When she’d finally exhausted all her energy, she slumped against Daddy. He pried the book from her grasp, handed it to Diego, of all people, then carried Momma into their room. Abby, still wearing nothing but a sheet, ran down the hall and pressed her ear against the door. She motioned for everyone to join her. Diego was the first to comply. Channie looked at Hunter and raised her eyebrows. He shook his head then took her hand and dragged her downstairs.
Abby, Diego and the trips joined them an hour later.
Channie said, “What’s going on up there?”
Abby shooed Diego and the trips into the kitchen and told them to start breakfast then led Channie and Hunter into the parlor. “Daddy’s trying to talk Momma into going back to Blackhawk with him without making it a direct order.” She looked at Hunter and smirked. “He says you got the worst poker face he ever saw.”
Hunter’s cheeks flushed as he grinned and shrugged his shoulders. “I cain’t help it. When I get a good hand, I get excited.”
“Anyway, it sounds like Daddy thinks if he can get Momma away from the book for a little bit, she might come back to her senses.” Abby made a face and shuddered. “But Momma doesn’t want to stop studying. She won’t let go of the book unless Daddy gives her a direct order, and she gets so upset every time he does, that it’s just not worth it. She seems to think she’s under some sort of curse that requires a blood sacrifice and she’s trying to figure a way out of it.”
Momma and Daddy were still arguing upstairs when Diego had to leave for work. He was the local manager for the McDonald’s on Dillon Street, so it surprised Channie when Abby packed him a lunch.
“If I worked at McDonald’s I’d eat their fried potatoes for every meal.”
Diego laughed and said, “Come work for me. I bet you change your mind in less than a week.”
“Can I? Would you hire me? Really?”
“Of course. But only if your papa says it’s okay.”
Channie rolled her eyes. “Like that’ll ever happen.” Daddy didn’t believe women folk should work outside the home … unless it was gambling.
Diego patted Channie’s cheek as if she were a child then laughed when she batted his hand away. He kissed and hugged each of the trips, admonished them to mind their momma and stay away from Granny then kissed Abby and whispered something in her ear that made her giggle and blush.
The trips ran to the front window, waving and yelling, “Adios, Daddy!”
Channie glanced outside and was shocked to see Diego climb into a monster truck with huge tires across the street. “Holy moly, is that his vehicle?”
CoCo turned around and grinned at her. “Grandaddy bought it for him. And as soon as I can see over the steering wheel and reach the pedals, I’m gonna drive it.”
Channie mussed his hair and said, “No doubt,” then frowned when she realized CoCo was serious.
“Channie, I’d like a word with you.”
Momma. Channie’s stomach dropped like a rock as her blood ran cold. She turned towards the stairs. Momma still looked like she was minutes away from death, but her hair was wound into a neat bun and she was wearing clean clothes. Her eyes were still blood-shot but no longer wild.
Daddy stood behind her with one hand on her shoulder and the other on the handrail at the top of the stairs. He looked down at Channie and arched his eyebrows in that “do as your told” way that meant severe consequences if she chose to disobey.
“Yes, ma’am.”
Momma and Daddy were both waiting for Channie in her room. She stepped inside and pulled the door shut with shaking hands then leaned against it.
Momma narrowed her eyes and glared at Channie. “It was wrong of you to trespass into my room and steal my property.”
“Yes, ma’am.” But I wouldn’t have needed to if you hadn’t stolen my power-name.
Momma dropped her gaze to the floor and lowered her voice till it was barely above a whisper. “But I had no right to beat you the way I did.” She took three breaths, glanced sideways at Daddy then gritted her teeth and said, “I’m sorry.”
“I’m sorry, too, Momma.” Sorry you hit me. Channie wasn’t sorry for taking the book, not even after all she’d suffered because of it. There was no doubt in her mind the book was evil, making her choose between Josh and magic was beyond cruel. But if not for the Book of the Dead, she’d still be bound by Chastity’s curse, unable to touch Josh much less make love to him.
