by Amaya Black
“Selfish cunt.” Cassie hissed.
She was standing against a wall, while I was sitting on the living room couch. Her strawberry hair looked frazzled; her eyes wide with mania. Whatever was going on in her head, not even a therapist would be able to help her. Rough hints of dark blue draped over her body in the form of a dress. Who attempted the type of situation she had created wear some FUGLY looking jean dress?
“What’s it feel like to be a princess? To have a man dangling onto your every word?” She waved the gun around wildly. Flashes of silver danced in the air leaving light trails.
Some parts of me, wanted me to pray to Jesus Christ. It told me to beg Cassie for my life but I wasn’t doing that today. I wasn’t going to do that any day. Darien’s ass was off drinking tea with Cassie’s momma and I knew I was going to have to save my damn self. Black women were always saving the damn day anyway.
“I’m not a princess, Cassie,” I shook my head.
Slowly I had been maneuvering the ropes. Darien had tied me up enough that I knew my way around a good knot. Unfortunately for Cassie, this bitch didn’t know a good knot.
She stamped her foot with a thunderous force and the vibration traveled up even own legs. “But YOU ARE! I sent a fucking idiot to tear you two apart. Tenchi Kobiyashi…laid every goddamn trail I could. And still the two of you remained together. Darien was supposed to be mine…I should have had his kids. He and Mikos belonged to me.”
“You ever thought he just wasn’t that into you?” I shrugged and knew that my words were baiting the hell out of her.
Cassie was very much a teeter-tottering and I was going to push her sanity to the very brink. Growing up with an addict for a mother, you were always tip toeing around and knew which buttons to push. Just because she was crazy and had a gun didn’t mean she was any different from the woman who had gave me life.
“He was into me just fine before you and that brat turned up,” she spat.
“But like really girl…did you think he was going to go the distance with you? You fucked him and his brother…” I shrugged, the pounding underneath my skull where she had bludgeoned me practically to death start beat like a Kanye West song.
Cassie took that as her cue to swing on me but she never got the chance to connect. The biting of the ropes had ceased as I had finally gotten my hands out of them. Wonderment filled her eyes but only for a moment as they soon filled with pain.
I head butted the hell out of her and started seeing stars myself but also noticed streams of velvet coming from her nose and her eyes watered immediately. She was once again stunned to the point she had dropped the gun. I kicked it to the far end of the room. The metal was muffled by the carpet but I didn’t want to give Cassie time to register it was gone. I slammed into her as she started wailing about her nose being broken.
Bitch, I’m gone break more than your nose!
The wind went right out of my lungs as I landed right on top of her. My fists started connecting but some how she bucked me off her and rolled away. She was more than likely searching for the gun.
“Oh no you don’t you STUPID BITCH,” I reached for her and only got her foot and tried to drag her backwards.
“I’M GOING TO KILL YOU! THEN DARIEN, AND JOCOSTA!”
Cassie was truly crazed. She gave a hard kick and her foot connected angrily with my stomach. I felt sick, I had been feeling queasy a lot lately but I pushed the thought away. She was not going to win.
She managed to get to her feet and went for the nearest object, a lamp. It landed with a thud over my head. This bitch was fucking up my house and I wasn’t going for it. I looked over my shoulder at the spot the lamp had landed and saw shards of glass had went gone everywhere.
“I’m so over this shit!”
Cassie in all her jean dress glory charged me but I’d spotted the gun. Somebody was going to get shot today and I had a feeling it was not going to be me. Bracing myself to be hit, Cassie crashed into me with all her might and we both went flying into a wall.
My head was still aching and she was landing some good punches but my eyes were on the prize. As soon as I got the chance after blocking her, I found a way to get the hell up out of the floor and dove across the room after the gun.
Once I had it cocked and loaded, I turned on her and caused her to pause. “No fucking fun when the rabbits got the gun.”
I had no real desire to kill Cassie but this bitch had tried me one too many times. She smiled and came forward.
“You’re not going to kill me!”
The Glock felt like a paperweight in my hand. That same old boyfriend who had shown me how to salsa had also shown me how to fire a gun if needed. It was now needed. I pulled the slide into position and shot that bitch slam through her foot like Quick had done Vera.
“Bitch I’m from New York! You fucking with a heavyweight!”
She stared at me in disbelief and her wails filled the air. “AAAAGHHHHHHHH!”
I was out of breath after all this shit as I slumped hard against a wall and slid to the floor. Cassie dropped to the floor want to cradle her foot but was unable too. She was crying but I kept the gun trained on her.
Once I regained my breath, I decided I’d call Detective Menzel and let him know I’d done his job for him. Some how this woman had survived the ocean but managed to get shot by little old me. I should have blown her ass away but Helena was still recouping and I didn’t think I’d be able to get blood out of all of the carpet without her help.
“And that shit had better not stain this carpet either!”
