Throwing the folder across the room, I got to my feet. I looked around the apartment, not knowing where the fuck to go or what to do. My legs were weak as I visualized those pictures in my mind: the torches, the hoods . . . and my mamma looking out of the window, seeing them on her lawn, all there for her.
She should have been gone. Out of the house . . . but I’d had a fucking seizure. A pained fucking gurgling sound cut from my throat as I crossed the room and gathered up the folder. I ran out of the apartment and outside to what had to be Crow’s truck.
Letting adrenaline and hate fucking fuel me, I gunned out of the parking lot. It took five minutes to figure out where I was. The rain hammered down like a sheet of water falling from the sky. The road ahead blurred as the tears ran down my face. Horns beeped and brakes screeched as I cut through the streets and freeways.
I drove and drove until I passed the welcome sign for the town that I wanted to tear to the fucking ground. I cut through the streets that housed the men who murdered my family, took everyone the fuck away at a stroke.
By the time I neared my old home, I noticed there were no fucking birds in the trees. I always noticed that birds never sang when death hovered near. The only sound was the roar of the truck’s engine.
My heart beat too fast as I rounded the corner and the remnants of my childhood appeared. Pain, like nothing I’d ever felt before, smashed into my chest. It carried the weight of a wrecking ball as it shattered my ribs and flattened my heart. I skidded to a stop, the tires slipping on the wet mud. Pools of rainwater spread into puddles on what used to be the path to the porch. The rain snatched the view out of the windshield all too quickly. Hands shaking, I opened the door and stepped into the storm. Thunder cracked up ahead. Lightning forked in the distance. Storm clouds rolled above, and as I looked at the violent sky, all I could think was why couldn’t it have rained that night?
My feet stumbled on the slippery ground as I made my way to the rotting woodpile—all that was left of my house. The rain and wind slapped at my face, lashing my broken skin like leather whips. I barely kept my balance as I climbed over the rough ground. I struggled to see ahead, my view of the house blurring. I wasn’t sure if it was from the storm or the tears flooding my eyes.
I didn’t know where I was walking to, or where I would stop, but that choice was taken from me when I slipped and my knees crashed into the ground.
My body fell forward. My hands sank into the earth, my fingers a sieve for the mud mixed with ash. I closed my eyes, breathing. Just fucking breathing as memory after memory zipped through my head. Of happier times. Of the sad times, and of the night this place burned like a hell on earth. A hell filled with hatred of the unknown—the different and the misunderstood.
“Mamma,” I whispered into the blustering wind. “Papa.” My voice was drowned out by a crack of thunder. “I’m sorry,” I rasped, my falling tears melding with the droplets from the sky.
I looked up at the burned wood. I hadn’t seen their bodies. The coroner said all that was left of them was bones. My grandfather took my mamma’s remains and buried them on his land. My fingers curled tighter into the mud as anger made fists of my hands. My papa was buried communally. I didn’t have a single scrap of money. Nothing to pay for a funeral.
My parents, who’d endured everything together—fought together, loved together, fucking died together—didn’t get the one thing that was their divine right.
To rest together.
No grave for me to speak to them. No holding of hands as they walked to the boatman and crossed over to the Elysian Fields. Just burned bones and teeth, parted, ripped apart, in defiance of the second my mamma had seen my papa across that jazz bar in New Orleans.
“I’m sorry.” I lowered my head to the ground, a fucking silent prayer. A prayer that wherever they were, they could hear me. Hear how sorry their burden of a son was that his illness caused them to die, all because he was late in coming home. “I’m so fucking sorry,” I called more loudly, lifting my eyes up to see nothing but burned wood and charred nails. Hand over hand, I crawled forward and searched through the rubble. I grabbed any pieces of wood that were still intact and piled them at my feet. Gathered as many nails as I could. I didn’t think; I just let my hands start building. Using a hard, short plank as my hammer, I drove a long piece into the ground. Then placing another horizontally, I used the plank to hammer the nails into the makeshift cross. I did the same with the second, ignoring my cuts opening and pouring with blood.
Out of breath and weak, I sat back and stared at the blackened wooden crosses. I fought the lump in my throat as I took my knife out of my cut and began carving the wood. I choked on the fucking pained rage that left my mouth with each letter.
My knife dropped to the ground, and I stared at the words. “Mamma” etched on one. “Papa” etched on the other. Under both of their names, I scrawled, “Love doesn’t see color. Only pure hearts.”
