“Mamma wasn’t feeling so good, so I stayed up and read to her for a while from some of my books. She fell asleep on the couch.”
“Where’s your dad?” Prosper frowned.
“Daddy took his special pills and went to bed.”
“His special pills?”
Raine crooked her finger at Prosper. When he was down at her level, she leaned in and whispered, “Mamma says they make him feel better and so that’s okay.”
“Do you think they make him feel better?” Prosper asked her because bullshit that Raine and Claire should have a drugged-out father staggering around the house no matter what Maggie said.
Raine nodded vehemently. “When Mamma started getting sick, Daddy started getting grouchy and drinking a lot of beer. I heard Mamma tell him ‘it’s better to have a happy, drugged-out Jack around than to have a miserable, falling-down-drunk Jack around.’”
So, it had come down to that, had it? Prosper scrubbed a hard hand over his jaw and wished he had come back a lot sooner.
Then as Raine looked over at the table, her eyes grew wide. Befitting for a seven-year-old girl about to turn eight, her focus shifted immediately. “What’s all that stuff for?”
“Hmmm, I hear that someone around this house is having a birthday tomorrow, so I figured I should probably buy a cake.” Prosper was happy to steer the conversation in a more positive direction.
“It’s me! It’s me!” Raine jumped up and down. “It’s my birthday tomorrow!”
“Yours? How can that be?” He pretended to ponder. “No, nope. It can’t be you. I heard that the birthday girl was turning eight. Aren’t you like eighty-five or something?”
Prosper’s heart filled to just about bursting when Raine started to giggle. Then she threw her arms around him and whispered, “I’m so happy you’re here, Prosper.”
“I’m happy I’m here, too, little darlin’.” He hugged her back.
For the next hour or so, Raine and Prosper went through all the birthday items one by one and every time she smiled, Prosper felt joy right down to his very soul.
Raine made a little pile of all things purple and put them aside. “Claire goes crazy over purple. We have to save these for her.”
She frowned though when she got to the chocolate bars. “Mamma will never let us have all this candy.”
“Well, let’s take care of that right now.” Prosper loaded up all his pockets with candy bars. All except for one, and that one he unwrapped, broke off a piece of it, and popped it into his mouth. “Now it’s my candy, and I’m just sharing it.” He handed Raine the rest of the bar. She took it and smiled around the chocolaty piece of goodness in her mouth.
“Alrighty then, you need to go brush your teeth and hit the hay,” he told her.
“Okay, but can I open my present first?” she asked shyly.
Prosper made a great deal out of spinning on his heels and looking all around the room. “Present? What present? I don’t see a present!”
Raine giggled with delight. “You can’t see it because it’s in your back pocket!”
“Ah, so it is. How about that?” Prosper plucked the small gaily wrapped gift out of his pocket and handed it to her.
Raine gave Prosper another big hug. “You’re the best!”
He’s the worst.
Pinky couldn’t believe that Prosper had stood her up like this. It wasn’t as if she had asked him for a ride. And it wasn’t as if she was even in a nice place to wait it out. Pinky was standing in a deserted, dark, and dirty parking lot with not even a bench to sit her skinny ass down and rest her tired feet.
“Hey, Pinky. You need a ride?” Denny called out to her. He was on the closing shift and was the last one to leave for the night. Pinky didn’t know him well. The shifts she picked up at Raising Cain weren’t usually the closing ones. She supposed Denny was okay despite his Rico Suave swag, “hey baby” eyes, and the fact that he liked nothing more than to show off his gym-manufactured biceps. Tonight, she had caught him looking at her ass a few times, which had made her eyes roll. But really, compared to some of the guys who’d crossed her path, Denny seemed harmless in comparison. And besides, with her damn rust bucket on the fritz again, she had no other choice. If Pinky didn’t catch a ride with Denny, she’d be stuck here for … god only knew how long. Probably until sunrise, Pinky thought with exasperation. It was one forty-five in the morning, and she was past giving Prosper the benefit of the doubt.
