Chapter Fifteen
Himora Clarke
“You think this is it?” Trevor asked as we drove down the broken crumbling road.
The houses were separated by long stretches of dried field grass with powerlines twisting about every few yards.
Old, abandoned cars were parked on the side when Trevor ducked his head from the left to the right, looking at each home.
“This shit is country as fuck…I thought Georgia was bad, but Mississippi might take the cake. Shiaat.”
He draped his arm out the window as he tapped the side of his door while driving.
The windows were rolled down as my orange hair blew back against my face.
After everything that has happened with Cynthia Norwood and her mother Poette, things were finally starting to take shape.
Ms. Davis was no longer speaking or refusing to speak.
Ms. Norwood finally opened up about the contacts and others like herself in the area, including her older sister, Raven Holmes who she’s only spoken to on the phone a handful of times.
Raven wanted nothing to do with her mother, very much the same as Trevor.
She lived a quiet life with her children in the rural part of Mississippi and kept her distance from anything involving the First Family.
“I haven’t seen one regular human since we’ve entered this town.
” Trevor dragged his hand down his face before leaning his arm out the window again.
“You noticed that? Not a single human. I can even smell the blood in the air.” He stuck his nose out the window with a loud dramatic sniff before shaking his head. “It just smells like flesh out here.”
“Hunting grounds.”
Trevor shook his head in disgust, as if he wasn’t the very thing he was smelling in the air.
The truck slowed when we came across an abandoned railroad track covered in weeds and tall grass, and as we crossed over it, I could see the small white house in the distance.
It sat back, away from the main road with a few cars parked in the grass, and a small white shed in the back.
“I think this is it,” Trevor said as he slowed the rented truck down.
The road became rockier as the dirt soon turned into gravel.
I sat up and adjusted my frames as we crept slowly up towards the mailbox and looked out my window at the home.
A porch, screen door that was detached from the main, a bunch of shoes gathered on the side, and a small brown cat laid out in the heat to bathe in the sun.
Looking down at the address Ms. Norwood gave me, I gave myself a firm nod as Trevor slowly turned into the driveway.
He didn’t show any signs of being nervous about meeting his twin sister, not especially after familiarizing himself with his youngest sister Cynthia, but I still planned on doing all the talking.
It was better that way, so we don’t waste any time.
“This place looks like hell on earth.” Trevor slammed the door shut with his eyes squeezing tight against the bright sun. He looked up at the sky before irritably looking back at me. “You’re not hot in that fucking turtleneck, Himora?”
“No.”
I stepped out, tugged at the collar of the black turtleneck, adjusted my glasses and tucked my hair behind my ears to expose my physical fae trait.
It was better to show that side than for most to find out my true nature.
The creaking noise of the door went off as I watched a little boy run out and rush down the wooden steps with denim shorts, bare chest, and feet.
He took one look at us, eyes widened before hurrying back into the house.
“MAMA?!” He shouted as the door slammed shut behind him. I looked back at Trevor realizing he was tucking his gun behind the waist of his black slacks.
“Is that absolutely necessary?" I asked.
Trevor cut me one look that usually meant there was nothing to discuss.
A rare moment in someone who usually felt the need to talk during the quietest of times.
The screen door flapped open, slapping against the house as a heavy-set woman stepped out with her hand on her hip and a red bonnet on her head.
She wore a floral print top with shorts, capri jeans and house slippers flattened from the wear.
She glowered at us with suspicion just as another woman who looked around the same age as her, stepped outside.
They both looked like the official guards of the home, but it was merely women protecting their children that peeked from behind and between their legs.
“You better speak before I do,” Trevor warned under his breath.
“This is private property!” One of the women called out. “Who y'all is?!”
“We are looking for Raven Holmes,” I said. Neither of their faces gave it away but I could see their demeanor in their bodies shift ever so slightly at the mention of the name.
“Who is WE?!”
“Do she live here or not?!” Trevor barked back annoyed. The heat was starting to get to him.
“Who wanna know?!” One of them asked while the other stepped forward.
