With the roar rumbling up my chest louder than the vibration of a dozen pairs of boots stomping across a carpeted floor, I pin one agent to the wall by his throat before kicking another away from me.
A baton slams into my back at the same time I toss the agent I pinned to the wall into three of his comrades. I can’t trust the FBI. They did me wrong years ago, and once again, it is more than my life at stake.
My blood boils when, in the corner of my eye, I spot Jae pushing Cedric away from her with the same amount of aggression I’m instilling on the federal agents. For a woman with a short stature and waif-thin appearance, she has a lot of strength in her push. She sends Cedric flying before she bobs beneath the choking haze of smoke separating us, then locks her eyes with mine.
The panic flaring through her pretty green eyes could be excused on the insurgence of federal agents swarming our room, but I know it’s more than that, and her signed words confirm it. “Stay down, don’t resist,and maintain your right of silence until you have a lawyer present.”
When Cedric towers over her with the same angry sneer he wore when he was informed her convertible was corpseless, I race for him so fast, I only recall I’m not wearing a stitch of clothing when a prick with a death wish tasers me in the cock. It rockets a painful zap up my spine, but since it isn’t one-tenth of the bolt I feel when Jae’s lips circle my cock’s head, I rip off the cords powering the prongs with electricity, knock out the guy who tasered me with a fist to his nose, then continue with my mission.
Cedric can’t be trusted. Not only did he give Roderick’s goons information to access the LoJack in Jae’s car, he also watched them release a pack of dogs trained to rip Jae apart the instant they find her. He’s a part of this. I just haven’t worked out exactly where he slots into a two-decade-long dispute.
I hammer Cedric like I wanted to earlier but couldn’t since Jae was too close to the firing zone not to get hurt.
I only get in a handful of hits before I’m stung for the second time. This time, I’m not hit with the prongs of a taser.
I’m jabbed with a needle.
The serum it races through my veins pulls my legs out from beneath me in an instant. I fall to the ground with a roar, and even quicker than that, Jae curls her body over mine to protect me like I did her last night when Cecil’s truck sailed off the freeway.
Her quick thinking saves my bruised hip, back, and spleen from additional injury, and thrusts my thoughts back to the last time I was defended by a woman…
“M-Mommy…”
While praying her tummy isn’t as sore as mine, I sneak into her room. Daddy said she went to bed early because she was sick, but he lies—a lot—even more than my older brother, Roberto. The marks on Mommy’s face she calls ‘kisses from Daddy’s hands’ don’t make her stomach swishy like mine. They make her sad, grumpy, and a lot of the times she cries, but she never gets sick.
“My t-tum-tum hurts. Can you m-make it better?”
It always aches when Daddy is in charge of dinner. Ophelia is only little, so she can’t cook, but since she’s the only girl in the house other than Mommy, Daddy said we either eat the leftovers in the back of the refrigerator or go with him when he visits his friends.
Since they’re usually bossier than Daddy when he drinks his special brown medicine, I picked leftovers.
Now I’m feeling sorry for myself.
“M-Mommy…” This plea comes out more like a groan than a plea. My tummy is more goopy than the homemade slime Dimitri got stuck in his hair at preschool last week. A bully tried to make fun of our last name. He said it was dirty. Dimitri punched him right in the eye. I don’t think his bully will pour green goop onto a Petretti’s head again anytime soon.
“I t-think—”
My warning comes too late. The week-old spaghetti I scoffed down because I was super hungry is now on the floor instead of in my stomach.
“Oh, n-no,” I whimper on an almost sob.
If Daddy finds out I made a mess, I won’t be able to sit for a week. He made Roberto’s bottom bleed with his belt last week because he spilled soda pop on the kitchen floor. It was a quick fix since the floor is covered by the ugly tiles Daddy brought back from Italy when Ophelia was born, but the bedrooms have carpet.
I’m going to be in big trouble.
“Hey, CJ, none of that. It’s okay.” The soft nurturing tone my mother uses almost hides the wetness on her cheeks when she bobs down in front of me.
Even with her face banged up, she’s really pretty. I don’t know if girl germs are true, but every time we go to the grocery store to pick up supplies, the men at the store act like it’s not a big deal to catch cooties. They watch Mommy like Dimitri eyeballs Jessica Rabbit fromWho Framed Roger Rabbit. He’s only five, but he tells everyone when he’s a big boy, he’s going to marry Jessica.
If he does, I hope his hands don’t kiss her face. Daddy’s hands make Mommy’s face puffy and sore. Her eyeballs are almost as big as her cheeks.
After clearing away the chunks of regurgitated spaghetti wedged between us, Mommy whispers, “See. It was just a little mess. There’s no need to cry.”
When she brushes away the two salty blobs that escaped my eyes, I do the same for her. I am extra careful while skating my hand against her bluish skin since Daddy’s kisses look angrier than the ones he put there last week. Even with Mommy hiding in her room all day, the gash in her cheek is still wet with blood. One side of her lip makes it look like she got stung by a bee, and the blood running from a cut in her hair makes it look more red than blonde.
“I d-don’t think you should let Daddy’s hands k-kiss your face anymore.”
I stutter all the time. It’s a bad habit Mommy promises Daddy I will grow out of, but this one is more because I’m worried I’ll get in trouble for sticking my nose in adults’ business again. Daddy doesn’t like when I do that, but instead of kissing my face with his hands, he uses them on my bottom.
