by Kira Graham
“We’sh bakin’,” Mindy trills, her eyes blinking slowly as she tries to glare at Nate.
“Huh. Three hundred bad eggs?”
“Sh’gonna be a big cashe.” Hic. “I mean, cock!” she yells triumphantly, her eyes crossing as she giggles and smiles so widely that I can count every single one of her teeth.
They’re all there and pearly white. Lucky bitch. I have four caps, thanks to fighting, and two of my back molars are gone, thanks to Alex. God, that bitch can throw a punch.
Nate, however, does not enjoy the way that Mindy yells the word “cock,” which I can tell because his eyes practically bug out of his head while Ares chokes and splutters, trying to hide his amusement.
“Mindy.”
“I said ‘cock,’ didn’t I? Firsht time I ever shaid that bash word,” she sighs, falling in a boneless heap against Nate when he pulls her into his side and fights a grin of his own.
“I’ve said ‘cock’ lotsa ways. This one time, a guy whipped out his dick, and it was so huge that I called it Thor. Now every time I watch the Thor movies, all I can think about is that dick. It’s gross,” Tee says somberly, sputtering when I suck in my lips and try not to giggle.
“One time, I was with this guy, Matt. He was crazy hot, but on the short side, so I was like, ‘Meh, it’s gonna be a short night,’” I say tongue in cheek, laughing when Tee wheezes. “But when he dropped his pants, I just about died. No, really—for real. I passed out from shock. And fear. I still talk to him over social media sometimes, and he still laughs about taking me to the emergency room to have my eyebrow stitched up,” I tell them, nodding when Tee eyes my eyebrow and gapes.
“You said that that happened when you saw Céline Dion in concert!”
“Technically, she was singing inside my head when I passed out,” I point out, pausing when the elevator opens to reveal no fewer than eight security guys all waiting for us, armed to the teeth.
“What was the song?” Ares asks, after we’ve all piled into an SUV, and Nate, with a wide-eyed Mindy riding shotgun, takes off towards the twenty-four-hour supermarket across town.
“‘Think Twice,’” I mutter, busting up when even Mindy laughs so hard that she topples over with her face landing directly over Nate’s crotch.
Raaawr.
There’s a scuffle, mostly from Nate, since I notice that Mindy isn’t moving much other than to resist his tugging as he tries to remove her from his lap.
I just watch, amused, really proud—I taught that good girl every bad thing she knows—and very hopeful that they work things out. I thought that they were awesome together, but that’s just me, I guess, since I really adore Mindy. Sort of. I mean, when she’s not telling me that I’m going to burn in hell, she’s a really good girlfriend. She hangs out with me whenever I’m free, no matter what she’s doing. Except for that time when she had to volunteer at the soup kitchen. So I went with.
I never will again, though, because while I adored the guys who came there to eat, and while I respect the hell out of them for surviving and still being great human beings, the smell of feces is not one that I particularly seek out.
“Mindy! Sit up and put your head against the headrest,” Nate barks, somehow managing to wrestle her up without veering off the road.
Mindy just giggles after she’s situated and goggles at Nate like a lovesick freak.
“You’re so handshome,” she breathes.
“Thanks. It’s the face God gave me,” he mutters uncomfortably, while I titter and share a look with Tee.
Now, let it not be said that I’m not a good Catholic girl. I am. I go to mass, when the priests don’t have restraining orders against me—forgiveness, my ass!—and I donate money to good causes. And one time, I even took a taste of Honey’s food, though I had food poisoning for two days afterwards. So, being a good Catholic girl who slightly breaks the holy rules every now and then, I’m thinking that it’s my duty to point out the obvious and give these folks a happy ending.
“You should totally just forget about that vow of chastity, Minds. Not that I don’t respect your fortitude, but if you’re sniffing around for dick that intently, you should go for it.”
Nate gasps, like the girl he is, while Mindy sighs and smiles dreamily.
“I was going to put out, but some idiot dumped me,” she says softly, her slur falling away so fast that I blink, and then silently applaud her for her acting skills.
