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That was why I needed to do this. Not just for Liam but for myself . . . for Olivia. So I could finally be the man she needed. Instead, she was the woman who held on to me each and every fucking night as I tried to get the image of the little boy in the locker out of my mind.
She wanted kids, but she wasn’t the problem. I was. Apparently, my own body had begun to betray me. The doctors called it “stress,” stupid motherfuckers. It was my body’s way of telling me I was not ready to be a father, not when I couldn’t even hold my shit together.
Sighing, I dropped my head against my rifle.
“May my aim be true in its intent,” I whispered to myself before tucking the cross around my neck into my shirt.
Walking toward my window, I waited. I would wait all day if I had to. But sure enough he walked out from the trees.
“Forgive me,” I whispered as I pulled the trigger.
NINETEEN
“He who makes a beast of himself
gets rid of the pain of being a man.”
~ Samuel Johnson
CORALINE
Day 1
“Ahh!” I screamed at the top of my lungs as a rush of freezing cold water was poured all over me and my bed. Jumping out of bed I came face-to-face with . . . Adriana I believe? She looked like I was an annoying brat.
“You’re late.” She stared, placing the bucket on ground.
“It’s six in the morning!” I yelled at her, shivering horribly. Why in the world couldn’t she just shake me like a normal person?
“Training starts an hour before sunrise. The sun is up, which means you’re late.” She walked to my closet and pulled out two random items of clothing that didn’t even match, then threw them at me.
“I didn’t”
“Strip.”
“What?” She wanted me to change in front of her?
She rolled her eyes and pointed to my pajamas. “Take off your clothes and get changed, so you can start the training you begged the Boss for.”
“Okay let me just go to the bathroom.”
“Why? Do you have special lady parts that I don’t have?” She glared at me.
“I don’t remember you being this mouthy to Mel.”
“What was that?’ she asked, making me jump.
“Nothing, these clothes don’t match,” I replied walking over to my closet.
Adriana followed of course. “Does it matter what clothes you bleed in?”
“Bleed in?”
“There is a reason why people say they worked through blood, sweat, and tears.” She rolled her eyes making me feel like an idiot, and I wasn’t doing this to feel even worse about myself.
“Look I’m new at this whole—”
“Being strong? Being confident? Being a fucking Callahan? Yeah, I’m getting that. Which is why I’m annoyed, because this isn’t you. Or at least is shouldn’t be you. Aren’t black women supposed to be strong?”
“You don’t know me, you racist bitch!” I yelled at her. Yes, I was supposed to be the “typical” black woman, the one who takes no shit and is ready to fight at every moment. God forbid there be a black woman who was shy, who hated confrontation, who didn’t fit the stereotype.
She smirked, pushing her glasses up her small nose. “Nope, I don’t know you, but do you know you? Is this meek, small woman in front of me the real Coraline or is it the face you put on because you’re scared to deal with your shit?”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to that.
“Think about why you asked to do this. You could have chosen any other way to remake yourself—to better yourself. You could have gone back to school, lost five pounds, wrote a self-help book. But instead, you wanted to learn how to fight. People who choose that option are born differently than the rest of the world.” She stepped right up to my face, and I felt the need to back away.
“There is a drive, a hunger within you Coraline. You’re trying to break out of your shell but are scared to do so. You’re scared because all you know how to do is hide behind sick children and big fat checks. You hide behind everything, even your clothes. It’s why you can’t take them off in front of others. Let me get guess, you and Declan have sex in the dark? You hide and wait under the covers—”
“Shut the fuck up!” I yelled, my fist flying at her fast, however, she caught it easily and smiled.
“There’s the real Coraline breaking out. Maybe you aren’t hopeless. We will try again tomorrow, and you better not be late.” She glared before walking away from me.
When she left, I felt myself fall and I just lay down in my closet. Who was the real Coraline Wilson Callahan? I wasn’t sure. My whole life was unsure, with the exception of Declan. He was the silver lining in my life. Neither of my parents really wanted anything to do with me, seeing as how they weren’t really my parents. They were my very bitter aunt and uncle. After my real parents died, they took me in, hoping they could get the money that was left to me.
They didn’t care about me, and they were pissed when they found out only I could withdraw anything and not until my sixteenth birthday. They never said a kind word to me as a child, and then on my sixteenth birthday, they were taking me on shopping trips—more like I was taking them. But they were happy and they treated me better, so I kept buying. Now here I was at twenty-two, still trying to buy affection. But it didn’t work so well when everyone around you had just as much money, if not more.
I didn’t know who the real me was. But I knew I wanted to kill this Coraline. Not all of her, just most of her. I wanted to be who I was when I first met Declan, free, alive, happy. I wasn’t sure when I lost it. I think it was just a few months after we got married. I saw a darker side of him, and I got nervous, I became afraid and walled myself off from him.
The more blood I saw, the more wounds he came back with, the more I walked away, which was stupid, because he confessed on our third date who he was and what he did. He told me he loved me enough to let me walk away. He said that if he went on one more date he wouldn’t be able to handle it if I left him. I didn’t want to leave him, so I stayed, and then I kicked him in the gut for it later. I accepted this life, and I didn’t want it to rule me. I wanted to walk on the same water Mel and Evelyn did. Evelyn would walk through fire for Sedric, she would kill for him, and I wanted to be that way. I wanted to be a real Callahan woman.
Day 2
I walked straight into Adriana’s room to find her placing knives on her bed. She looked up at me then to the time and smiled.
“Four-thirty in the morning. I’m impressed. Ready for the blood, sweat, and tears?” she asked.
“Yes.”
TWENTY
“Maybe this is why so many serial killers work in pairs.
It’s nice not to feel alone in a world full of victims or enemies.
It just seems natural. You and me against the world . . .”
~ Chuck Palahniuk
MELODY
I couldn’t stop shaking, me, motherfucking, Melody Giovanni, now fucking Callahan, the girl who did not blink when she sold her first ounce of coke at sixteen in a back alleyway. I was the girl who murdered a cartel member at seventeen because he stole a pound of weed from us. However, here I was, and I could not stop shaking. I did not shake. I did not bend. I did not fucking flinch at the sight of blood, drugs, or at the sound of a fucking bullet! Yet here I was, watching as one of Cascadia’s doctors looked over Liam, and I was bloody shaking! What the hell was wrong with me?
