by J. E. Parker
"Just breathe," I whispered in vain.
Life fading, her face paled.
"Mama," I cried. "Please."
I jumped in place when her icy fingers wrapped around my forearm, squeezing it with every ounce of ebbing strength she still possessed, which admittedly wasn't much.
"Never forget that I… l-love you."
I shook my head.
"I'm so sorry," I replied, knowing that, despite the wishes my heart was busy making, her time was running out. "This is all my fault."
Chest rattling, she fought to hold on as my father groaned, proving that he wasn't dead.
Forcing myself to focus on saving her instead of bashing his brains the rest of the way in like I desperately wanted to, I pressed a single kiss to her cheek. "Just hold on. I'm going to call for help."
I jumped up and ran to the kitchen.
Mental fog descending, my senses dulled, slowing time as I jerked the corded rotary phone off the wall and called for help before racing back to the woman who was not only my mother, but also my best friend.
"Mama!" Slipping my arms under her back and thighs, I pulled her limp frame to my heaving chest, holding her as close as possible.
"An ambulance is coming," I told her, dropping my sweat-soaked forehead to her balmy one as my fourteen-year-old muscles shook beneath her weight. "You just have to hang on until it gets here."
Smiling weakly, she tenderly touched my cheek for the last time. "Sweet… b-boy."
Her lips parted further, but the words she wanted to speak didn't come, because right then, at that very moment, while still cradled in my arms, her heart stopped, and no matter how hard I worked to make it beat once more, my mother died.
Part of my heart died right along with her.
As the memories faded, delusion took hold.
Back in the present and still clutching my Pixie's dress to my face, I stared across the room to where my woman's ghost now stood, its hauntingly beautiful face pale and streaked with dirt.
Carmen.
I opened my mouth to speak, to beg her to come back, to forgive me for my failure to protect our family like I'd sworn to do. But with my tongue thick and paralyzed, I couldn't utter a single syllable.
"You promised me, Guapo."
She stepped forward, and the slight movement drew my blurred gaze to the front of her ratty fur coat. Visually tracing each of the slashes in the fabric, my stomach roiled. Even without knowing the exact details of her murder, it was clear a blade had stolen her life.
Just like it had my mother's.
The realization made me sick.
"You promised that you'd save me and that we'd be together forever," she said, the accusation in her distorted voice clear. "You lied."
I had lied.
It didn't matter if I'd done so unintentionally or not, the result was the same. My woman was gone, and my anguished soul would be forever without its mate because of my actions.
"I'm so damn sorry." Hands falling to my sides, I climbed to my unsteady feet. Swaying, I reached out for her, letting her dress dangle from the tip of my calloused finger. "Baby, please come back."
My skull popped as my mind bent, warping in place as the hallucination grew, further pushing me into an insanity so damned deep I began to drown in it. "I can fix it. You just have to come back to me."
My plea-stricken words were futile.
Even amidst the mental break I starred in, I knew that. Fixing a single thing wasn't a possibility. Not when Carmen and the girls were already dead, gone, and never coming back.
Shaking her head, she stepped back, ripping me from my chaotic thoughts. Eyes growing dark before mine, she slid skeletal-looking hands down her torso and ripped open her coat, revealing the deep, festering lacerations that marred her concave belly and side.
"You can't fix this!" she shrieked, tears black as soot rolling down her sunken cheeks. "Especially not when it's your fault that my heart no longer beats!"
Once more, I fought for the strength to speak, but unable to even breathe through the delusions, I couldn't.
"For us, there is no future." Her form faded as her static-like voice morphed into my dead father's clear one, taking me by surprise. "And it's all your fault, boy."
Mouth open wide, insidious laughter spilled out of her in an imposing cloud, echoing around the empty room. Growing in height, my beautiful girl transformed, turning into a demon I hadn't set sights on since the night he killed my mother.
Seeing my father again was the final straw.
"You son of a bitch!"
A red haze clouded the fields of my vision as what remained of my sanity evaporated, and I lunged forward. Inches away from grasping an apparition that didn't truly exist, I roared, allowing my grief and rage to escape as an anguished cry.
"Pop!"
My scream died in my throat when two familiar arms wrapped around me from behind and jerked me backward, causing me to stumble. Unable to right myself, I fell, hitting the dirty concrete hard.
Next to me landed my son.
Hendrix.
Our eyes, both sets filled with questions and a lifetime of brokenness, locked for the briefest second before I jerked my stare back to where my father had stood.
But he'd disappeared.
Along with Carmen's ghost.
Anger vanishing, my heartache returned.
"She's gone," I cried, turning back to face my son, who even when I was beyond broken, I still loved with every bit of light that remained in me. "She's gone, and she's never coming back."
Climbing to his knees, he pulled me up with him, lending me strength I lacked but desperately needed. Sweat slithered down my spine as I cupped his shoulders and clung to him. Lost in a sea of despair, he was my life preserver, the only thing keeping me afloat.
"I'm going crazy," I told him, letting the truth pour out of me unchecked. "Without my Pixie, I can't eat, can't sleep, can't even breathe. Losing her...” My throat tightened. "It's my punishment. For not stopping my father, then for abusing you...”