“Yeah, that’d be great. Thanks, Denny,” Pinky said, and because she just couldn’t help herself, she took one last look down the highway.
“You want?” Denny reached into the cooler in the back seat and grabbed a couple of beers.
Pinky shrugged. “Sure. You know where Linden Parkway is?”
“Yeah. Rough neighborhood.” Denny nodded as he started up his beat up, older-than-dirt, sedan and pulled out of the parking lot. “Your boyfriend live there?”
“I live there.”
Denny gave her a sidelong look and didn’t say a word. But what he did do was reach over and put his hand on her thigh.
“So, uh, you seeing anybody?”
Pinky shook her head and swatted his hand away. “Not gonna happen, Denny.”
“Yeah, sure, with chicks like you, no always means yes.”
“Chicks like me?”
“Yeah, Linden Parkway chicks. Little gutter rats. Heard you dirty girls will take it up the ass, too, for five bucks. Looks like it’s your lucky day ’cause my wallet is loaded.”
“So, you’re basing my sexual practices on where I live?” Pinky looked at him with disgust.
He just shrugged.
Well, that didn’t take long. Pinky was so over it.
Denny … Prosper … and every other guy she had ever met. Apparently, she was a magnet for assholes. “Just take me home.”
He drove on without saying another word, but when they turned onto Linden, he reached over and squeezed her breast, hard.
Pinky barely reacted because it was hard to be surprised by anything the ignorant bastard did.
“Just let me out here,” Pinky said with a sigh. If she had a dime for every misogynist dipshit who hit on her, she wouldn’t be working twelve-hour shifts, serving cheap draft beer and greasy burgers.
Denny pulled a sharp right to the curb, and she wasted no time getting out.
“Owwww!” Pinky yelled out as her neck snapped back. He grabbed her hair and shoved her into the back seat.
Then Denny lunged himself on top of her.
His hands were like tentacles on a writhing sea monster; they were everywhere: between her legs, on her ass, up her shirt. She tried desperately to get free. Pinky scratched and bit and kicked her legs, but the more she fought, the more Denny seemed to like it. She could feel him getting bigger and harder with every desperate attempt she made.
It was obscene and disgusting.
“Keep on fighting, baby. I like to give it rough,” he growled out before he ripped her shirt wide open. “You got some little titties on you, don’t you? Itty bitty titty committee.” Denny laughed nastily. He pinched her nipple hard.
“Help!” she managed to scream out before he clamped his hand down roughly hard on her mouth.
“You keep screaming, sweetheart, and I’ll nibble this little pink nub right off.”
He bit down sharply to further his point.
The pain was excruciating. The world began to swim in swirls of agony. Pinky was sure she was going to vomit when he popped out her other breast and started taking long laps at it with his tongue.
Like a dog.
Pinky turned her head to the left and saw the open cooler sitting on the floor of the car. She shot her hand out and grabbed a bottle. Then, with all her might, Pinky smashed that bottle hard to the side of Denny’s head.
Denny shook his glass-covered, beer-soaked head and roared like a lion in a rage. His face turned purple with fury. When he bunched up his hand and pulled back a fist, Pinky knew she was a dea
d woman. She closed her eyes tight and waited for the punch that was going to shatter her jaw, her nose, and her eye sockets.
But instead of feeling a hard punch to the jaw, she heard the soft click of a gun and squeezed her eyes even harder to wait for the bullet that would end her life.
“You’re a fucking dead man,” a man’s voice rasped out. Then the heavy weight of Denny’s body was yanked off her.
Prosper kept the gun pushed hard into Denny’s temple and used his other hand to pull Pinky out of the car. His expression turned from fury to fierce when he took in her torn shirt, exposed breasts, and trembling hands.
“I know you’re not okay,” he said to Pinky and then added in a tone heavy with meaning, “But are you okay?”
Pinky nodded. “Sonofabitch didn’t rape me if that’s what you mean, but only because he ran out of time.”
“Are you okay to walk home? He nodded to Pinky’s apartment building a half-block away.
