Chapter 1 #3
I nodded, then lifted the gun and squeezed the trigger. She fell back against the bed, a center mass hole in her forehead with open eyes. I had never killed a woman, never planned on it. Not until the only woman I’d ever remotely cared about set me up.
I stared at her for a while, then left the room, sure to wipe the doorknob I’d twisted to enter with my sweater.
When I made it to my son’s room, he was still asleep. I wasted no time scooping him up. With my hood secure over my head, I carried him out of the door and straight to the Durango I had been driving.
Once I secured his sleeping body in the car, I closed the doors and locked them, going back toward the house.
Once inside, I went straight to the garage and grabbed the acetone she kept there.
I poured it throughout the entire first floor on my way out.
I tossed a lighter onto the chemical and closed the door.
When I got to the truck, I hopped in and looked in the back seat at my son. He was still asleep. I pulled away from the curb, not giving Adrian’s house a second look. It would be too burned to process once the fire department made it.
I didn’t bother turning the radio on because something about hearing his light snores calmed all of the chaos I was carrying. I needed that.
“Daddy.” His little voice let me know he’d woken up as soon as I pulled up to Lucky’s house. I knew this nigga had cameras everywhere, so I had to be strategic.
I turned around and looked at my mini. “What’s up, lil man?” He was my spitting image.
“Where have you been?”
I laughed. “Errwhere. Have you been good?”
“Yes. Where are we going?” He looked around.
I shook my head, hating this part. “I gotta handle some stuff. You’re about to spend some time with Cousin Lucky and Granny for a while.”
“You coming back?” he asked, his little voice filled with disappointment. It was tearing me up inside, but I had to do this.
“Don’t I always?”
He nodded. “But Mommy said you weren't there last time.”
I turned my body, looking at my baby boy with the weight of the world on my shoulders, and made a promise I never planned to break. “I’ma always come back for you, Junior. I’ma always be there.”
He seemed to think about my words for a minute before he accepted them. “Okay.”
I got out of the truck and went to the back seat to get him.
“Oh Daddy, you got my car,” he said happily and I laughed.
Once he was in my arms, I hugged him tight as fuck and kissed his forehead like I’d never see him again. Then I let him down and pointed toward my cousin’s door. “Go knock on Lucky’s door. I’ll see you later, aight?”
“Okay, Daddy, I love you.” He hugged my legs and took off running in the footie pajamas Adrian made sure he slept in because he was a sleepwalker.
I watched him knock on the door while I got in my truck, leaving the window down a little. Lucky opened the door and his eyes were immediately on Junior. He pulled him in quick, now looking around outside.
“How did you get here, Junior?” he asked.
“My daddy brought me.”
I pulled away from the curb knowing my son was safe. At this point, that was all that mattered.
Liora Pierce
After getting what my father needed, I didn’t go back to the shop. Exhaustion had me home trying to get some rest, but my inability to do so had me at Dela’s with a gun in my hand letting off shots.
Dela’s was open late most days. When it wasn’t, I went to the bar down the block that my uncle owned. It was on the pier a little ways from the medical district.
I emptied the clip into my target before I set the gun down.
I didn’t have to push the button to bring my target closer.
I knew I’d hit exactly where I was aiming.
The only time I didn’t was when I’d first gotten injured.
Even though I wasn’t supposed to be shooting a gun, I’d never been the type to sit back and feel better. I made myself better.
“You know I have Zolpidem in the back if you’re looking to get sleep or anything like that,” Adela said, making me look in her direction.
She and I had grown up together somewhat, but she was years older.
One could say she was somewhat of a mentor because we never lost touch, even when I enlisted as well.
We ultimately took different paths, but both landed back here.
While she had been medically discharged, I was in a limbo of my own choosing.
The facts were I didn’t know what I wanted outside of the life I had already built for myself.
I chuckled. “That would be a good offer if I was looking to go home and sleep, huh?”
She laughed. “You come in here three to four days out of the week? Don’t tell me you aren’t tired. Hell, I’m tired for you.”
“Ain’t tired. I get cat naps.” I laughed and she shook her head.
