Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 94630 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 473(@200wpm)___ 379(@250wpm)___ 315(@300wpm)
“Mama’ll be home soon.” The tremble in his voice made him sound like a little boy, but he couldn’t help it.
“Your mama does what I say.” Mac spread his thick lips wide over crooked teeth the color of margarine, his smile like an alligator’s. “You will, too.”
Mac moved faster than a man that big should. He was at the refrigerator before Cam could draw his next shaky breath. Cam didn’t have time to think, only respond. He jabbed the butter knife into the thick wall of fat around Mac’s waist. The knife wasn’t sharp, but it did a little damage. Mac paused, patting his shirt where a small bud of blood blossomed through his white T-shirt.
“You little shit!” Mac looked from the blood on his fingers to the knife Cam still clutched. “I was gonna go easy on you, but not now.”
Cam took off toward the door. The apartment had always seemed no bigger than a matchbox, but that door seemed a hundred feet away right now. His hand was on the knob when Mac’s fist pounded into his temple. The room flashed and strobed like the lights at the skating rink, and the pain in his head made him slump to the ground. Mac grabbed him by the collar and dragged him back into the kitchen.
“You gon’ get this now.” One of Mac’s meaty hands pressed Cam’s neck into the rough wood of the rickety kitchen table. The other was at his belt. Cam heard the jangle of the buckle loosening. He strained against that heavy hand, panic making him twitch and squirm like the snails they salted on the playground. Mac slammed Cam’s forehead into the table, and the world went black for a moment. That black felt so good, but it didn’t last long enough. He woke up to pain in that tiny hole he’d only ever used for one thing. So much dirty pain. He screamed for his mama, but she didn’t come. The neighbors didn’t come. He whimpered and he begged, but there was no letting up. Mac laughed and grunted behind him, and Cam just knew that the pain would soon split him in two, but it didn’t. No one busted through the door to save the day like on the cartoons. The bad guy won.
Mac liked little boys. Now Cam understood what the older boys meant, and it was too late.
Cam fled the nightmare, jackknifing in his bed. Terror chased the blood through his veins. He ran shaky hands through his hair, damp and tangled from the hell between his sheets. He patted his arms and chest, hoping the feel of his own strength, of the defined muscle would reassure him. He wasn’t some snot-nosed little kid who couldn’t defend himself against the neighborhood monster. He was a man. He was grown, but fear still wound up his legs and weakened his knees. There was only one thing that ever evened the ragged breath in his chest and slowed his heartbeat.
He reached under his bed and felt nothing but empty space. He fumbled to untangle himself from the sweat-drenched sheets, kneeling by the bed and running his hand over the hardwood floor until he knocked against the cold, hard comfort his hands always frantically sought beneath the bed.
Aaaahh.
His breathing slowed, going from gasps to a steadied stream of air slipping past his lips. Relief slowly oozed through the tightness in his chest, loosening his body cell by cell until he was solvent. Liquid and loose, the only thing solid was the cold, sleek metal at rest in his hand.
Chapter Seven
Jo glanced at the time displayed in the corner of the iPad in its docking station. Only a few tiny stacks of paper dared to clutter her glass-topped desk, with pictures of her family sprinkled in between. Images of Daddy, Aunt Kris, Walsh and Kerris, and now the beautiful babies, Brooklin and Harlim, filled the frames. The girls had about another month before they could come home, but Walsh, Meredith, and Mama Jess kept the pictures coming from the hospital. Jo made a note to ask her assistant Shaundra to clear her schedule so she could go back. She had made three brief visits since Kerris delivered a month ago, but it still didn’t feel like enough. Thank God Mama Jess was staying up there to help Kerris for as long as she needed. Kerris had reunited with her former foster mother while she’d been pregnant with Amalie, and Mama Jess helped Kerris through the hard times after the baby died. And now she was there for Kerris again.
Maybe she should add pictures of Mama Jess and Meredith. The two women had come to feel like family. She’d made one exception for the family-only rule, but she could make another. Jo’s eyes drifted to her one exception. The picture of Cam at the river one summer. The Walsh Foundation T-shirt strained across his strong chest while he hoisted two strings of fish he had caught. The wide, white smile against his tan would dazzle a susceptible female, but Jo no longer considered herself susceptible. She turned the photo facedown, tired of submitting herself to the torture of that smile.