Daddy said, “Your Momma has agreed to heal your bruises.”
Channie cringed when Momma grabbed her battered face with icy fingers. The bruises burned as Momma healed them. She’s doing it on purpose. Channie clenched her teeth against the pain, refusing to give Momma the satisfaction of seeing her cry.
As soon as she finished, Momma shoved Channie’s head away from her and spun around towards Daddy. “I done what you said, Monroe. Now give me my book.”
“I’ll give you the damn book after we win back the money I lost. Now git in the car.”
As soon as Momma and Daddy left, Abby started bugging Channie about wanting to meet Josh. She kept at it until Channie finally told her she’d decided to break up with him and let Hunter court her.
Abby pressed one hand over her mouth and the other over her heart as tears streamed down her face.
“Jeeze, Abby. You’ve never even met him. Why are you so upset?”
“You love that boy. I can tell when you’re thinking about him by the way your energy field glows. And you think about him all the time. If you break it off, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
“Abby …”
Abby grabbed Channie’s shoulders and stared at her with shifting eyes. “Is it on account of him being magically disabled?”
“What?”
Abby sighed and said, “Mixed marriages ain’t easy, but it’s worth it. Just look at how happy me and Diego are. And it won’t be as hard for y’all since you ain’t got no magical abilities no more.”
“Thanks for reminding me.” Channie considered letting Abby believe she was a coward, or worse, a bigot. But her conscious wouldn’t let her. “That’s not why I’m breaking up with him.” Time to change the subject. “How did Diego survive Daddy’s wrath. You never told me how the two of you wound up back here.”
Abby wrapped her arms around Channie and smothered her against her breasts. “You’re scared Daddy’s gonna hurt Josh, ain’t you? That’s why you’re willing to throw away your own happiness — you just want to protect him. That’s so noble.”
Channie wiggled out of her embrace and said, “Tell me how you managed to keep Daddy from killing Diego.”
Abby nodded and plopped down on her unmade bed. She patted the mattress, but Channie pretended she didn’t see the invitation and sat on the floor.
Abby took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her cheeks. “By the time I got back home, there weren’t nobody there ‘cept Aunt Wisdom and Hunter Feenie and at the time I believed Hunter was a spy.”
“What about Diego?”
“He’d moved.”
“How’d you find him?”
“One of his cousins was working at McDonald’s in Whistler’s Gulch. He told me Diego’s momma had a new man in her life and he was taken’ care of the family so Diego didn’t have to, but he didn’t get along with him and kicked him out the day after we left.”
“That’s horrible.”
“If it’d happened just one day sooner, me and Diego wouldn’t have had to go through all that grief. Anyway, Diego quit his job and took off, looking to come find me and the boys.”
“How’d he know you were gone?”
“He recognized the bus when we stopped for food at Walmart on the way outta town and followed us inside. He’d never seen the boys before and I gotta tell ya, Channie, it was awful hard on him not to pick ‘em up or hug ‘em or even say ‘howdy.’ I was surprised none of the rest of y’all felt his distress as he followed us around like a lost pup.”
“I felt it all
right, but I thought it was you.”
“A good part of it was. I don’t know how I got outta there without breaking down and bawling like a baby. Anyway, I wrote a note on the back of my shopping list, telling Diego we was on the run, and dropped it so he could pick it up.”
“Daddy didn’t tell us where we were going until after we’d crossed the Oklahoma state line. So how’d Diego know where to look?”
“He didn’t. He decided to try to find some of our neighbors or kinfolk up the mountain and see if any of them could point him in the right direction. Aunt Wisdom found him wandering around. She promised to call him if she ever heard from us, so when I showed up eleven days later, that’s what she did.”
“I’ll bet that was a sweet reunion.” Just the thought of it warmed Channie’s heart.
Abby nodded, but she frowned and bit her lip. “It was. At first. But when Diego learnt I left the boys in Colorado, he threw a regular hissy fit.”
“Did he beat you?”
