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“Momma?”
She looked at where I was standing, then tilted her head back so she could stare at me from under her sunglasses.
“I told you she went out, you crazy bitch,” the man shouted, his breathing ragged.
My mom pointed at him, but just as suddenly, pointed into the kitchen at no one at all. “He ruined me. He’s going to ruin you too.”
The man began yelling, trying to defend himself, but I didn’t listen.
My mom wasn’t talking about him. She had only ever talked about one man my entire life. My dad. Didn’t matter that we hadn’t seen him since I was eight years old.
“No, Momma, no,” I said softly as I walked up to her. “That’s not him . . . remember? We left him. Do you remember that?”
She snorted. “Do I remember that?” Another snort and she jerked her thumb at me as she walked around me toward the table. “You listen to this?” she asked the man I’d left on the couch. “She thinks things happen that don’t. She ain’t right in the head.”
“I noticed,” the man said as he wiped at the small trickle of blood on his neck, his glare fixated on me before he looked at my mom expectantly. “Did ya get it?”
“Momma, what were you doing outside? It’s night. Momma, it’s eleven.”
“See what I mean?” she asked the man before looking at me as she tapped on the sunglasses still covering her eyes. “No it ain’t, Jess. Wouldn’t have needed these if it was.”
I wanted to make her look out the door she’d left open, make her realize that it was night. But if she saw it—if she actually saw the darkness—she’d lose her mind. She’d be uncontrollable. Inconsolable.
So I quietly took the few steps to the door to shut it and froze when I looked up and saw my mom dig bags upon bags of coke out of her jeans pocket.
My blood felt thick as tar trying to pump through my body. My racing heart faltered.
No . . . no. That was . . . that was so much money.
That would kill her.
“Where did you get those?” When she didn’t answer, I snapped. “Momma, where did you get those?”
My stomach dropped when I got a look at the bags. Of the nearly indiscernible symbol imprinted on them of an overlapping skull and Celtic knot.
Goddammit, Beck.
The man on the couch grabbed her hand to take a few of the bags, and my mom screamed.
Screamed like someone was killing her slowly.
Screamed like someone was beating her within an inch of her life.
Screamed like someone was ruining her . . .
“He ruined me,” she screamed at the man. “You ruined me. It’s in you, it’s inside you—always inside you. Everything you touch, you ruin. You ruined me.”
The man was now trying to scramble away from her, but my mom had latched on to his arm.
The guy who had passed out earlier stirred back to life, took less than a second to process what was going on and then crawled toward the door yelling that there was a fire.
The older man had cuts up and down his arm from my mom’s nails when he finally ripped free. “You’re crazy,” he shouted as he ran after the first man. “Both of you.”
I forced my most seductive grin as he passed me, then let it fall and ran for my mom when the door slammed shut behind him.
I gripped her wrists so she couldn’t scratch me with the same nails that had just scratched the man and spoke in calm, soothing tones. “No one’s here. No one is ruining you. You’re okay.”
“He’s going to ruin you,” she continued to scream. “Run, Jess. Run. Don’t let him ruin you.”