“Yeah, I can get home.” Pinky felt a surge of relief at this very welcome turn of events. Before she walked away, she stopped in front of Denny. She looked him straight in the eye and spit in his face. Then she executed a violent kick to his ball sack. When Denny groaned loudly and slumped to the ground, Prosper forced him back up.
“You done?”
“Yeah, I’m done,” Pinky told him. Then as she walked away, she added, “Shoot the bastard’s dick off.”
Pinky stood under the shower and scrubbed her skin until it hurt. It was only after the water turned cold did she step out from the protective mist. Though the night was warm, her lips chattered and her skin tensed from a deep aching chill. Pinky dug up a pair of flannel pajama pants, a heavy sweatshirt, and a pair of thick socks.
She poured herself a double shot of bourbon, cuddled up under a large comforter, and berated herself for being so damn dumb. She was raised by a violent man, so she should know one when she saw one.
She’d have to work on that.
Yeah, she’d have to work on that.
The combination of the bracing bourbon and the fear-driven adrenaline wreaked havoc in Pinky’s already overloaded nervous system. Pinky got up from the couch and had two more shots before she finally began to relax, and when she did, her guard came down and memories of her past came flooding back. Things she had not thought of for a very long time.
Pinky was the second of three children born to Edna and Joseph McCabe. She was wedged between Petey, who was the oldest of the brood, and Lilah, the youngest.
Lilah was the family’s wild child. She’d been loud, aggressive, argumentative, capable of throwing epic temper tantrums, and loved to spit in the face of convention and authority. On the very first day of kindergarten, Lilah had walked right over to the wooden block area, gathered all the blocks into a pile, and bit anyone who tried to play with her. And it’d just gone downhill from there. All through her growing years, a collective groan could be heard sounding out from the teachers’ lounge whenever Lilah McCabe’s name was mentioned. By the time Lilah was thirteen years old, she’d had the longest juvenile rap sheet in the county. She was fearless, defiant, and determined to wreak havoc everywhere she went.
The only thing that Lilah had ever been afraid of in this whole world was the Boogie Man.
Pinky was the forgotten middle child and she liked it that way. She had worked hard at mediocracy. Pinky had made sure never to be anything that was … “too.” She’d been careful never to look too pretty or too ugly, be too smart or too stupid, or arrive too early or too late. If Pinky could have had one wish in the whole wide world, that wish would have been to become invisible. To escape all notice.
Especially from the Boogie Man.
Petey had been the pride of the family. He was the star athlete, the honors student, the captain of every team he played on. He was loved by the teachers, popular with his peers, and dated the prettiest girls in town. He was smart and strong and brave.
Petey had always known all of the best places to hide his little sisters from the Boogie Man.
Edna McCabe was their mother. She was small and timid and zealously religious. Edna McCabe had quoted the bible daily and spoke in parables.
She’d denied the existence of the Boogie Man.
Big Joe McCabe was the patriarch. He’d had a third grade education, was a third generation Klansman, and had won the State Heavyweight Boxing Championship title three years in a row. He’d liked to joke at the church socials that three was his lucky number. Then he would point to his three children with pride.
Big Joe McCabe was the Boogie Man.
Big Joe had never touched his children except with a loving hand. Instead, he’d beat their mother viciously for their smallest infractions. Because it had been her job to raise his children right, after all.
Lilah had left school without making her bed … smack.
Pinky had gone to church with a thread hanging from the hem of her dress … smack, smack.
Petey’s team had lost a game … smack, smack, smack.
When Big Joe’s buddies at the KKK meeting reported to him that his son had been seen talking to a young Jewish girl after school, Big Joe took that as a very serious matter. He’d gathered the children up into the living room and gave them a stern lecture all about white supremacy and racial purity. Then he’d given Petey a big clap on the shoulder and told him that it wasn’t his fault, not at all. Big Joe had told the children not to worry because he had saved the reputation of the family by explaining to the Klan that Edna had recently become derelict of her duties as a mother. That she had fallen short on teaching the children right from wrong. Big Joe assured the Klansman that he would take care of the matter.
