I trailed my hand from her ankle to her thigh before she cracked a smile. The goose bumps followed the path my fingers had taken. I smiled in return. She opened her eyes and looked at me with all the love and forgiveness that only any angel could.
“He okay?” T asked.
I rest my palm against her chilled torso.
“You knew?” Of course, she knew. When she’d heard the screaming from below, she didn’t react.
“Becca told us before the wedding. Said she wasn’t sure it’d be a surprise. Because Nix is…”
I knew the answer to this one. “Nix.”
She twisted in the bed so she was lying on her back. “Another person for him to follow.”
“He’s going to be a nightmare. But who are we kidding? We’ll all follow that kid around making sure they’re okay.” I sat on the edge of the bed, in the me-sized space T had cleared.
T covered my hand. “How about you? With the kids? Is that something you see in your future?”
I knew what she was getting at. How it would end. T was worried that the disease that kept her from spending time with her mother would be passed on to any biological children we had.
“The only future I see belongs to the both of us. As long I have you, I’ll have what I need.” I kissed her gently on the lips. She puckered and then smiled, her mouth letting me know she was pleased with my answer.
I sat back up. “Someone’s got to take care of all our new people, too.”
“Rhy looked so happy today.”
We were both fools for Lock’s little sister. She was the purest sunshine in the world.
T pulled herself to sitting. “You know, after everyone’s settled, I was looking online and…”
I put my hands on either side of her thighs, letting my thumbs rub her skin. Touching, always touching. She was my miracle. I didn’t rush her. My girl would get to what she wanted to say. I let her have the silence of my focus.
“A lot of adoptable kids have special needs like Rhy. Some with even more needs, and I feel like we have this big house…”
“You want to adopt?” I felt a spark in my chest.
“Stupid idea, I know. I mean, how are we going to pass any inspections?” She put her hands on her bare lap.
“T, Merck loves us both. Can you think of a better recommendation?” I took her hands into mine, stilling them from their worry.
This time T looked at me like I was the miracle. “I’d really love to do that. Be parents to a kid who needs help.”
I started laughing, picturing our very own child. “Not to be too full of ourselves, but I think we’d be amazing at it.”
She put her hands on my chest. “Maybe we can spend more time with Rhy? Let her teach us what it might be like?”
I pulled her to my chest and kissed the top of her head. “I can’t wait.”
1
Superhero
Fenix
“Hold these eggs.”
My father handed me the white carton in the grocery store. The aisle was cold. I was cold. My hands were shaking.
“Don’t you drop those eggs, son.” His voice was menacing. But everything about him was menacing.
He’d finally done it. He’d killed my mother. Last night. This morning.
We were in the grocery store because we needed food. My sister was at my aunt’s house, which was good.
Because Mom was dead.
My hands shook more. I stared at them and willed them to stop shaking. I begged them to stop shaking.
Mom was shaking before she died. Seeing her like that was all there was. In this grocery store. In my head. My hands were clean now, but Dad had scrubbed them before he’d put me in the truck.
To come here. To get groceries.
I felt sick to my stomach.
Mom had been trying to make dinner. In the end all the food from the fridge had been tossed around the kitchen.
The squeaky Styrofoam container the eggs were in was giving me away. He was watching. He was getting even angrier.
Mom wasn’t here anymore. To step in. To stop him when he got this way.
“Stop shaking, Fenix Churchkey.”
It was a whisper from the scariest man on the planet. I tensed my muscles. There was no difference. Maybe it was making it worse.
“You’re the best boy, Nix. I love you so much. Just remember that.”
Mom. She was gone.
I watched in horror as the carton tumbled from my hands and hit the floor. The eggs made a sickening noise inside.
Mom was shaking before she died.
Before he murdered her.
I looked at his face, knowing he would kill me too. Not here. Most likely not here.
He liked private. He liked closed doors.
