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Marguerite heard Chloe’s scream, but as the gun flashed out, she was already swinging the bat, connecting with his hand hard, sending the firearm clattering into the monkey bars.
“What the fuck—”
She moved in, slammed another stroke on his raised forearm. He howled, she swung again, beating him to his knees, fast, brutal, repeated strikes, no room for mercy or hesitation. He was crawling away, scrambling, stumbling. She got him in the ribs, the kidney. She hoped she was killing the son of a bitch, making his internal organs bleed, giving him a slow death.
“Get the hell off my property. You will never get these children here. Never. ” It thundered out of her, her scream like the fury of a storm.
He rolled into the street bleeding, struggling to his feet to move as fast as he could away from her park. His eyes were stark white with terror, the knowledge in them that he was staring at death. Marguerite stopped at the fence entrance by a picket gate where she’d planted spring flowers several days ago. There was even a lovely welcome sign that Chloe had stenciled with a teacup and an orchid curling over it. Watching him stagger down the street, she didn’t move until he disappeared, until the rage receded and she could feel the eyes of those in the neighborhood who’d come out on their porches to see what was going on.
She turned back to the park. No parents present, not in a neighborhood where the responsible adults often had to work multiple jobs at all hours to make ends meet, trusting their children’s street savvy to keep them safe. Tomorrow she’d call a security agency and have a camera installed so she could watch the park area at all times.
Shifting her gaze, she registered a white-faced Chloe and a stunned-looking Komal.
She clasped both hands around the bat’s fat top and struggled to center herself as Komal took a tentative step toward her.
“Miss M?”
She became cognizant of Aleksia touching her forearm. The child’s short brown fingers, the pink skin beneath her nails. In her other hand she held a fistful of the stickers. “I told him I’d give them out to my friends, so’s he gave me a bunch. That way he can’t give these to nobody. And I picked up the ones he dropped, too. ” Her brother, the boy who had come to warn her, was now at her side. “Stupid ass.
He shoulda knowed who he’s messing with. You don’t mess with Miss M’s place. ”
“Jerome. ” Marguerite reached out to touch his head. “Remember I don’t allow cursing in the park. And you need to work a little harder on proper English. ‘He should have known with whom he was messing. ’” She frowned, going over the grammar herself.
“My way sounds better. ” He grinned, confirming her discontent with the correction, his twinkling eyes unrepentant. “But sorry about the cussin’, Miss M. We did good, though, didn’t we?”
“You did very well. So well. ” She took the stickers, pocketed them and managed a smile for them both. “You were so brave. ”
He shrugged. “He was hittin’ on my sister with his junk. Don’t nobody mess with my sister long as I’m around. ”
His older sibling rolled her eyes but Marguerite saw her elbow his side with affection. “You’s all talk. I can kick your butt. We have to get home. ”
“First, run in and tell Gen you each get a piece of lemon cake. And have her wrap up one for your mother. ”
“Alll riiight!” The two children ran for the side path entrance to the kitchen, an access Marguerite had always made clear was a door that would open for any of the children or neighbors, the entrance for friends coming through the park. She suspected Jerome had used the front so the drug dealer wouldn’t realize he’d gone for help.
She peered into her pocket as Komal approached her with Chloe. “Chloe, remind me I have these when our officers come by this afternoon for their green tea. I’m sure they can use them for training. Or at least dispose of them properly. ”
“Are you okay?”
Marguerite raised a brow. “I’m fine. ” She looked at Komal. “I’m sorry you had to see that. It happens occasionally. ”
Though she’d never gone off on one like that, Chloe had told her. When Komal studied her, Marguerite shifted her glance. “Chloe, will you excuse us a moment?” Chloe looked between them both, nodded, headed back for the kitchen.
“If you’d hit his skull, you would have killed him. ”
“If I’d jammed this up his ass, I would have perforated his bowel wall with splinters and he would have died in a couple hours from internal bleeding. Seemed too quick that way. This way I can imagine his kidneys giving him hours of torment just to manage a piss. ”
Reaching out, Komal put her hands on the bat over Marguerite’s hands. “This is the side of you that worries me. ”
“What? The side that says I won’t allow someone to harm the innocent?”
“There are laws. ”
“Yes. And we both know how well they work to protect the innocent. I’m not afraid of death, imprisonment. ” She laughed shortly, a harsh, angry sound. “I’m not afraid of having the blood of a drug dealer on my conscience. ”
“You can lose your soul by making violence your instrument of justice. ”
“My soul was lost a long time ago, Komal,” Marguerite responded bluntly. “And if I still had it, I’d rather lose it to that than have it obliterated by shades of gray. ”
