“What happened with yours?” Jessa asked, her curiosity piqued.
I grimaced. “Let’s not give the feisty teenager any bad ideas. But, it’s a good thing Merci didn’t have a security deposit.”
After breakfast, Jessa gave me an address. We pulled up to the ramshackle hospice house—a sagging, state-run dump with peeling green paint and weeds clawing through cracked asphalt. Our mother had never held a real job long enough to save a dime. This was her endgame, courtesy of the county and Medicaid.
“I’ll wait out here,” Merci said, killing the truck’s engine.
I grunted thanks, slinging a protective arm around Jessa’s shoulders. The air inside reeked of bleach and despair, and thefluorescent lighting buzzed over distant coughs. A harried nurse insisted we sign in before heading to her room.
Our mother looked like a ghost. Yellowed skin stretched over bones, and an oxygen tube snaked under her nose. Her sunken eyes landed on me.
“Jonah,” she wheezed.
“He goes by Hatchet now,” Jessa reminded her, sitting in the stained chair beside the bed.
“Hatchet,” she whispered.
“Yeah. That’s me.” My words came out flat. I crossed my arms tight over my cut.
She licked her cracked lips, glancing again at Jessa before locking onto me. “I’m sorry. For everything. Thought you’d get a better shot with someone else.”
Fury clawed my throat, but I swallowed it down. “Water under the bridge.” The lie hurt. She’d ditched me without a backward glance, only circling back now because death loomed over her like a dark shadow.
“Jessa’s moving in with me,” I said, my voice razor-sharp. “I want full custody. I’m getting a lawyer to make it official.”
Our mom nodded weakly. “Good. That’s why I messaged you. Wanted to ask before … before I couldn’t. She needs family.”
“She has one now,” I clipped. “We done?”
Our mom wiped a tear from her cheek, and the liver spots on her hand caught my eye.
I glanced at Jessa. “Stay as long as you want, kid. I’ll be outside.” I turned on my heel, boots echoing down the hall as I made my retreat.
Merci leaned against the truck in the parking lot. She eyed me as I paced the asphalt, fists jammed in my pockets. “You good?”
I grunted in response. The words I’d wanted to say stuck like gravel in my throat.
After ten minutes, the door banged open. Jessa emerged, her eyes red-rimmed and cheeks streaked, but her chin was up.
“Let’s go pack up my shit,” she murmured, climbing into thetruck’s back seat without another word. I considered telling her she shouldn’t swear, but bad language was the least of my worries.
I remembered my way to the trailer park. As we pulled beside it, I shot Merci a look that I hoped said “don’t judge” as she stared at the sagging single-wide.
Jessa pushed the door open. “The lock broke a while back, and we never replaced it,” she explained. “Not like there’s anything here to steal.”
I flexed my jaw as I considered how unsafe she’d been here. A teenage girl without a way to keep a fucking predator from waltzing into her bedroom at night. I’d fucking burn this place to the ground if she’d let me.
We stepped inside, and hot, stale air thick with mildew hit us in waves. My gut twisted as I looked around. A haphazardly boarded window gaped at the end of the hall. The faucet in the tiny kitchen dripped, theplinksinto the empty sink echoing across the room. I schooled my face into a neutral expression as Jessa pulled a few trash bags from under the sink.
She moved quickly to her room, stuffing bags with worn, threadbare clothes. She tossed in a photo album and a tattered stuffed rabbit. She glanced around the room and shrugged, like she couldn’t find anything else worth saving, before pulling a crate from the closet. It was stacked with books. She pushed it into my arms.
“This is it,” she said flatly, scanning the mess. “I don’t want anything else.”
I nodded, hefting the box while Merci grabbed a bag. As we passed through the living room, Jessa paused by a cluttered shelf. She palmed a tiny whale-shaped crystal figurine and slipped it into her pocket. I looked away, giving her that one small thing she didn’t have to explain.
Chapter Fifteen
I’d wanted to talk to Hatchet for days, but he hadn’t shown his face in the clubhouse.