Then Big Joe had lined his three children up against the kitchen wall and forced them to watch as he’d beaten their mother half to death. Edna McCabe had been unable to move for three days from that kitchen floor. Big Joe had called into work and took over Edna’s household duties. He’d don an apron and whistle while he made blueberry pancakes for the children. Then, the children had been made to eat at the table while their mother had lain battered, bloody, and moaning on the floor at their feet. Big Joe would dance around Edna each morning with a toothy grin as he served the children crisp bacon and fluffy eggs. Just before they’d walk out the door, he’d warn them that if they should tell anyone about their mother’s accident then he would have to bash her head in with the bat, and they would come home to find their mother’s brains all over the floor.
Big Joe McCabe would fill his three children’s lunch boxes with bologna sandwiches, crispy homemade pickles, and extra cookies. Then with a pat on the head and a kiss on the cheek, he’d send them off to school.
On the eve of Petey’s twenty-first birthday, Big Joe had announced that since Petey was a grown man, it was time for him to join the Klan. Big Joe took his son to his first meeting that very evening.
Edna had stood at the window and wept silently as she’d watched them drive away. When they came home, Petey had gone straight up to his room, but in the middle of the night, Pinky had heard her brother weeping and vomiting in the bathroom.
It had been just the three of them for breakfast that next morning: Edna and her two oldest children. By that time, the courts had deemed Lilah incorrigible and had sent her off to a youth center. And Big Joe had just left for an early shift at the gun factory.
Edna had stood at the kitchen window and watched as Big Joe hopped into Eddie Keegan’s Ford and drove off to work. Then she’d moved faster than Pinky or Petey had ever thought possible.
While her children had looked on in shock, Edna pushed the refrigerator away from the wall and grabbed the crowbar she had hidden behind it. Carefully and quickly, she’d proceeded to pry away at the rotted wood.
“Stick your hand in that hole in the wall will ya, honey, and get me that box.” She’d nodded to her son.
“There’s an envelope full of money in here, Mamma,” Petey cried out in shock as he’d handed the box over to his
sister.
“Mamma, these are notices for bills you haven’t paid in months!” Pinky exclaimed. “When Daddy finds out he’ll kill you!”
“Shhhhh.” Edna had looked around the room furtively as if Big Joe would suddenly materialize. “I want you to take this money and your daddy’s car and drive clear to my sister’s house. She’ll be waiting for you. Don’t stop and don’t ever come back here.”
Petey and Pinky had looked at each other in incredulity. Then Petey spoke gently to his mother as if she were insane. “Auntie Helen lives halfway across the country, Mamma, and Daddy’s car ain’t working. Now give me the bills and I’ll take that money and pay them at Nichols Five-and-Dime before Daddy finds out what you’ve done.”
Edna had smiled at them then, in a way she hadn’t smiled in years, and it lit up her pretty deep-green eyes. And for a moment they’d had their mother back again. The mother they’d had before the beatings and abuse had driven her straight out of her mind. Or so everyone had thought.
“I loosened up a couple of spark plugs.” She laughed gleefully. “That car works just fine.”
Petey and Pinky had looked at their mother and each other in awe. A small spark of hope ignited and had begun to grow. Maybe their mother wasn’t so crazy after all.
“Mamma, we ain’t even packed. We have no clean clothes …”
Edna had cackled in triumphant glee. “That big old fool, he thinks he’s so damn smart, watching every move I make. Every time I washed your clothes I held a few back. A shirt or a pair of undies here or there. There’s a suitcase full of clothes for you both in the trunk of the car. Gas tanks’ on full too.”
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Petey had said with admiration and looked at his mother like he had never seen her before.
“Mamma, what are you gonna do?” This was all coming at Pinky too fast. Hell, she had just woken up not more than twenty minutes before. “What are you gonna do about Daddy?”
“I’m gonna kill him.”
Prosper (Hells Saints MC Book 7) Page 13
