gun. The only person she was loyal to was her. And though all of that was enough to do what I did next, it was the fact that Dash hadn’t told her where he was.
I trusted him.
“I did.” I pulled my gun from where I’d dropped it on the floor of the Benz, and opened the door. I heard her scream before I my foot touched the asphalt. She had been turning a corner. Her speed had dipped below forty. But it was still fast enough to sending me smashing into the street as my body rolled into the gutter.
A Beautiful Nightmare: A Novel Page 29