The Way Home (Lights of Peril)
Page 24
Cherry and Ace are in Cali. We don’t hear much from either one of them except to report in for birthdays or a call every holiday. They went through a whole lotta close call bullshit after they left here. Ace had to call Hem in as backup against a well-known organization in Las Vegas. None of it was good, but we all walked away in one piece, mostly uninjured.
Hem forgave Ace long ago for his plays on Sadey citing that Sadey could be ‘the one’ for any another man, but no said man stands a chance as long as he’s still livin’ and breathin’ because Sadey girl is his alone. This is true.
Raider and Cricket are still around. They don’t generally hang out here if things are still and, thank hell, things have been still for a long time now. There have been no additional stirrings of any kind the last three years. No crazy family members, no contract killers, no attempts to human traffic our women. Nothing at all, but happiness. I’ve waited for this taste of happy all my life and it was worth waiting for.
After Gramma’s passing, Peyton and Derek stayed at the ranch in Montana. They came to visit while the library was in process of sale. She had told Sadey and Mace she was “with child”, whatever. Call it what you want, all means the same. We’ve all been “with child” and that’s a sugar coating way of sayin’ you had great sex, lived through nine months of emotional torture from your woman, to end up with a screaming ball of each other that you love without request or condition.
Hood is Hood. He still has no genuine interest in patching into Peril, or any other club for that matter. His plans are to roam free and live his life for both him and his sister as long as he can. He may never move past her tragic ending, but for everything he did for Peril, we will be forever in his debt and will help him how ever we can.
“I’m gonna take off. I told Shaina I would be there by dinner and it’s about that time.” Gunner says this in passing, like he’s not about to get questioned or ridiculed by Hem.
“Oh hell, she not only has a name, she has you on a schedule. Cute, Gunner, go get your girl and bring her by here sometime soon. I would like to meet the woman who stole the Grinch’s heart.”
“Fuck, no way. You people are too crazy. She’s normal, and when I say normal I mean like every day, common, no drama, no chaos, and that’s a piece of normal I’m hanging onto for as long as I can.”
With that jab to Hem, he stands and walks towards the door, mocking Hem’s words to himself about bringing her here to meet us. He will eventually, in his own time, just as he found her, in his own time.
As he opens the front door to go, we hear the screams and laughter of our families playing outside, free. Peaceful sounds within a peaceful time.
“Shame, you ever think we’d end up like this?” Hem asks before he finishes the beer in his hand.
“Nope. Never did believe, but I always held on to the hope.”
I did. I wanted this kind of life. I just never thought it possible until I had Mace in it, the way I wanted her in it. She fills me with all I will ever need.
Hem slaps my shoulder and starts to stand from the table with a now empty beer. “Our boys, they are gonna grow old, fat, and happy together.”
“All will be fine as long as no boys outside of our family get near my girls until they are at least thirty years old, living free and happy.”
He laughs at what I just said, so I don’t think he gets me. I need to drill this shit in because I’m straight serious and, eventually, I’m gonna require his backup.
“My girls are off limits, Hem. If I’m gonna keep sane through this female shit. That means no boys allowed or I won’t hesitate to start snapping limbs.”
Hem laughs loud. He thinks I’m fuckin’ with him. I’m not.
“They are just kids, Shame. Calm the fuck down. We don’t have to worry about that or anything else for a lot of years yet.”
“We were kids once too, Hem.”
Following this installment of the Lights of Peril series, “Toxic”, is set to release no later than April 15, 2014.
Please enjoy the following excerpt from Shame’s story.
Content subject to change prior to publication.
Chapter One:
Dad isn’t having a good day. He was fired from work because he was drinking on the job. Dad always drinks at work so that’s never been the actual problem. It’s when he gets caught; that’s when my life gets turned inside out.
Although I’m only seven I’ve mastered the art of blending in. Sometimes if I hide he doesn’t even remember that he has a son. Today, I made the mistake of acting on my hunger.
My stomach was shaky and I was getting light headed. I knew he was home, I heard him yelling at my mom because she burned his dinner. I braved it, though, hoping food was about to be available to me, in any form.
