Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 248926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1245(@200wpm)___ 996(@250wpm)___ 830(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 248926 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1245(@200wpm)___ 996(@250wpm)___ 830(@300wpm)
“Why does Lunita's talking unsettle you?”
“Could we not call her that?”
“Why not?”
“It scares me.”
“Why?”
“I’ve heard the name before.”
I leaned in closer. “Where? Her mother or—”
“Naw, man. This week, from a voodoo woman.”
“What?”
“The woman told me to protect Emily and Lunita.”
“So, then there probably are only two and not more.”
“Man, did you hear what I said? A voodoo woman said the name Lunita.”
“What else did she say?”
“I don't want to talk about it.”
“Maxwell, we must.”
He shook his head. “The water is too low.”
I pressed the button for the stopper. “We need to fill in the empty spaces so everything will make sense.”
“This shit won't make sense.”
“It could if—”
“Kazimir, you just stepped into this. X, Daryl, and I have been cleaning up her shit for a long fucking time.”
I set the cup down. “Tell me more.”
“After our parents died, the State took us. Barely preteens, we didn’t understand what was going on. She was in one foster home. I was in another. X was working on getting us to him, but the State was taking their sweet ass time. Tons of paperwork. Plus, he had to prove that he was good enough to take care of us.”
“Where was Daryl?”
“Same foster home as Em.” Maxwell's fingers shook as he rubbed the liquid in her hair. “One night, Em climbed into my bedroom window and didn't wake me up. She just lay beside me. In the middle of the night, I woke up to her naked and covered in blood.”
I stiffened. “What happened to her?”
“Em said that she went to sleep in her bed with pajamas on. Next thing she knew, she woke up by her foster mother's husband and he was dead.”
“She didn't remember what happened?”
“Not one detail.”
“What did you do?”
“We were fucking kids. I helped her wash up. We hid the blankets, climbed out of the window, and went to the sewers to hide.”
“What about your smiley faces?”
“What?”
“Did you go back and carve them on him—”
“Naw, man.”
“But you drew a smiley face that night?”
He returned to massaging the liquid into her hair. Reddish-purple suds appeared.
“Did you, Maxwell?”
“I spray painted smiley faces down in the sewer tunnel.”
“The time she took me down in a sewer tunnel, I saw a smiley face.”
“Fuck the smiley faces. That has nothing to do with anything.” He leaned forward, grabbed the faucet, and shut the water off.
I considered his story. “Maybe, it wasn't Emily that got into your bed. Perhaps, that was Lunita.”
His bottom lip quivered.
“Lunita sees you as her. . .caretaker. She kept asking where you were.”
Maxwell went stiff.
“She was pretty annoyed with me for asking her questions and giving her rules. She even mentioned that Emily may have needed her to come because you were gone.”
Maxwell's words grew shaky. “This is fucking my head up.”
“I understand.”
“She never talked. All these years. The few times I caught. . .Lunita in the act. . .she was always silent.” Maxwell shivered. “All she did was. . .cut and cut and cut and. . .”
I studied him.
“Then. . .she would pass out in the blood. That's it.”
“When was the first time you caught her in the act?”
“After that shit with the foster home parent, Em and I hid for a long time. No one knew where we were. Not even X or Daryl.”
“Was there an investigation about the dead man?”
“Some shit came up about him dealing drugs out the house. The police chalked it up to a drug deal gone bad.”
“Did they search for Emily?”
“New York? Motherfucker, do you know how many foster kids get lost in the system?”
I frowned.
“Too many.” Maxwell picked up the other cup, dipped it in the water, and poured it over her hair. “We lived on the street. By then, X had Daryl.”
“How did you know?”
“We would sneak and check.”
“Why not go to Xavier?”
“We were scared kids. We thought the cops might have been pretending or something. So. . .we just hung out in the library. Sometimes we hid in the bathroom, until they closed and slept there. Other times, it was in the sewer or. . .the alley. . .”
Maxwell went silent after that. All of his concentration returned to washing her hair. He rinsed and then added more of the liquid.
A new jazz song played, but I couldn’t care less about the notes. All I could do was wait for him to tell me more.
However, just like with Lunita, I had to take my time.
He's just as damaged as my mouse. How did I not see this before?
On the third time of pouring the liquid into her hair, Maxwell spoke, “Months later. . .I caught her in the act. . .right in the alley. Some bum must have strolled up on us while we slept and thought he could get a few feels from her. She was starting to develop but. . .there was no way this motherfucker thought she was a woman.”