Cassie continued to writhe in pain. Making my way to the kitchen finally I went straight for the wine in the fridge. The glass I poured myself was more than two fingers full. My skull was still pounding but there was no trace of what she had knocked me over the head with.
After locating my cellphone I called both the detective and Darien.
“Cassie just tried to kill me,” I didn’t even give him a chance to say hello.
“Whh…are you sure it was her?”
I held the phone away from my ear and looked at it. If I could have reached through the device, I would have. “Darien Kiriakis! Yes, its this crazy bitch.”
I leaned over and saw that she had passed out in the living room. The detective had sent out Hellenic EMS to the house. He had advised they would probably take ten minutes to reach us. Five minutes had already been spent trying to convince everyone Cassie had risen from the dead and had come to take vengeance on me.
“I….are you okay? I’m leaving from here now....I’m on the way.”
“I’m fine. She’s not. Currently she’s bleeding out on our carpet…..I shot her in the foot.”
“The foot?”
“Yup. See you when you get here.”
Lights had started to flash outside alerting me to paramedics arriving on the scene. Thoughts of lighting Cassie up with my taser one good time went through my mind as I opened the door. Deciding against it, I moved out of the way and let the first responders in to do their job. Then I waited outside for Darien to come home. It had been a hell of a day having a woman come back from the dead on the day of her funeral. Shit like this didn’t happen in New York. No. Only in Greece did something this epic happen.
Chapter 14
Three weeks later…
The sand was stirring up around feet as we watched Alex stumble on ahead of us. We were heading down to the beach even though it was extremely cold. Clouds rolled on into the sky into what seemed like forever. That was what the beach always felt like here, forever.
I had survived Cassie Petrakas and at any moment Lifetime was going to show up ready to tell my story. I hope they got the casting right because that second Prince Harry and Meghan Markle movie I had seen had been completely off.
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Darien asked.
The weight of the object in my arms told me that I needed to do this. We all needed to be freed from the cages that we had placed our cages. Some o
f them had been literal binding and some of them had been of own making.
“Yes,” I glanced at him quickly and then looked back to Alex who was getting far ahead.
My legs sped to keep up with him, as a wind whipped around us. Darien scooped him up and the kid started to try and smack him in the face. Alex had gotten kind of mean lately. If I had to send this kid to therapy because of his 24-hour kidnapping at the hands of the nut job, the bill was going to the police station. We were already slated for our own therapy session at the end of the month.
Water rushed to meet us as we neared the shoreline and ever so fleetingly dashed back out. The sun was starting to set and Alex noticed as he clapped with delight. Darien wrapped a free arm around my shoulders.
I took a breath as I looked down at Dana’s urn. The golden flecks were catching in the setting sun, dancing like diamonds. She had loved gold and I remembered that was why I had chosen this one in the first place. Darien had been the one suggest that we sprinkle her ashes somewhere she would have loved. I could think of no better place than the ocean. It had been our escape as children growing up in a home where there wasn’t much fun.
Ocean air filled my lungs as we stood, the tang of salt touching my tongue. “Alex won’t ever get to hear you say that you love him. Or know what it was like to hear your voice or hug you. But I got him, Dana. Darien and I got him. We don’t always know what’s right but….we are going to raise him to know who you were both of you. We won’t let him forget….I won’t forget, sister.”
Removing the lid, I turned the contents over and watched them fall until there was nothing left. A few specks spun up and away into a little wind cyclone that danced out of sight.
“Alex lets get your momma and sister back up to the house,” Darien nudged me.
“Hey!” I said. “We don’t know what this kid is gonna be.”
With the urn in one hand, I rubbed my stomach. There was no bump to be seen or anywhere in sight under the sweater I wore just yet but a pregnancy test had confirmed it. All the queasiness I’d been feeling was me feeling pregnant. Things could have went so sideways during that fight with Cassie and I would have never known I was pregnant. Darien had been the first to notice it because I felt different to him, somehow softer. The notion had been dismissed until the Clear Blue test had clarified things for me. He had told me once that Alex was enough, that he was his heir. I think he’d just been afraid to love someone he hadn’t met yet. I’d always wanted a real family.
“Whatever it is…” he leaned down with Alex and captured my lips. “Just know, that I am ready for them.”
“And when we finally tell your mother…she’s gonna have us married by sundown,” I eyed him.
“Wouldn’t you rather be my wife than mistress anyway?”
Darien chuckled and I elbowed him in the ribs. “You’re lucky I agreed to be your mistress but wife doesn’t sound bad. Allanah Kiriakis has a ring to it.”
As we trudged back up the hill, the site of new construction greeted us. We were having the cottage rebuilt and moving back to this side of Athens. I had a plan for some of the money that Dana had left me. I wanted to fund a non-profit and help single mother’s by letting them live at the other house.
I captured Darien’s hand in my own. I didn’t believe in happily ever afters but this felt damn close. And if Cassie even thought about escaping from jail and trying me again, I’d be waiting with a baby glock. Peridot!
The End