“Where’s everyone at?”
“We’re going to meet them at the flying carpet.”
“I can’t wait.” She took a bite of her dessert then fed him a bite.
“You realize we have to get real food.”
She laughed; it was high and sweet. “What cotton candy and funnel cake isn’t real food?”
“Not even close.” He took the last bite and caught her close in another kiss sharing the dessert with her.
Brandi wrapped her hands around his neck and laid on his shoulder letting his warmth and strength seep into her body.
“Tired?”
“Nope. I want to ride the magic carpet.” She tugged him behind her. The fair was filled with college kids, and she couldn’t stop marveling at their energy. Had she been like that in college?
Parents were dragging around smaller children or hollering at them not to get too far ahead. The flat surface of the parking lot made it so much easier for her to walk. There were vendors lined up around the edges.
She stopped she didn’t remember seeing this one.
“I want to go see what they are selling.”
The cart was a royal blue it was so bright it had to be freshly painted. Hanging from it were gems on the end of thickly braided necklaces. They were for men. Where was the jewelry for women?
“Hi.”
She gave the kid a friendly smile. “Hi.” He looked to be about sixteen.
“Are you handling the booth for your parents?” She blushed wondering if she sounded like one of those idiots who thought youngsters couldn’t do anything.
Youngsters, she grinned like crazy over that word.
“If it makes you feel better.”
He was such a handsome boy; he made her want children. His eyes seemed to swirl with color. They had to be contacts. His hair had the ‘I don’t care’ thing going on. He was tall and well-built for a teen, probably spent a lot of time in the gym or doing extreme sports. And that smile. Good lord some woman would lose her shit over him one day.
“They make them better looking every day.” She slapped her hand over her mouth until she could control it. “Sorry, I don’t know what got into me.”
“Don’t worry,” he winked at her. “There are times I’m irresistible. You want a gem for your male friend?”
She had come for herself, but now she couldn’t imagine not buying Jabari a gift.
“I do.” She took her time looking at everything for sale. Finally, she settled on a long crystal in a hexagon shape.
“This one?” He picked up the clear one. She couldn’t keep her eyes off it. “You have excellent taste.”
He held it up, so it could catch the sun and reflect it back at her.
“How much?” The longer she looked at it, the more she wanted to see it around Jabari’s neck.
“It’s not for sale.” He palmed the crystal.
“What do you mean? It’s with the others.”
“This one is special. It can be bartered but not sold.”
Her mouth opened wide before she snapped it closed. Why should she be surprised? Ever since she met Jabari, nothing made sense.
“I don’t have anything to barter with.” She had a comfortable couch would he take that? It might be infested with alien insects. Nah, Jabari told her they destroyed everything in her apartment. She didn’t have a couch anymore. She had Fie, and she would never barter him away.
“What would you take for the necklace?”
“Your life.”
“No, hell no.” Jabari tried to move to say another word, but he couldn’t.
“Too late, I’m already dying.”
“Then what is there to hold onto? This way he will have something to remember you by.” She glanced at him but was oblivious to the fact that he was immobile.
“Deal.” She wanted to leave him with something more than pictures.
“Wrap your hand around the crystal.”
It felt like the life was drained from her body. She stumbled letting the crystal go. Jabari caught her.
“That was strange.”
“Amethyst, rare and beautiful.” The voice of the teen was deeper. The color of the crystal changed. It was alive and vibrant.
“She’s a keeper. What do you wish for? It must be more than your life or death. The wish must come from your soul.”
“I don’t know.” He told the vendor as he stared at Brandi.
“Truth is hard to find because we bury it so deep. Place this around your neck.”
The heavy braided chain was a choker on his thick neck. The crystal sat right at the base of his throat. She smiled it made her hotter for him.
“When you know what you want. Wrap your hand around the crystal and speak it. I’ll hear you.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, take care.” He winked at her, and she blushed.
They walked off. “That was strange; his contacts were the best. I don’t think his parents are going to be happy he gave us that for free.” There was something about his eyes she couldn't shake.
She turned around wanting to get one more look at the teen. He was gone, and so was the booth. It was just another crazy day in her life.
Chapter Twenty
“I thought you guys had forgotten us.” Quinn greeted them.
“Never. We stopped to pick up a necklace for Jabari.”
“Nice. You look like an enforcer. All those big muscles and that necklace.”
“You think? I was going for goth with the necklace.”
His brothers turned around, but they couldn’t hide their laughter.
“I think we had better get in line before Jabari decides to start a fight.”
“They deserve the beat down.” She followed Quinn up the ramp with the others falling in line behind them.
“I’ve room for one more rider.”
They looked behind them, but no one else was in line.
“We’ll take the next ride.”
He nodded and went to check that everyone was buckled up.
“Are you all right?”