“Looky here…I’ma say it like this and then we can go wherever you wanna go with it,” she warned while stepping down. “We don’t owe nobody shit. We don’t know where nobody is, and you betta get on before you end up missing like the rest of em. This ain’t the house you wanna get caught up at…”
“We are looking for the daughter of Dr. Marvin T. Holmes,” I said, hoping the name would trigger a different response. Neither of the women budged but I could hear the restlessness in the house. Somebody was listening.
“We don’t know who that is…Like I said…yall better get on before you can’t leave–––”
“Before we can’t what?” Trevor let out.
“Dr. Marvin T. Holmes, the founder of the Underground and Drew Collins University,” I said before taking another step towards the house.
Not out of being reckless but for the simple fact that I know Trevor would not let me have a single hair out of place, let alone have me in a position where he wasn’t able to protect me.
I could move freely knowing he was behind me at all times.
“We are looking for his daughter Raven Holmes. We just spoke with her sister Cynthia Norwood, and this is her twin brother, Adrias Holmes,” pointing towards Trevor who silently snarled like a canine.
Suddenly, I could hear a small voice trying to move the two women out the way before a little girl, no older than 10, stepped out in a proper black dress with a white collar around the neck and white cuffs on the sleeves.
Her snow-white hair was parted into pigtails with black knockers tied on the end.
She had a small black purse crossing over her body and draped down to her hip, white lace socks and pink house slippers when she appeared before the two women.
Her complexion showed she’d been in the sun, but she might have been an even light brown turned deep that was darkened by the rays.
Her eyes locked in on Trevor like a dog as she stared.
“Mama, go back in the damn house,” one of the women muttered. The little girl waved them off like an old woman before daintily stepping down.
“Adrias is my brother who I heard died years ago.” The girl said with suspicion as she peered her eyes at Trevor.
So she was Raven Holmes…in the body of a child with grown women for children?
Curious.
“Do you know your father, Dr. Marvin T. Holmes?” I asked. She whipped her head to look at me with the childlike attitude of a pre-teen.
“What about him? I know I got a sister back in Georgia somewhere. What about it?”
“Are you aware of the situation concerning him and his granddaughter? Your niece?”
“What niece?” She asked with a roll of her neck before looking back at the two women on the porch. “I got enough going on with their school bus load of chirren running around. I don’t know shit about no niece–––”
“Mama, please,” one of the ladies said with a groan. Raven suddenly turned around with her hand on her small hip to chastise the woman.
“You keep running around here having all these damn kids with these different men! I’m tired! Am I not allowed to be tired?!”
“Hold up,” Trevor let out with a chuckle. “Hold up…You…You’re a child–––”
Raven whipped around with seething red eyes glaring at Trevor, triggered.
“I am not!” She stated with a stomp of her foot in the slipper. “I was perfectly fine with aging. I finally came to terms with it until one day, I woke up from a nap in this body! The same body that was torn and abused repeatedly and I can’t get back!”
I pushed my glasses up against my nose the moment the idea came to mind.
“Do you recall when that was exactly?”
“Yeah…the day the damn sun turned into the moon last year! I haven’t been able to shift back and believe me…I’ve tried everything. You know how hard it is to feed as a little girl? I can’t hunt like I want because nobody takes me seriously–––”
“Mama, they don’t wanna hear–––”
“You hush it!” Raven let out. She held her hand out towards her two grown daughters to silence them without so much as looking back. She threw that same hand on her hip and stared at Trevor once more. “You’re not my brother. I would remember––––”
Trevor suddenly charged forward. The two daughters screamed out for her, ready to attack but instead, he rolled his shoulders back with a snap of his neck as thick strands of white curls fell from his scalp, covering most of his face.
His body thickened with muscles and height as he knelt down to her level and stared directly at her.
Raven stepped back, startled but I could see the blood and tears forming in the corner of her eyes.
She instantly recognized him. Trevor has been so good at hiding his true form, no one knew he hid Adrias within his skin.
You couldn’t detect it, not even smell that he was First Family.