I knew before I entered the trailer that home was somewhere I didn’t want to be that night.
I also had a feeling the extra deal with Beck this week hadn’t been my mom’s idea.
I threw the door open and stormed in, my eyes already narrowed and my gaze darting around the cramped space, though it probably looked like I was simply searching for my mom.
Two men I’d never seen before were sitting in the living area. I was sure one was new to the game from the look of him. The other I’d bet had been in on it as long as Momma had. And he was looking at me like he wanted to throw me on the coke-lined table and have his way with me. The first looked like he was going down in three . . . two . . . one.
A second passed.
Another.
His eyes rolled back and he hit the floor face first.
Hm. My timing’s off tonight.
I took in a deep breath and let my stare slowly move to the man still looking at me, mentally undressing me as he scraped a finger through one of the last remaining lines and rubbed it across his gums.
I had a pretty good hunch I’d been forced to pay for that cocaine.
Not like it was the first time Momma shared her drugs with the random friends she brought home. Not like it would be the last.
“My, my, my, my, my . . . what do we have here? A party for little ol’ me?” I let my mouth stretch into a wicked grin and relaxed against the wall as I listened for anything else in the trailer. Anyone else.
Nothing.
“If I would’ve known, I wouldn’t have kept you waiting.”
The man grabbed his crotch and leaned back on the dirty couch. “Then come over here and say you’re sorry, baby.”
I dropped my purse on the counter beside me as I pushed from the wall and walked slowly toward the man, hips swaying exaggeratedly as I did. My eyes never once left his, but I knew without turning my head that unless she was passed out in one of the bedrooms, my mom wasn’t in this trailer.
I ran my fingers through my hair and down my body just as slowly as I moved, twisting my lips sensually as I neared him. When his hazy gaze landed on my chest, I continued trailing my hands over my waist and hips to pause on what I’d been aiming for.
Slipping out the knife, I opened it soundlessly and straddled the man’s legs. “What was that word you wanted me to say again, baby?”
He reached for my waist and smiled, showing mostly rotted teeth. “I don’t plan on you being able to talk at all, bitch.”
“Ah, ah, ah,” I said as I pressed the tip of the knife to his throat. “Name calling isn’t nice. Do you call all your whores such dirty words? Oh wait, I’m not yours.” I let out a long, wild laugh and pressed the knife harder against his skin, drawing a bead of blood. My laugh trailed off into a giggle, my lips falling into a pout. “Aw, poor guy. Did someone lose his appetite?” Another peal of laughter, and his bloodshot eyes widened.
“You crazy? Back up off me, bitch.”
I leaned away to press my free hand against my chest in mock admiration. “You noticed? It normally takes men until our third date for them to notice the crazy. Or maybe it’s the fourth. Or was it the fourth minute? Who can keep track anymore?” I leaned back in and said, “If I wasn’t worried about catching five different diseases, I’d slit your throat and drink your blood while you watched, unable to move because you were drowning in it. Now where’s my mom and why are you using her drugs, baby?”
He struggled between me and the couch, but didn’t attempt to move me off him. “You’re a fucking psycho!”
“We already established that,” I said calmly. “Where’s my mom?”
“Get the fuck off me.”
“Oh. Would you look at that . . . I have a knife.” I pressed it harder into his neck and drew a slow line down it. “Oh, oh, oh, does that hurt?” I sucked in a breath through my teeth and leaned close to whisper in his ear. “Now I’m going to ask one more time. If you don’t answer, the next line will be through your dick, and we’ll see who’s the bitch then. Okay, baby?”
“She went out,” he yelled.
I bit down on my lip and grinned.
My mom was terrified of the dark. There was no way in hell she’d be caught outside this trailer at night alive.
“Hm. Now I do believe that was the wrong answer. I also believe that was the last chance I’d given you. But, you know, who’s keeping track? Oh, wait . . . me.”
“You’ve got the devil in you. You’re crazy,” he gritted out, the muscles in his neck straining from the way he was trying to disappear deeper into the couch. Away from the blade.
I laughed as I moved slowly off his legs, never letting up on the pressure against his neck. I swayed back and forth once I was standing, twisting the knife as I did.
“Nah, baby. I may be crazy, but if either of us has the devil inside, that’d be you. Now, I do believe I made you a promise if you couldn’t tell me where my mom—” I twisted, half a second from throwing the knife at whoever had just stepped through the trailer door and barely managing to keep it from slipping through my fingers when my mom came stumbling in.
Sunglasses on her face. Still in the same ratty outfit she’d been wearing the last three days.
“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.”
“Momma, no one is here. No one is going to ruin us.”
“Fight back.” She choked on a sob. “Fight back and don’t let him ruin you, Jess.”
I released one of her wrists long enough to knock off her sunglasses, then grabbed her wrist again.
“Look at me,” I yelled, then lowered my voice again. “We’re okay. No one is here. It’s okay.” When she stopped screaming and began nodding uncontrollably, I said, “Come on, Momma. It’s nighttime. It’s time for you to wash your hands really, really well, and then go to bed.”
She cocked her head slowly. “It’s night?”
“Yeah, Momma.”
Another nod. “It came so fast tonight, Jess. I had no warning that the darkness was coming.”
I held back a sigh and blinked rapidly against the burning in my eyes. “I know. Come on, let’s go clean you up.”