“Yeah.” She gave Quinn a hug. The closer she got to death the more touchy-feely she became. “I’m thinking of Piper. I knew she would be busy, but I thought she’d have time to talk. I mean at night. Maybe she met someone who is keeping her busy. I don’t think she’ll make it back in time.”
“She could be having a hard time dealing with it.”
“I know she is, but I miss her.”
“She wants to be here I know she does.” She reached out and hugged Brandi tight. “Losing you is like losing the sister I just discovered.” Tears slipped from behind her closed eyes. She turned so Brandi wouldn’t see.
The sound of feet getting off the ride cheered them up. The operator took the chain off holding them back.
“Since there are only eight of you, you’ll have to sit in the middle. Four on each side.
They nodded. Slade sat beside Brandi and Thrice sat on the other side of Jabari. Phoenix sat next to Quinn while Akron sat next to Mekhi. The operator made sure their harnesses were secure before going back to the controls.
“Enjoy the ride.”
The carpet started to move slowly in a circle before it went up. When it reached its maximum height, it went around faster until it became unhinged falling towards the ground.
She was sitting on the bed in her old room at the orphanage. A magazine on her lap, turning the pages, looking at the clothes. The door slammed opened, and Linda walked into her room.
“What do you want?”
“To see what you were up to. I thought I heard a boy in here.”
“You wish.”
“I don’t know why you’re always looking at those stupid magazines. You’ll never be a model, and you can’t sew for shit.” She flounced her hair over her shoulder.
Linda made her life miserable when she was younger. She was so sure that Brandi would never make anything of herself. Maybe she was right to a point. Linda became a model, a famous
one. She was living the life to hear her tell it. Fast cars and even faster men. Brandi was dying. Maybe she should have listened to her after all and spent her life in pursuit of fun.
The carpet spun faster making her dizzy. When she opened her eyes, she was in her dorm room with Piper.
“I thought you were going to the party tonight?”
“Nope, this is girl’s night. We’re staying in drinking and watching movies.”
“You know I don’t drink.” She was afraid of ending up like her mother. All she could think of was drinking too much alcohol and becoming horny. God only knew what she would do, who she would throw herself at. What if like some of the other girls, she decided to party with more than one guy?
She shook her head that was unthinkable. She’d never live the name ‘whore’ down. Her skin crawled at the thought.
“That’s why I’m here. I brought wine coolers. Hey, they have hardly any alcohol in them. When you have to pee, I’ll be your designated walker.” They giggled. “You have to try something, so you know how you feel about it. I got movies.”
“Oh my god, Piper!”
“They’re porns, but I understand they’re better when you're drunk.”
Piper stuck to her like glue that night. She woke up the next morning with a headache and a harsh dislike for certain fetishes. But her virtue was intact, and their friendship was sealed forever.
The carpet took her through a blue light.
“Defender.”
She looked around to see Slade and Thrice by her side.
“You know you can call me Brandi, right?”
“We know. But you’re a defender, and it’s nice to know we have one in the house.” Thrice told her.
“Where are we?”
“No idea.” Slade shrugged his shoulders. She always thought Jabari was huge until she got a look at Slade.
She joined them on the floor. “What are you doing?”
“Playing war games.”
“That field looks too real.”
“It is and isn’t.” Thrice put his hand through the field and the players.
“You can control them with your mind.”
She looked over to see a field full of defenders.
“Those are your players. The first one to seize control of the tower wins.” Slade pointed to the tower.
“What are we playing for?”
“The two losers do the winner's kitchen chores for a week each,” Thrice told her.
“I’m in. Let’s play.”
Slade and Thrice moved out headed directly to the tower. They were fighting each other to get there first.
She laughed silently as she watched them. They called her defender, but they treated her like she was human. Maybe under ordinary circumstances they would be right to. She didn’t have a military background, but she had something better. She was trained in urban warfare. Not the combat. She’d be stupid to think she could take on a field of men and win.
No, she had trained herself how to outsmart men, boys really, who thought they would catch her in the hallways or alleyways and take what she wasn’t offering. She knew the advantages of a look out. Of having sentries and breaking into small groups. Getting from home to school and back again took a mental genius on some days. All of that made her eventual failure, epic. There were times she thought she’d never be whole again. Those were memories for a different time. Now, she grinned and made a plan.
Brandi took her defenders and split them into three groups. The first group she sent to higher ground. She commanded the second group to go around Slade and Thrice's warriors. She wanted them behind the tower. The third and smallest group were chasing after their warriors but were told not to catch up.
She reached out to see if she could control the horses that looked like Pegasus. They responded, and she sent them to her third group of defenders.
When they were close enough to draw fire from the tower. The defenders who never caught up with the others mounted the winged horses. Her Archers climbed trees and began returning fire. The defenders behind the tower began to climb it. Soon the attack was happening on three sides. The tower fell to the defenders.