I knew not to make a sound when his hand grasped my arm so hard. He would squeeze right through the bones maybe someday.
I started to count my matchbox cars in my head. It was how I kept quiet. In a box under my bed there was three cars. The red car. The blue van. And the Hummer, my favorite. It was purple and…
“What did I tell you?”
His mouth was next to my ear. His breath smelled bad. His sweat smelled bad.
Mom was gone now.
At least my sister was at my aunt’s house. She was just a baby.
Dad grabbed my other arm, a little lower than the edge of my T-shirt sleeve. I watched as my skin came up between his fingers.
I felt the tears.
Crying always made it worse.
He was going to break my arms. Both my arms.
“Hey! Mister! Leave that boy alone.”
I felt chills up my spine. We were private. We liked closed doors. No one was allowed to know.
“I said let go! You’re bigger than he is. And let him go. He’s good.”
She was a kid. Like me. She put her hands on his forearm and pushed. I was stunned quiet. I was stunned stupid.
She wasn’t wearing matching socks and her hair was a giant halo of curls. She had a shiny purse with a stuffed dog sticking out of it and a fistful of coupons. There was a spiral pad with a cat doodled on it popping out of a pocket.
Dad took one hand off of me and lifted it. He was going to backhand this little girl. I put my hand up to block him.
I saw my death in his eyes then. You don’t stand up to him.
Ever.
Mom was gone.
The little girl didn’t flinch.
It would occur to me years later that she’d never been hit a day in her life. But not now. Now she was a superhero.
“You don’t hurt kids. That’s wrong.” She looked from his face to his hand that was still squeezing me.
“Go on, girl. ’Fore I change your mind.” Dad wiped his mouth with the back of his threatening hand.
Restraint.
He had it for her. For this little girl.
She frowned at my father and then put her lips to the side like she was fed up with him.
I felt my mouth drop open.
Then she was looking at me. Her clear blue eyes saw me. Saw through me. “Are you okay?”
To see this wild disrespect of what my father could do, what he demanded from Mom, from me was like getting hit with a wave in the center of my chest.
I felt my father’s warning hiss to me. This girl was the sun on the darkest horizon. She made dark turn to light.
I nodded. I was fine. We were always fine.
Mom was gone.
“Mister, you need to let go of his arm.”
The girl pointed at me. I knew what she saw. His fingers biting into me like teeth on a tiger. I had so many bruises all over my body that were in the outline of my father’s hand. This new one on my arm would only be unique because it didn’t feel entirely in the safe zone of how my shirts lay. I would wear a long sleeve if I could find it tomorrow. If I made it to tomorrow.
“I said for you to get. And mind your own damn business.”
The girl’s eyes went wide at his use of th
e word “damn”. If she only knew.
I wanted her to know.
She narrowed her eyes at my father. “You’re a bad man.”
The veins in my father’s neck were starting to pop out.
She was in danger now. And I knew I should protect her from him, but to not be alone for a moment. It was making me breathe, and I needed that so much.
“You’re about to learn how bad I can be.”
It was a low growl. It was his home voice. It was his closed-door voice. It was the voice I was never going to get away from. It was the last voice my mom heard.
Mom was gone.
“You’re trying to scare me, and I don’t scare easy. I sleep in my own bed with the lights off and no nightlight anymore.”
She lifted her chin at my father like a boxer just before the first punch.
“Dad, let’s go.” I spoke for her. Normally I never spoke. Not when my father’s voice had cracked its way into my soul. But I didn’t want to see the light in the girl’s eyes fade.
I didn’t know what a soul was until I watched my mother’s leave last night—or this morning. It was that eye light.
“Rebecca Dixie Stiles!”
The girl snapped her head around. Rebecca had to be her name.
“Over here, Dad! I need your help!” She crossed her arms in front of her.
I watched as my father shifted his weight and a muscle twitched in his jaw.
My father didn’t say anything else. He abandoned our groceries on the floor by the egg carton and pulled me with him.
