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JOÃO
“We have to call the police,” Imani said, resting her head against mine. “She needs to be taken out of here, so Ana can … so she can sleep here for the night, and her house doesn’t reek of …” She trailed off and pressed her lips to my forehead again.
At some point, I had stopped my body from trembling, but I could feel the sadness lingering inside of me, ready to burst at any moment. All I could do was stare at Mom, lying dead on the couch with a suicide note beside her.
I brushed some brown hair off her forehead and tucked it behind her ear. Her skin felt so cold, and she felt so … so gone, like she had killed herself early this morning while Ana and I were at school.
“We can’t call the police,” Landon said from the doorway. “They won’t do anything about it, especially not after what we did to Principal Vaughn. They’ll laugh in his face and dump her body in the trash.”
“We have to do something,” Imani said.
My lips trembled, my jaw twitching. “Call Rick Santos.”
“Who’s Rick Santos?” Imani asked, holding me tighter.
“We can’t,” Landon said, glancing at me briefly. “Jace killed him.”
“What?!” she said from behind me. “Jace killed someone?!”
“Fuck,” I grunted and ran my fingers across Mom’s cheeks.
It would have been shitty to let him lay Mom to rest anyway. He wasn’t a good man, but with the right amount of money, he would’ve done what I wanted, if he were still alive.
Still, Imani was right. Mom’s body would decay here if we didn’t move her soon.
“I’ll figure it out.” Landon dialed a number on his phone and walked outside into the frigid winter air.
Unable to take my fucking eyes off Mom, I stared at her for as long as I fucking could because I knew that this would be the last time I would ever see her. Ana would never see her again. The last image she had gotten of Mom would be of her sleeping and not waking up.
Dark circles lay underneath her eyes, and her lips were white and chapped. She should’ve gone for a haircut this month to snip her bangs back like she used to do when I was a kid. She always had such a youthful expression and complexion, but right now, she looked so … old.
“What can I do for you?” Imani stroked her fingers across my shoulders. “Tell me.”
But I didn’t say anything to her. I couldn’t. If I did, I would start sobbing again.
Instead, I rested my forehead against Mom’s arm and squeezed my eyes closed, remembering what life had been like before Dad fucking ruined it all. She would take me to the playground every afternoon and ride down the slides with me, buy me strawberry ice cream and take me on long walks by the Overlook when Dad went on business trips.
“I want you back,” I whispered, chest tightening once more and my voice cracking. Sorrow spread throughout my body quickly, the tears reforming in my eyes. “I just want you fucking back, Mama.”
Sometime while I was knee deep in my memories, the front door opened. The two guys who had thrown Vaughn’s head onto the football field for us and then disposed of his body walked in. I didn’t trust many thugs in Redwood, but they had gotten the job done for us many times before. They would help us now.
Still …
I didn’t want them to take her away. I wasn’t ready.
One walked over to the couch and grabbed Mom in his arms, pulling her off the couch and away from me—from her son, from one of her children who only wanted her to be back, wanted this all to be a sick fucking joke.
“Don’t take her away!” I screamed, chest tight. “Please, don’t take my mom away.”
Landon nodded to the guys, then the door. The thug walked away from me and toward him with her corpse in his arms, her arms and legs dangling in the air. I shot up from Imani’s hold and followed after them, grabbing her.
I couldn’t control myself.
“She’s the only other person that Ana has,” I said, my voice barely above a whisper.
I wanted to hold on to Mom’s corpse for-fucking-ever. I didn’t want them to take her away or for her to leave. I’d been so hard on her lately, wanting her to clean up her act, but I didn’t want her fucking gone. I couldn’t have her fucking gone.
“Please,” I begged, holding on to her shoulders for as long as I could.