She screamed as the board reset itself with a different playing field.
“I won!”
“I want to say we let you win, but we underestimated you.”
“No worries we can play for kitchen duty anytime.”
They looked at her with such pride. She realized that in the end, she was the winner, not Linda.
The world around her spun out of control again. The thrum of a vein in her head was pounding so loud she couldn’t think.
When it settled down, Phoenix and Akron were looking at her. She was lying peacefully in a casket. Dead, the word beat inside her brain.
“I’m going to miss her,” Akron said.
She walked around, the horror of dying so young was becoming normal. Leaving Jabari, on the other hand, tore her up on the inside. He was on his knees. Could he cry? She didn’t know, but she knew from the red eyes, he would never be the same.
She knelt beside him. “You have to love again, please. I can’t bear for you to be all alone forever.”
The spinning started again, and soon she was back on the fairgrounds.
“I don’t think that was supposed to happen.” Quinn did a quick look around as if she was scared to meet her brother’s eyes.
“Something strange happened to you too?”
“Oh yeah.”
“Thank god.” Brandi breathed a sigh of relief. “I thought it was all me. Is anyone else ready to go home?”
They all chimed in with a yes.
Chapter Twenty-one
They stopped for dinner, but no one was all that talkative. When they got to the house, everyone went their separate ways. Thrice stopped to tell her the next time they played war games she was on his team.
That made the experience real. Up until that moment, she was pretending it was a dream. Now she had to admit that Jabari had been kneeling at her grave. The gold cuffs on his wrist were to keep him from shifting. She didn’t know how she knew. The knowledge was there easily accessible.
“What did you see?” She changed into shorts and a tank. He always kept the room warm, so she didn’t get cold. Now they were sitting on the bed.
“My brothers. They like you. They’re both happy and sad for me.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Don’t be their happy wherever they are.” He laid back and closed his eyes. “They promised to find you and take care of you when the time comes.” The hollowness of his voice hurt.
“What did you see?”
“Scenes from my past. I played war games with Slade and Thrice. They owe me two weeks of kitchen duty.”
“I’m not surprised you won. You’re a defender.”
“On my planet, I’m just a black girl with braids.”
He gave a sound of disgust. “Humans always underestimate each other.”
“We do. I also saw my funeral.”
“I saw that too.”
They didn’t say anything for a long time.
“You have to promise me that you will still be open to finding someone else.”
“You’re not the first woman in my life. I’ve had a lot. Some want to be protected, some want the thrill of having a created on her arm. Some want what I can give them in bed, but none of them wanted me. Not until you showed up. Don’t ask me to promise something I can’t.”
She crawled over to him. He picked her up and laid her on his chest. He pulled the covers.
“Sleep Brandi, you need the rest.”
*~*~*~*
The beating of Jabari’s heart brought her peace. She was on his chest in his warm embrace, and still; she wanted to touch him. Her fingers ached to trace the scars she was lying against. Her fingers hovered over him so close the warmth of skin touched her hand.
His hand stroked down her back. “How are you feeling?”
“Fine, I was just t
hinking.”
“About?”
“Betrayal, shame, confidence, love, and the word whore.”
“That sounds intense. Tell me?”
“It’s not a pretty story. When I was younger, I used to dream about being married. On my wedding night, I would prove to my husband, I was a virgin. I could see the proud look on his face. He would never doubt my faithfulness to him. I could imagine how proud he would be when he told his friends about me. I thought that bit of skin would tell the world, I wasn’t a whore.”
She waited until the tension bled out of his fingers.
“When I went to college, I guarded my virtue zealously. I don’t regret that. I was in my last year when Trey bumped into me.” Her books and paper fell to the ground. She remembered being angry thinking it was a joke.
“He was so apologetic picking up my books and giving me that sexy secret look. The one that guys do and women notice. When he stood back up, he was smiling so big I thought my heart would explode. We exchanged numbers. I remember telling Piper about him.
“How he dressed like a thug with his loose pants and wife beater that showed off all his muscles.” He had on a pair of expensive tennis shoes and a haircut that said he came from a family that could afford to give him proper care.
“I gush about his large light brown eyes. And underneath all his outer appearances was an intelligent man. He was on his way to law school. He took me out. Tailgating, nice dinners, football games. You name it, we did it. We studied together, and we talked about the future. He told me when he got straight, you know a job, apartment, and some money set aside he was going to buy me a ring. He was my dream.”
He was the perfect knight in shining armor. She should have known better. To this day, she wondered if she had known all along it was just a dream.
“The night before graduation he asked me if I loved him. I did and told him. Then he wanted to know why we had to wait. I didn’t have a good answer for him. I loved him, or so I thought. We made love that night. My very first time and I thought I was a princess who was going to live in a castle. The next day he kissed me, and I was head over heels.
Jabari (The Broken Book 2) Page 12