“That’s going to catch up to you, Li.”
I laughed. “Probably, but not yet. You came back here to tell me you’re closing or what?”
She shook her head. “Nah, I have some new toys and figures you may wanna see about since you seem up for doing inventory with me tonight.”
I cackled. “I absolutely love how you threw that in there. Of course, why not.”
She left me to clean up the stall I had taken. It didn’t take me long because this was lowkey my normal motion and how I moved.
I met her in the back a few minutes later, setting my gun case on her desk.
“You spend more time around here and you know this place as well as I do. Why won’t you let me hire you?” she asked, inspecting a case in front of her.
“Because I promised Lee I’d help him while I’m home. You know he needs me over there.”
“Yeah, right. Now tell me again why you’re still home?” She popped the casing.
I shrugged. “I’m still healing.” Among other things.
“You look healed to me. Much better than you looked when you first came in here trying to shoot something.”
I laughed.
“Shoot it to me straight, Liora. I’m not your father or either of your sisters. I know you, even though you make it damn near impossible for anybody to do so. Stubborn ass.”
I shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know. Not having trouble sleeping or any of that jazz.
I sleep perfectly fine and I damn sure don’t have any of those trauma disorders.
I’m good, but I feel like I’m missing something, like something in me is incomplete with all the work I’ve put in.
I could have forced their hand and pushed through the PT and readiness testing, but there’s something about sitting still after ten years of constant motion.
I feel like I’m missing something inside of me and going back ain’t gonna fill it. ”
“What if it’s not something missing, but an opening for something new? For the last decade of your life, you have served everything and everybody but yourself.”
I shrugged again. “Maybe, but what if the only place I fit is in the service?”
“You don’t remotely believe that. If you did, you wouldn’t be here. You would’ve already been halfway across the damn country doing God knows what in those private spaces.”
Adela and I talked for a while as we did the shop's inventory and I checked out the new pieces.
It was refreshing to talk to somebody who somewhat knew what I was going through, rather than my sisters.
While I loved them dearly, our heads were all in different places.
Lauryn was in the stage of life where she was starting a family and setting into her career, plus she had never dreamed of leaving Briar South nor had she ever tried.
Then there was Sissy, the baby. She was a twenty-four paramedic and mentally lived in Hollywood.
With all that being said, there was no spilling the things in my brain to them because they wouldn’t understand.
We were too different and our lives were in different directions.
Not only that, but they believed I had everything together.
When in all actuality, that was the furthest thing from the truth.
I hated that even my father believed I had it together most days because I really didn’t.
I was literally hanging by a thread, taking it day by day, even in the moments when I didn’t know what was next.
It was five in the morning when I finally made it into the house.
Too bad I wasn’t about to get any sleep because I needed to shower, wash my hair, and go to the shop.
Ever since I came back, my father seemed to always need me, like he liked having me around so much that he made himself incompetent.
I didn’t complain. Honestly, I’d missed him and my sisters when I was away.
I missed the family unit I had been raised in even though I was always gone.
It didn’t take me long to shower and wash my hair. Then I put my hair in six braids so it could dry and be out of my face. I stared at myself in the mirror, faced with the same question I carried daily. I knew who I was when I was in motion, but in moments like this, who was I?
I couldn’t be normal because I didn’t move normally nor did I think that way.
I convinced myself that I craved a life on the edge, but did I?
I had been home for months and that life on the edge craving had my soul searing.
I didn’t even know if it actually belonged to me.
Who was I when I wasn’t doing the agency’s bidding and avoiding all attachments?
Once I was finished inspecting myself, I dressed for the day. I left my apartment about thirty minutes later and headed to the pawn shop. When I got there, I parked directly out front and went in.
My father stood at the window being nosy, watching whatever was happening outside, his glasses all the way up on his face.
“You look like you still ain’t sleeping, Liora.” His attention was seemingly outside even though he badgered me.
“I’m sleeping some.”
“You wanna talk about it?” he asked, turning to face me with concerned eyes. So maybe he doesn’t think I have it all together.
“What’s there to talk about? I’m fine. I’m just adjusting.”