Is it too early to predict that these two are totally going to bone soon, and then get married and have a bajillion babies? I’d like to think not, but I’m stopped from having a chance to point it out when I hear the blare of a horn and turn just in time to see the second security car veering off the road behind us. It happens so fast that I scream along with Tee and Mindy when something hits us, slamming me face-first into the back of Nate’s seat.
Ares yells out and somehow manages to dive at Tee right before something hits the window beside her head. The glass doesn’t shatter and explode into a million pieces, but when I look up and see the point of impact spidering outwards, my blood runs cold. Another loud sound fills the cabin, and I see Nate manhandling Mindy into the wheel well as I feel the SUV jolt and pick up speed.
“Stay down! Ares, get on the horn to Matthews and make sure that they’re okay,” he yells, pulling out his own phone and barking commands into it that get drowned out when another impact makes the SUV lurch.
“Sinai! Goddammit, I told you to get your ass down!” he yells when I pop my head up from the back seat to glance back.
There’s a large black car of some kind behind us, its headlights off so that I can’t tell what make or model it is. The windows must be tinted, too, because even in the dark, I can see how black they are. The car’s gaining on us, even as Nate puts his foot down flat and veers left onto the shoulder, avoiding another late-night driver just in the nick of time.
“He’s speeding up, Nate!” I yell, my heart slowing its pounding now that I’m over the initial shock.
It’s a fact that I panic better than the rest of my family does. I think it’s all the years I worked in a kitchen and put up with the noise, the cursing, and the clanging and crashing around me, but whatever the reason, I’m able to gather my wits and look for as many details as I can possibly find.
What I see makes my heart go cold. It’s innocuous and probably ridiculous, but when the car speeds up and comes so close that it resembles a dark, looming monster, I notice a pink bumper sticker on the right side of the hood, proudly declaring that “Jesus loves you.”
This is going to sound weird, given the circumstances and the fact that we’re being bumper-butted by this very car, but seeing that sticker calms me completely, as if the reminder itself is more important than the fact that we’re being attacked by some Jesus freak.
Then things go a little pear-shaped, because on the next ram, the SUV lifts, and I literally feel the wheel shimmying at an odd angle. Things happen fast, and, unlike in Cleo’s recounting of when her kidnapper’s car tipped over after she attacked him, nothing seems to be moving in slow motion. One minute, we’re being hit, and the next, I feel pain, hear the screech of metal, and then come to on the side of the road, thirty feet away from the SUV.
My ears are ringing loudly, and I vaguely catch a glimpse of blood on my white jeans when I roll over and try to sit up. When my body doesn’t immediately respond, I get confused, until, with a rushing swoosh, everything seems to slam into me. Then I feel pain unlike anything I have ever felt before, all over my body. My head, my legs, my arms, and even my face start to throb, and I become aware of a moaning sound that turns into a cry.
Oh, my God!
“Tee!” I scream, ignoring the pain in my skull as tears fill my eyes and start to stream down my cheeks. “Nefertiti!”
I don’t hear an answer, and, from my position on the ground, all I can see of the SUV are the wheels sticking up towards the dark, cloudless sky.
“Nefertiti!”
Chapt
er Six
Sinai
“If…hear me?”
“Back, sir…need…vitals.”
I come to and hear snippets of yelling, moaning out load when my numbness rapidly slides away, allowing pain to fill me to the point of near madness. I moan again when I try to open my eyes and nothing happens, leaving me trapped in a darkness that’s as confusing as hell, especially when I hear more shouting and then a female scream that reminds me of Tee.
I’m having a nightmare—I must be—or worse, Tee finally made good on her threats to do bad things to me while I was sleeping.
“Sir! Sir! I need you to move back so that we can check her vitals and assess her injuries!”
“I told you—no one is touching her without my consent, not until I know exactly who you are and where you came from.”
That voice sounds familiar, and I remember why when I take a deep breath through my nose and catch a whiff of laundry detergent and chewing gum. It’s a scent that I associate with Paris, and one that has me moaning and crying out, blindly reaching for him as everything comes back to me. The car. The accident. Oh, God.
