AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Or...oh my fuck...did he rap?
Pretend to be the next Slim Shady. Corvus James,please stand up.
I giggled to myself, unconsciously stepping into the closet to touch the mic, stepping up to it like Corvus must.
I bit my lower lip, finger on the switch to turn it on, a dark chasm opening in my gut. My heart thudded in my ribcage, and I swallowed past the wave of emotion threatening to drag me under.
I couldn’t remember the last time I sang.
No. That wasn’t true. I could remember. There was only one person I ever sang in front of. My dad. The last time I sang was four days before he was murdered. He played his guitar, and I sang one of his favorite songs. When I was finished, he smiled at me and set the guitar aside.
That night, he did what he always did. He gave my chin a squeeze before getting ready to leave. He kicked on his work boots and pulled on his navy-blue plaid sweater. He pocketed the money meant to pay the rent and promised to be back soon. Further promising thatthis timehe would win enough money to get us out of ‘the hole.’
I didn’t fight him on it. I knew from experience that it was no use and he would only go anyway. No matter what I said or did.
He said something different that night, though. He told me that if anything ever happened to him, that I should leave and never come back.
I didn’t ask him why. I knew why. Even if he never told me himself.
You didn’t teach your daughter how to throw knives and run jobs because you hang with therightsort of people. Good people. You taught your daughter those things and told her to run because you hang with thewrongsort of people.
I learned my lesson with mom. It was her debt that’d almost gotten me killed that night on the tracks. That’s what thatfilthsaid.
Your junkie mom couldn’t pay, soyou’llpay for her.
I never did get the courage to ask her if she’d offered me up or if the slime ball of a man just decided to take what was owed in flesh instead of dollar bills.
She had her breakdown barely a week later and then she was gone. If I ever saw her again, I promised myself I would ask.
I hoped I never saw her again.
The mic felt cold against my fingers and when I slicked it on, the electronic hum of it filled the air, making the tiny hairs on my arms stand up.
Licking my lips, I shut the door, closing myself into the small soundproof box and cleared my throat. I belted a few notes; they were rough. Like I said, it’d been a while, but I’d never sung into a microphone before, and I liked how it made my voice sound. I went louder, testing the quality of the soundproofing, then stopped and opened the door quietly to listen for Corvus.
Nothing.
Huh. Not bad.
When I closed the door the second time, that same overwhelming feeling of grief took root in my stomach again. I caressed the mic in my palm and closed my eyes, taking a deep breath, remembering sitting with Dad on the ratty old rust orange sofa in our living room.
Remembering how he’d fallen into the seat next to me and dragged his guitar across his lap.
“Sing me a song, my girl,” he’d said, plucking a few strings to let me know which one he wanted.
I’d rolled my eyes like he was the most annoying human being to ever walk the earth, but that was the furthest thing from the truth. I loved to sing, and I loved when he asked me to sing for him. It was one of the few things we ever did together that didn’t involve sharp objects or criminal activity.
In the moments where I sang and he played his beat-up guitar, we were a normal family. A dad and his daughter, doing dad and daughter things.
My eyes burned as I began to hum the first few notes of his favorite song, but I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t sing that, not without him there to hear me. I would never sing that song again. The ache behind my breastbone waned as a more familiar emotion grew to replace it.
How could he leave me like that?
After everything he taught me, it washimwho didn’t know better.
I didn’t care what I promised him anymore. I left Lennox like he asked, but I would go back...at least for a single purpose: to find whoever killed him and make sure they knew the real meaning of pain before they died.
It didn’t matter that there was no evidence. There was always something. Whispers. People who knew. It was the Kings, it had to be. I just needed to figure out which one.