I follow the bellowing voice, which is my father, into the kitchen. “Fuck woman, I work all day and come home to this shit?”
“I’m sorry, time just got away from me.” Her eyes are pleading. Seeing this many times before, I brace myself against the door jamb willing it not to happen.
My dad pulls her hair at the root so she moves with him to stand in order to avoid further pain. “Time just got away from you?” I watch from the door as he pushes her face into the table where, just a few minutes ago, she was getting high. With the sudden hit he bloodied her nose instantly. “No, what got away from you was the ability to budget. You’re in my stash, you fuckin’ crack whore.”
She’s snorting the paraphernalia without a choice now. She’s already high, but with him pushing her into it on the kitchen table she has no choice but to continue to ingest the remainder of powder.
“Now I have no fuckin’ dinner. How very fuckin’ smart of you.” He releases her for a moment, only to use his hand to draw back and knock her in the back of the head with as much force as his drunk body can muster.
She spots me at the door and our eyes lock, but I see no emotion in them. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do so I stay rooted in my spot, waiting for what is coming. I can’t defend her against his evil. I’ve tried before and to this day my rib still hurts when winter sets. Even at my young age, I know something isn’t right about that.
“Let’s see what else we got here.” Dad opens the freezer and starts taking out the frozen meals that are left in there; it’s all we have left now.
His anger continues to erupt as he throws the frozen meals against the wall one at a time. My shoulders jump at every pound. They hit the wall then drop to the floor with equal force. Before I can turn to run back to my room, forgetting all about my own hunger, I see him turn his body towards Mom. She sits up staring at the table full of residue in front of her and is met with a frozen block to the side of her face.
She grabs the side of her head and bursts into tears while moaning in pain. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to...”
Before she can finish her apology, dad grabs her by the throat and lifts her, pinning her body against the wall behind the table. I’m standing just five feet from this and I’m completely helpless. His fingers are cutting off her circulation and her face is turning red as tears continue to stream down her cheeks.
“Tell the boy I want dinner. Don’t care how he gets it, but I get my dinner. Don’t care if you eat, he eats, or the fuckin’ rats eat. I want my dinner, bitch.” He drops her and she falls to the floor, now clutching her face with one hand and her neck with the other.
He stalks toward me with malice heavily fastened in his eyes. “Did you hear me? Move, get on it. You have an hour, son. I want my meal in the living room. The fuckin’ games on and I’m missing it having to deal with this shit.” He knocks me upside the head as walks past me making his point clear, as if I needed the not so subtle reminder.
The game, that’s my dad’s biggest worry right now. I’m seven and because I was hungry I came out of my room walked into this, I’m now responsible to be sure he gets fed. A seven year old shouldn’t understand the meaning of irony already, but I do.
“Neil, come here.” Mom’s up on her feet and she’s glaring at me as if I were the one that caused all this. When she’s high she always looks at me like that.
Apparently I don’t move fast enough so she marches to me. She bends down to my level and I see the veins in her right eye has popped and her eye is left bloody from the frozen box he threw at her. I no longer have any feeling towards this, this is just another day in paradise.
“Go to Bag and Go and pick us up some hamburger meat. Wear a jacket.”
I know these words. This translates into, “Wear a jacket so you don’t get caught and get hamburger meat because it’s easiest to steal without anyone noticing the bulk in your clothes.”
“Mama, I’m scared.” I am scared, I’m actually terrified. Not of getting caught and taken into custody because that would be easier. I’m terrified of living through this if I fail to muster the courage to steal what she’s asking and come home empty handed.
She grabs my arm and wipes the excess blow from her face onto my shirt. I swear she does this for a no other reason than to scare me further. “Go, and don’t come back if you don’t get what your father asked because if you come back empty handed I’m telling him you ate his last bit of rice.”
The rice I ate for breakfast yesterday, it was the last morsel of food I digested and now I’m being made to feel bad for that.
“Okay, Mama.”
I run to my room, passing my dad sitting on the couch, hoping not to interrupt his game. I get my jacket and head out the door to walk the mile to the store.
I’m shaking now only because I’m scared of running out of time.
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty One
Chapter Twenty Two
Chapter Twenty Three
Chapter Twenty Four
Epilogue