“I wouldn’t a blamed him if he did, but Diego ain’t nothing like Daddy. He had a right to lay into me for abandoning our babies, but all he did was holler at me in Spanish. Even that weren’t so bad, since I couldn’t understand a word he said.”
“Yeah, about that. When did you and the trips learn to speak Spanish?”
“The trips picked it up almost immediately, especially Savvy. It wasn’t nearly as easy for me. But after a couple of weeks in Mexico, I just started understanding what folks was saying. By the end of two months, I could speak it well enough to be understood — for the most part.”
“Why were you in Mexico for two months?”
“After I told Diego I was a mage with a price on my head, he decided the best way to avoid any trackers was to take a detour south of the border on our way to Colorado. But we still had a hard time shaking ‘em off our trail. I finally got fed up with it and killed the son-of-a-bitch.”
“You killed him?”
“I ain’t one to judge a whole group of people on the bad behavior of a few, but I swear trackers are the scum of the earth. Somebody was molesting and murdering little kids in every town me and Diego stayed in for more than a day or two. I suspected it was the tracker. Sure enough, after I sent him to hell, the attacks stopped.”
“Does it bother you? Knowing you killed a man?”
“Does it bother you to kill a rattlesnake?”
Channie still had nightmares about killing Harvey and Jimmy, but she didn’t know if it was because she’d killed them or because they’d both wanted to rape her.
“Anyway, we high-tailed it outta there and got here on Thanksgiving Day.”
“That was just two days after I left.”
“I know! I was so upset. It seemed like no matter where I went I was gonna be missing somebody. And the trips wouldn’t even look at me.”
“How’d they take the news that Diego was their Daddy?”
“They loved him as soon as they laid eyes on him. I didn’t even get a chance to introduce him before Savvy tugged on his hand and said, ‘Are you my daddy?’ It was the sweetest thing.” Abby blinked and wiped her eyes on her sleeve then pressed her hand over her heart and shuddered. “Until Daddy tore into Diego.”
“What happened?” Channie’s heart leapt into her throat even though Diego had obviously survived the encounter without any visible scars.
“Daddy grabbed the front of Diego’s shirt, drug him through the house and out into the back yard. It was horrible.” Abby’s voice trembled. “Diego didn’t fight back or even try to defend hisself. Daddy beat the living daylights out of him.”
“Why didn’t Diego fight back?” Diego wasn’t nearly as big or strong as Daddy but he was no wimp either. Maybe he was a coward.
“I asked him that myself, once it was over with. He said he felt like he deserved it for not marrying me as soon as he learned I was pregnant.”
“How bad was it?”
“Bad enough. But when Daddy hollered something about me being a whore, it was like somebody flipped a crazy switch inside Diego.”
“What do you mean?”
“He twisted outta Daddy’s grip and landed at least half a dozen punches in less time that it takes to blink. I ain’t never seen nobody move that fast.”
“He hit Daddy?”
“Broke his nose, split his lip and bruised his ribs.”
“I’m surprised Daddy didn’t kill him after that. All he would’a had to do was curse him.”
“He knocked him out with a be-calm spell, but not before Diego beat him up.”
“So how come Daddy and Diego are all buddy-buddy now?”
“Nobody but Momma’s ever stood up to Daddy before and even she backs off when he gets riled up. Daddy respects Diego. He even said as much. He told Diego he had more spunk than any man he’d ever met.”
“Daddy was so mad at you for leaving, he swore he’d never let you set foot under his roof again.”
Abby rolled her eyes. “That was before he and Momma had to take care of the trips on their own. If you’d still been there to babysit, I doubt they’d a been so accommodating. As soon as Momma healed Daddy, they packed their bags and took off for the casinos — leaving us to babysit. We didn’t even get so much as a nap before they left.”
“Ya know, Abby … taking care of your own kids isn’t babysitting, it’s parenting.”