“Tee…” I moan, feeling blindly for something that I can hold on to.
I’m adrift here, feeling cold and so afraid that when a large hand engulfs mine, I cling to it for dear life, not caring that I’m coming off as weak and helpless.
“She’s right here, Sin. Do you hear me, baby? Tee is right here, and she’s fine. She’s getting checked out by the EMTs as we speak.”
“Jesus…loves…you,” I whisper, my throat convulsing on a cough that tastes like blood when something warm surges up my throat.
“Sir, we really need to look at her. That’s blood in her mouth. We need to make sure that it’s from a cut in her mouth rather than from internal bleeding,” someone yells close to my ear, right before I feel fingers running over me.
It hurts like hell, and I can’t contain a scream when someone touches my left leg, causing agony to explode from the lower limb, so hot and fierce that I feel nausea coil in my belly.
“You’re hurting her!”
“Pa…ris?”
“I’m right here, sweetheart. Right here. Feel my hand? I’m not letting go,” he rasps close to my ear, his hot breath chasing shivers down my spine from where it warms my ear.
God, I’m cold—and so tired. It feels like someone has lowered a truck onto my chest, and it hurts to breathe, even when I try to take shallower breaths in order to ease the pain.
“Jesus…” I try to get out, desperate to relay what I saw, just in case.
“Don’t talk if it’s hurting you. Just stay still and let them check you out. Nate!”
“They’re clear, boss. They’re good. Take a step back and let them do their thing. Jesus Christ, please tell me she’s alive.”
I want to say yes and confirm that I am still here and that I’m okay, because Nate sounds so choked up that I immediately want to fix it, but I can’t. I can’t say anything, because that weight on my chest is getting so heavy that it’s not hard to breathe anymore; it’s impossible.
“She’s crashing!”
Paris
I stalk around the waiting room like a caged animal and shrug off anyone who comes near me, my emotions running so hot that I feel as if I’m about to come out of my skin.
When I made it to the accident site after the second team had recovered the car and Matthews had called Adonis, I almost lost my mind. At almost four in the morning, I’d been ready to head home and get some sleep after stopping by Adonis’s place to deliver the profit and loss analysis that I’d worked up at the restaurant.
At first, I didn’t quite get what he was screaming about, and I was halfway towards laughing when he ran out of his apartment wearing pajama bottoms, a wifebeater, and no shoes. And then I heard what he was yelling into his phone.
I won’t ever forget how I felt when I understood the enormity of what was happening, and for the rest of my life, I will relive, over and over, how I felt when we got to the scene and found people surrounding Sin, where she was lying unconscious and unresponsive a few feet from the overturned SUV. She was as white as a ghost, covered in blood, and so still that I thought she was dead.
Everyone else made it out of the crash okay, though some had bumps and bruises or were in need of stitches. From what Ares said after everyone rushed to the hospital behind us—I was in the ambulance because I was ready to kill anyone who tried to separate me from Sin—the flip had happened so fast that although he’d tried to make a grab for Sin, she’d flown through the back window and gotten flung from the car before he could reach her.
Now, Tee’s left hand is broken and in a cast, Mindy looks like she just went twenty rounds with Ali, and Nate and Ares each have a broken nose and two black eyes, thanks to the impact. But they’re okay, and while things aren’t great right now, I realize that I owe Nate a huge debt. From what the security guys are reporting, he saved them all when he turned into a controlled flip in order to avoid slamming directly into the median.
If he hadn’t, with Sin unbelted and leaning between the seats like she was, there is no doubt in my mind that she’d have flown face-first through the windshield. The fact that she’s alive at all is thanks to that man.
I just pray to God that she makes it through surgery after crashing and needing resuscitation in the ambulance.
“She’s going to be fine, son. You’ll see. Of all our girls, Sin is the toughest one. Hell, she probably tucked and rolled mid-flight,” Jack chokes out, his attempt at a chuckle turning into a sob that has Honey flying into his arms to comfort him.