“I love you.” I reached out and ran my fingers down the jagged wood. I closed my eyes. “I miss you both so fucking much.” My face crumpled. “I don’t know how to do it.” I took a long gasp of breath. “How the fuck to be with them when there are fuckers in the world like the ones who did this to you.” I swallowed. “I can’t save them from the Klan. From white power . . . from people who won’t ever understand—don’t wanna understand. I don’t know how the fuck to get all this from my head . . .” My head dropped along with my arms. I was exhausted. I breathed in and out, and then admitted, “I don’t know how to be me. I have no idea who the fuck I even am.”
Silence answered back; that, and the rumbling storm above. Swaying with bone-tiredness, I lay in front of the only family I had in the world. I closed my eyes and gave in to the dark.
I didn’t even feel the rain.
I didn’t even feel the cold.
I felt nothing, except the comforting dead feeling of hopelessness. And a sense that with these two crosses and their names written in wood, I wasn’t alone.
I just couldn’t fucking face being so lonely anymore.
Chapter Fourteen
Cowboy
The sun woke me, its bright rays making me flinch. I groaned, my body aching from the past few days and my stomach growling for food and coffee. A warm body pressed against my side. Smiling, I cracked open my eyes and peered down at the head on my shoulder. Sia was still asleep, hand on my chest and her breath blowing on my neck. I checked the clock on the table beside me. Fuck. We’d slept through the late afternoon and right through the night. That’s what a fucking kidnapping to Mexico would do to you.
I glanced over to check if Hush was awake. My brow furrowed when I saw he wasn’t there. A weird feeling settled in my stomach at how he had been yesterday, at how he’d seemed after we’d both taken Sia. The brother was obviously bothered by something. The way he’d hovered at the door of the bedroom while Sia cried, instead of getting his ass to bed to make sure she was okay.
Gently lifting Sia’s arm off me, I slid out of bed. She moaned, almost waking up, but then settled back down into the sheets. My chest fucking expanded watching her. Unable to keep away, I leaned down and kissed her shoulder. The knife marks on her lower neck were healing. But the numbers were still as visible as the moment they were carved. Mine were too.
Like with most things in life, I gave zero fucks. Fucker thought he could shame us with those derogatory Klan numbers. I was gonna wear that shit like a damn military medal.
With fucking pride.
I threw on my jeans and walked into the kitchen. Nothing was switched on. I checked the coffee pot where we made the chicory coffee. It was cold. Frowning, I went to Hush’s bedroom. It was empty, the covers on the bed not even touched. I started to turn away, but then I noticed his side table was open a little. I checked behind me to make sure Hush wasn’t around. Everything was silent but for the soft sounds of Sia sleeping in my bed.
The floorboards creaked beneath my feet as I walked to the drawer. I opened it, and a
huge fucking lump clogged my throat when I saw what was missing. “His picture,” I said to myself . . . then my heart plummeted like a fucking rock when I saw his meds.
I backed out of the room and quickly checked the rest of the house. Nothing. Shit! I burst out of the door and ran to the garage. “Fuck!” I shouted. His bike had gone. Heart hammering, I flew back up the stairs. Sia was walking from the bedroom, sheet wrapped around her.
“Cowboy? What is it?” she asked, face pale, wiping the sleep from her eyes. I didn’t blame the bitch. She’d been to hell and back these past few weeks.
“He’s gone.” I ran past her into my bedroom. I threw on my shirt and cut. Sia followed me.
“Gone?” she asked, her face filled with confusion.
“Hush.” I rushed into Hush’s bedroom and grabbed his meds. I stuffed them into my cut. I entered the hallway to see Sia getting dressed.
“Cher,” I said. “I’ll take you to Ky’s. I gotta go after Hush.” Because I knew exactly where he’d gone. The only place I knew he would go without me. Our fucking home. I always knew that one day he’d return. He’d kept too much inside him for too long. How much could a fucking brother handle before he exploded? He never spoke about his folks. Or that night. Kept it all inside his head, letting it all build and build until it had become too much.
I caught sight of Sia’s “23/2” brand. Ice cut through me like I’d been plunged onto the Mid-Atlantic. I’d seen him staring at our wounds. I’d caught him clenching his fists, face paling as he stared at them.
Panic set in. What if he’d done something really stupid?
“I’m coming,” Sia said, pulling me from my head. My vision focused on her. I opened my mouth to argue, but she added, “If he’s gone. If he’s hurt.” She winced, as if those thoughts alone fucking killed her. “Then I’m coming.” Sia took my hand. “We’re a team. You, me, and Hush. And I ain’t gonna be benched because I’ve got a pussy.” My lip twitched. She kissed me on my cheek. “I love him. I love you. I need to be there . . . wherever it is we’re going.”
I grabbed my Chopper’s keys and Sia’s hand. “Hope you can ride, cher. ’Cause it’s gonna be a long-ass fucking drive. And I ain’t planning on stopping.”