SCHOOL
JOSH’S STOMACH CHURNED AS HE drove to school the next morning. After that huge emo scene with Dad last night he hadn’t been able to fall asleep so he’d downed two cups of coffee as soon as he stumbled into the kitchen. He probably shouldn’t have refused the waffles Dad made as a peace offering, but since he still refused to let Josh see Channie, there was no truce. He had no appetite. He could barely breathe, much less eat. It was like the bottom two-thirds of his lungs couldn’t function without Channie.
He had no remorse about lying and sneaking out, but Dad was going to be extra vigilant for the next few weeks so there was no way Josh could sneak out again so soon. He couldn’t stand the thought of Channie sitting in the park waiting for him and wondering why he didn’t show up. He had to find a way to get a message to her. If all the witchy people in her house couldn’t “feel” his magical energy, he’d just sneak into her room before school and tell her, or leave her a note if she weren’t there. What would that crazy bitch she called “Momma” do to Channie if she suspected she’d had an unauthorized visitor?
Maybe he could talk Kassie into knocking on her front door and … and what? Announce that she had a secret message for Channie? Maybe she could claim to be a friend and say she’d heard Channie was back and she just wanted to deliver her homework assignments. That might actually work.
By the time Josh got to school, there was only one parking spot left in the senior lot, and a vintage yellow Mustang was honing in on it. “Oh no you don’t.” He hit the gas and peppered the cars behind him with gravel. Josh didn’t know her name, but he knew the redhead behind the wheel was just a sophomore. She grinned as she cut him off and whipped into the spot.
Josh laid on the horn then rolled down his window. “Hey! You can’t park here. Seniors only.” The little snot flipped him off but at least she moved her car.
He grabbed his backpack and ran across the quad. If he didn’t find Kassie before she went to class, he’d have to wait until lunch.
Josh missed Channie so much it hurt. He put a hand over his glowing chest. No one here could see their bond but the way it pulsed when he stepped through the door startled him. He assumed it was activated by his desire to see Channie, so when he walked around the corner and found her leaning against his locker, it took him completely by surprise. “Channie! What are you doing here?”
She grinned up at him and said, “Waiting for you.”
He stroked her cheeks with the back of his fingers then kissed the top of her head and whispered in her ear, “Who healed you?”
“Momma.”
Josh slid his hands arou
nd her waist then leaned back and examined every inch of Channie’s perfect face. “I thought she wanted you to suffer.”
Channie looked both ways then lowered her voice and said, “She does. But Daddy took the Book of the Dead away from her and told her she couldn’t have it back unless she apologized and healed me.”
“Is she going to try to retaliate?”
“I don’t think so.” Channie dropped her chin and stared at her hands.
She was lying.
“Do you think I could make a shield for you, the way you did for me?”
Channie shook her head. “No.”
“Why not?”
“If I come home with a shield, it’ll raise too many questions.”
“Can’t you just say that some of your power came back?”
Channie rolled her eyes. “It doesn’t work like that.”
“Well, tell everyone that Hunter did it. I know he’d cover for you.”
“I don’t have the power to maintain a shield. All it would do is make Momma mad. She’ll curse me as soon as it fails.”
Josh pulled Channie against his chest and inhaled the scent of her hair, calming himself. “I hate that you’re so vulnerable in your own home.”
“Me too.” She lifted her chin, a clear signal. Josh kissed her, but kept it PG. He’d been jealous of the guys with girlfriends since middle school, but Channie wasn’t just his girlfriend, she was his wife. And their physical relationship was too special to put it on display for the whole school.
The first bell rang, interrupting the kiss. Josh took Channie’s hand and said, “Come on, we need to go to the office and find out what classes we got stuck with.” He also wanted to find out if he had any chance of graduating on time. He’d never carried a full load, because of racing, but he might still be able to pull it off if he could drop all electives and just take core classes. Dad would have to hire a tutor, though. And all the extra homework was going to suck big time.
Mr. Torres closed the door to his office then unlocked the top drawer of his file cabinet and pulled out the first folder. “I see you’re still first in your class.”
Believe: The Complete Channie Series Page 49