And for not telling Shelby the truth.
Releasing him, I sank into the abyss.
How long before I became lost for good?
"I can't do this," I cried, breaking entirely. "I love you, kid. I love you so much, but without her—"
"Fuck that, Pop!" he shouted, already knowing what I was about to say. "I know you're really messed up, just like I would be if I lost Maddie, but you can't talk like you're ready to follow her into the afterlife."
"Hendrix...”
I needed him to understand.
"Son, I can't—"
"No," he growled, cutting me off. "Listen to me, you stubborn bastard." Slamming his fist against my chest, my oldest kid glared at me, his face contorted in both anger and fear. "Pixie and Shorty may be gone, but I'm still here, and you can't leave me." He dropped his head forward and took a harsh breath before looking back up.
Strong fingers finding the front of my shirt, he grasped the fabric tight, pulling it taut against my back and shoulders, just like he used to do when he was a toddler hell-bent on fighting sleep, way back before things went bad. "Especially not now when I'm about to become a father."
His words battered my insides, but it was the sadness coloring his voice that broke me further.
I couldn't hurt him.
Not more than I already had.
"Buddy—"
"Pop, please," he begged. "Don't leave me."
His pleading words were the fuel I needed.
I may have been a piece of shit who deserved to burn in Hell for all I'd done, but to my son, I was still his father, and for a reason I'd never understand, he loved me.
That alone was enough for me to keep pushing forward, even when I felt like letting go. For my boy, and for the daughter who still didn't know she was mine, I would fight to hold on despite the agony that mired my soul.
It was what my kids needed, along with what Carmen would've wanted. And for her, for them, I'd d
o anything.
Until I drew my last breath.
2
Jade
I'm not a violent person.
Raised by my birth parents to be a lover and not a fighter, I have never touched another person out of anger. Not even when I'd wanted to, like when that witch Darcy stole my only pair of shoes.
But twenty-five days after El Diablo pumped a .45 caliber bullet into my shoulder while aiming for my heart and obliterated life as I'd known it, that was about to change.
And if it did, the woman standing before me, her stern face etched with visible anger, had the slap my hand itched to deliver, coming.
In a Texas-sized way.
Dressed in a faded Polk County Sheriff's Deputy uniform that reeked of stale cigarette smoke, she reminded me far too much of the drunken monster who'd dumped Carmen, Ashley, and me, into an alligator-infested swamp that smelled of sulfur and housed God only knows how many rotting corpses.
That wasn't the only reason I despised her, though. I couldn't put my finger on what had caused such a powerful reaction in me during our first encounter, but there was just something about her that had set off alarm bells in my head, sending me into fight mode the moment she'd come within spitting distance.
Maybe I was jumping the gun, but I didn't want her, someone that I had an awful feeling about, anywhere near me, much less Carmen in her vulnerable state.
For that reason alone, I stood inside the doorway of Mama C's ICU room, where I shouldn't have been since visiting hours were already over, my too-thin body blocking the intrusive deputy from getting any closer to the only person I had left in the entire world.
If she tries to come inside, I swear I'll tackle her.
Warring to lock down the hostility gripping me before I did something that would be temporarily satisfying, but long-term stupid, I shakily grasped each side of the door frame, making it clear that she wasn't welcome to step a foot inside, then took a deep, calming breath.
Hold it together, I told myself.
If you don't, she'll haul you out of here in cuffs.
"I mean no disrespect, Deputy Johnson, especially since I know you're just trying to do your job." I somehow forced my voice to remain steady even with my nerves shot to pieces. "But as I've already told you on more than one occasion, I remember nothing that happened that night."
Deputy Pain-In-My-Ass narrowed her mud-brown eyes, making her suspicion of the lie I'd once again fed her clear.
She'd interviewed—well, more like interrogated—me four times since a doctor had discharged me from the hospital two days after my arrival, and despite her relentless prodding and futile attempts to trip me up, my story had remained unchanged.
She didn't like that, not one iota.
But I had two words for her—tough crap.
"Ms. Cole," she said, addressing me by one-half of the fake name I'd given her weeks before. "You mean to tell me you honestly don't remember any details about the person who shot you and then stabbed your mother?"
Unable to help myself, I growled. The way she said your mother set my teeth on edge. "Again, as I've already said," I replied, hands finding my bony hips, "no, I don't."
"Not a single one?"
My chapped lips pursed. "Nope."
She shot me a blazing glare. "And you don't know what could have motivated someone to commit such a random act of violence against you and the woman you claim is your mother?"
My hands curled into tight fists.
Claim is my mother?
If she'd been looking for a way to tick me right off, she'd sure as shit found it.
More than ready to tell her to get out of my burning face and let us be, I fully intended on giving her a super-sized piece of my frazzled mind.
"That woman…" I turned to the side and pointed into Carmen's ICU room, where she laid in a trauma-induced coma the doctors weren't sure she'd ever wake from. "Is my mother." I paused, convinced steam was pouring from my pierced ears. "And don't you ever suggest otherwise."