I want to say something comforting, too, and reassure them all, but I don’t have it in me. Sin could have died. Hell, she should have died, I think, feeling the dull ache of my heart thumping in my chest. She was so bloodied and broken, lying there on the ground, that I didn’t know where to touch her when I ran towards her and fell to my knees at her side.
“You didn’t see her, Jack,” Tee whispers, her lip trembling as she blinks fiercely to fight back her tears.
“Her leg was sticking out sideways, as if her knee was turned backwards. And her face…”
She obviously can’t bring herself to describe it, and I can’t say that I blame her. Sin’s beautiful face was completely covered in blood, and what little I could see of her skin was a dull black color, where the bruising had already set in. And her eyes…
Jesus, please, if you’re here with us, and if you’re willing to listen to me, please let her eyes be okay, I beg silently, gritting my teeth at the thought of how swollen her eyes were.
She didn’t even look human…she hardly looked like more than a bloodied corpse.
“She’s going to be fine! Do you people hear me? She’s fine. All she needs is some stitching up, some rest, and a lot of spoiling,” Rosetta screams, breaking down when Zeus grabs her and pulls her into his chest. “She shouldn’t have gone out. Why the hell did you all go out?”
Her screams are directed at Tee and Mindy, and I see Nate and Ares wince before Adonis sighs and shakes his head, cutting off whatever Tee is about to say.
“Sin does this sometimes, Rosie. She gets restless in the middle of the night and skips out. Sometimes she runs for an hour or two; sometimes she stops at Freeman’s Café and has a cup of coffee and a slice of pie. Her team is used to following her and keeping back when she needs space. This morning was no different. She called her team, and they called Ares like they always do. He keeps an eye on her and talks to her when she seems to need talking down.”
“Talking down from what? Dammit, what the hell has been going on with her lately?”
“Rosetta, you need to calm down.”
“I won’t calm—”
“I said calm the hell down, girly, and come here to your mama!” Honey yells, embracing a weeping Rose when she finally slumps and seems to lose her strength. “Now, you listen to Honey, and you hear what I’m saying. Tonight was a tragic accident that happened as
a result of some sicko harassing us all. No one is at fault here except the man who’s behind this, and I won’t hear you blaming anyone else. Sin knew the risks, as did Tee and Mindy. She wanted to live her life as she always has, and no one is to blame for that—you hear me? Now, dry your eyes, girl, and stop thinking the worst. She’s going to come out of surgery just fine, and before you know it, she’ll be insulting us all left and right,” she says sternly.
“You promise?”
“Of course I do! God ain’t gonna take one of my babies before he takes me. It’s our deal,” she coos, injecting a measure of mirth into her words so that everyone chuckles.
And that’s the last sound we all make for what feels like hours, before I finally hear the door creak open and whip around to find a doctor standing in the doorway, his scrubs a pristine light blue. He looks like he’s been beaten up and spit out, but he’s smiling as he says the words I need to hear so that I can breathe again.
“It was touch and go for a bit, but that woman’s a fighter to the core. Now, I can’t let ya’ll see her just yet. She’s just come outta recovery, and we’re keeping an eye on her for the next hour or so to make sure she’s stable, but I think we’re outta the woods, folks.”
A cheer goes up around us, and I vaguely notice people hugging, slapping each other’s backs, and laughing through their tears. I don’t pay much attention, however, as I approach the surgeon and gravely meet his eyes.
“How bad is it, doc? Give it to me straight.”
He sighs, and some of my joy ebbs when he shakes his head minutely.
“She suffered a hard hit to the head when she went through that back window, son—I won’t lie. The only reason she survived is that she musta twisted somehow and taken the impact with her back and pelvis. She has a little swelling on her brain, but we’re monitoring that closely. I didn’t want to go in there unless I really had to, not after the toll that the surgery took. I had to put eight pins in her left leg, just below her knee where the bone broke clean through, and her ribs were beat all to hell and back, too, from hitting the road surface at the rate she was going when she was flung from the car.”