I looked over my shoulder at her. She was waving down her father, who I didn’t get to see. “Dad! This guy! Wait!”
She reached past her stuffed animal into the sparkly bag and jogged after us. She held a lollipop out to me. I looked at it. The words “Hug Me” were printed on it. I stuck it inside my pocket.
Rebecca locked eyes with me then. “Be okay. Okay? Be okay.”
I nodded.
It just didn’t happen that day.
Or the next.
Or the next.
2
Setups
Becca
Fifteen Years Later . . .
Having to listen to Henry talk about her boyfriend, Dick Dongy, with a straight face was hard at first. But now it seemed like second nature. Hendrix Lemon was a bartender/waitress with me at Meme’s. It was a bar loosely themed around funny memes from the Internet. Mostly the decorating consisted of print outs of said memes taped to the walls of the interior. And of course, the female employees had to be scantily dressed.
Henry had met her man and he’d locked that shit down. Not that I blamed him. Henry’s body was insane and her hair and lips—well, she was a draw to the bar. That was for sure.
Henry lived with Dick now, and I’d lost my partner in all kinds of man-hunting crimes.
“So, Dick said that we were going to do some renovations to the roadkill hospital this weekend, so I’m going to have to cancel our girls’ pampering day.”
Henry got to be dressed as herself at work, which was a cop-out because she’d become a viral Internet meme last year. I still had to fulfill the owner’s fetish for Bubble Gum Girl, which was the most obscure meme ever. I wore pigtails and a pink bra. My hot pants were white and silver and my high heels were a sexy variation of combat boots. I had to spray myself with a bubble gum scented perfume every hour or so. High heels and bartending/waitressing was the worst part of all. Well, and all the different ways drunk guys found to run their hands along my bare skin.
I wiped down my last table before we opened and pouted at Henry. She was a serious downer.
“I’m sorry. I’ll make it up to you, and soon.” Henry held out her arms for a hug and ended the affection with a loud slap on my ass. “Keep it tight, Becs.”
I used my towel as a weapon and twirled it into a rope and snapped it against the back pocket of her jeans. After she skip-hopped away, I knew I made decent contact.
Henry was working behind the bar tonight. I was jealous, because back there I could put on a pair of Crocs that were a whole lot nicer to my feet than the heeled combat boots.
“You got a text from your mom!” Henry held up my phone.
“What’s it say?” I hollered over my shoulder as I went to unlock the front door.
“Oh shit.”
I switched on the neon sign to light up the word “OPEN” before turning to see what Henry was cursing about.
“Your mom is setting you up again.”
“Oh shit,” I echoed my friend. “When?”
Henry grimaced. “He’s coming here tonight.”
I shook my head. Henry shook her head. We’d been through this before.
I crossed over to the bar and hopped onto a stool. Henry handed me my phone.
I scrolled through the fifteen texts labeled Mother Monster. She’d found another guy for me, which was no surprise. Finding me a husband to take care of all my needs was her only focus in life.
I knew it came from love. Somewhere, deep down, my mother was just trying to make sure I had a perfect life. It was her very own perception of a perfect life, of course.
I exhaled and felt my shoulders drop my posture low.
In my head I heard Mom telling me to sit up straight and stick out my boobs. Because men liked boobs. And boobs got you a great husband.
I hunched my shoulders even more.
Mom had met a guy at the place where she gets the oil changed in her BMW and sent him here to me tonight.
Some mothers wouldn’t want their daughters in the getup I was currently rocking in public, ever. For my mom, she saw it as husband bait. The sexier, the better.
Because snagging a husband was the most important thing in a girl’s life. It didn’t matter if he cheated on you. If he ignored you. If he had entire contact lists of Internet sex friends. As long as he was your husband, you were winning life.
Henry put her hand on my forearm. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I know you hate this.”