My sharp words and scathing tone did little to deter her from continuing to provoke me. "I ran both your names, you know." A malicious smile, one that sent chills racing down my sweat-slicked spine, curved her thin, strip-like lips. "The ones you gave the responding officers after being rescued."
She focused on Carmen, clearly regarding her with disdain. "Evelyn Cole doesn't exist," she spat, sending little flecks of spit everywhere, including all over my face. "And neither does Camilla Cole."
I barely held back a wince.
Learning that she knew the names I'd come up with for Mama C and myself were fake made me want to vomit.
What if, by some frickin' curse, she found out our real ones? Or, oh God, what if she found out I was only sixteen instead of the eighteen I claimed to be?
That would've been bad.
So. Bad.
We'd been lucky enough to stay off the news thanks to an oil refinery explosion that killed a dozen locals hours before our rescue.
But if Deputy Resting-Bitch-Face kept digging, there was a possibility I'd end up back in foster care. Or worse yet, that her investigation would somehow alert Clyde.
If he found out we'd lived, he'd tell El Diablo, and trust me when I say that Dominic wouldn't fail at murdering us a second time. That's if Clyde didn't come after us himself first.
Mounting anxiety threatened to asphyxiate me but knowing that I needed to be strong—for Carmen and myself—I tamped it down. It wasn't easy to do, but somehow, I managed.
"You can believe whatever you want." I jutted my chin, faking a boatload of confidence I didn't have. "But I know who we are."
Plastering on a saccharine smile that I had to fight to keep from shaking, I tucked my unruly red hair behind my ears and shrugged. "And that's all that matters."
"That isn't all that matters," she fired back, clearly peeved. "Not by a long shot." Revulsion rolled off her as she leaned closer, bringing her middle-aged face to within inches of my teenaged one. "Want to know what I think, young lady?"
I swallowed hard, my fear climbing with every frantic thrash of my heart. "No, I don't particularly care to hear what you think." It was the wrong thing to say. If she didn't have it out for me already, I'd just given her reason to. "But I would like you to leave." I straightened my curling spine. "Now."
"I think," she continued as if I hadn't spoken, "that you, along with the woman you're fighting so hard to protect, are nothing more than junkie scum whose lifestyle finally caught up to them in the form of a sharp knife and a loaded gun."
Her ugly words struck me in the solar plexus, knocking the air from my lungs. I didn't understand. How could someone like her, a person who had sworn to protect and serve, be so unkind?
This was why she reminded me of Clyde.
Behind her badge, she was pure evil.
Just like him.
"How dare you?" I started, ready to throw her a verbal beating. "You don't know the slightest thing—"
"I know enough," she interjected, cutting me off like the rude witch she was. "I've been doing this job for a lot of years, and I've met more people like you than I care to count."
People like me? She didn't even know me! If she did, she would've known I had never taken a single drug in my life.
As for Carmen, she hadn't chosen that path. El Diablo had chosen it for her when he jabbed a needle into her arm to keep her compliant.
"And if there is one thing I've learned," the despicable woman added, refusing to stop spewing her hateful words all over me. "It's that your type will do anything to hide their sins, which is why you're lying to me about who you are, along with who tried to kill you."
A tear spilled down my cheek. "You are a horrible person," I whisper-hissed. "And if you don't leave, I'm going to call security and have them escort you out for harassing us."
It was an empty threat.
She knew it, I knew it.
Still, standing up to her felt good.
I will not cower from p
eople like her.
Never again.
"If I leave," she snarled, looking me up and down, "then any help I can offer once you tell the truth leaves with me."
Help? She had no interest in helping us. That fact had become clear the moment she'd spoken to Carmen's doctor and learned they'd found opiates in her blood.
From that second on, she'd believed us unworthy of any compassion, much less any avenues of help she had access to.
She just wanted to close her investigation.
But once again—tough crap.
The heartless wench could take her investigation and shove it where the southern sun didn't shine. She wouldn't be getting a single truth from me, and so help me God, if she didn't get out of my sight, I was liable to pop her in the nose.
I was that angry.
Not to mention disgusted.
"We don't want any of your so-called help," I snapped, seconds from tossing the cruel words she'd spoken right back in her face. "What we want is for you to leave because I've had about all I can tolerate of people like you."
"Think about this—"
"I am done thinking, just as I'm done speaking to you." Uncurling my still fisted hand, I pointed down the desolate hall behind her. "Now go."
Her mouth opened, but I didn't let her get a word in edgewise. She'd said more than her fair share.
It was my turn now.
"And never come back, or else I'll call and lodge a formal complaint against you with whoever is in charge of the shitshow that is the Polk County Sheriff's Department."
I stood as tall as my five-foot-three frame allowed and sneered in her direction. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a mother to pray for and a life to plan that doesn't involve asshole cops or people who like to shoot and stab others."
Done with her and the situation her incessant hounding had immersed me in, I turned, giving her my back. Then I headed back to Carmen.
"You're going to regret this, Ms. Cole."
My steps faltered, and I stopped.
Heart climbing high into my throat, I peered back at her over my shoulder, not bothering to hide my revulsion. "I regret a lot of things in my life, but I promise you, this won't be one of them."