I slid my phone over the bar. Henry would stash it with our purses. I had no pockets, and the boss frowned on phone use during working hours.
“Oh, wait. There’s one more. It’s a picture. Damn.” Henry lifted an eyebrow and tapped the screen with her fingernail.
The picture was clearly a screenshot of a social media profile. Alton Dragsmith was very handsome. He was cuddling a baby deer, so that was it for Henry. She was a sucker for any kind of cute, fuzzy baby.
He had a strong jaw and sparkling blue eyes. He was wearing a bandana like a hiker that was hiking who loved to hike (clearly). The background clearly looked like he was on the top of a mountain.
“Alton’s a hottie.” Henry shrugged like she was apologizing for noticing the obvious.
I gave my phone back to her. “Looks can be deceiving. I mean, you’re boning the town serial killer on the regular.” I winked as she snorted.
Dick Dongy had a reputation before Henry had claimed him as hers. He was misunderstood back then. I still liked to tease her from time to time. Dick taught us to look a little deeper before passing judgment on a person.
“Yeah. But what if maybe this guy isn’t the worst?”
I wrinkled my nose at her and twirled off the stool as the front door opened. My mother had an uncanny ability of finding the weirdest, craziest guys in town and arranging for me to meet them.
I got menus for my first round of customers. They ordered drinks, and I marched the requests to Henry.
She continued the conversation like it had never stopped.
“So, maybe this guy is different.”
I tapped my fingers on the shiny wood as I waited for the orders to put on my tray.
“I just don’t want regular. You know? I want to feel love hard in my chest.” The ice rattled in the glass as I balanced the rum and Coke on the tray.
“And your vagina.” Henry shook her boobs at me. I shook mine back without spilling a drop from the drinks.
“That’s some next
level waitress slutting you can do there.” Henry placed the last drink onto my tray for me.
“I got skills you don’t even know about.” I walked the drinks to my table, and by then they had decided on the appetizers. I had just finished taking the order when the front door opened. Alton Dragsmith walked into Meme’s and scanned the bar. Then he found me. His smile was sparkling and he even had a dimple. He was wonderfully handsome, but I felt nothing. Not a single thing except dread. The cycle was about to repeat again. Mother Monster would push and pry. I would do my best but still disappoint her and fail to nab a husband with a happily ever after.
MERCY
1
Animal
I looked from one mob boss to the other. They were sitting in my friend’s house, but I was clearly in charge.
Bat Feybi’s son was on my left. Mitch Kaleotos was on the right. They were unhappy. I didn’t give a damn.
“Those are the terms. You both report to me. Understood?”
They cursed under their breath, but they agreed. I stood and they did the same. I folded my arms over my chest instead of reaching out for a handshake. We were not equals. I was better than they were. I was harder, smarter, and meaner—if I needed to be.
Kaleotos responded using my street name, “Yeah, Havoc.”
I lifted my eyebrows and they shuffled toward the front door.
Nix came into the room. Both Feybi and Kaleotos startled at his presence. Nix didn’t have on his ever-present hoodie, so they could see his full skull face tat. He widened his eyes and hissed at them.
I had to bite the insides of my cheeks to keep from smiling. My man. He was my brother in the only way it really counted—in our souls.
Feybi bristled.
I followed the two men into the foyer. They seemed like they wanted to say something more. I settled my command of the atmosphere in my chest. My inner essence was calm, cool, and collected.
They wouldn’t fuck with me, simply because I wasn’t scared of them. A mountain of a man with a reputation that had burned up the town.
Both Feybi and Kaleotos reached for the doorknob. Kaleotos was faster and yanked open the huge door.
On the other side, with three backpacks, a suitcase, red heart-shaped sunglasses tangled in the hair at the top of her head, and a miniskirt that made everything below her waist illegally good-looking was Nix’s baby sister, Ember. Her long brown hair was streaked with all different colors and her fingers were littered with glittery rings.
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