Chapter 31 - Steel
I felt the bile rising in my stomach as I stared down at Donna’s cold, lifeless body in that freezer. She lay there like this was her new casket, perfectly placed and positioned on a bed of blankets with a pillow beneath her head.
“Fuck, Donna,” I whispered, gripping the freezer’s lid.
All these months I’d been visiting her grave, I was visiting an empty tomb. She was here all along. How the fuck did Ms. Anita manage to get her from the cemetery to her house undetected? Had someone helped her? Had my son seen his mother in here?
I felt a hand on my shoulder as Neha came to my side.
“Oh my God,” she whispered. “Oh my God!”
“I gotta find my son,” I said, closing the freezer. “I don’t know what is going through that woman’s mind, but she’s clearly unstable.”
“I’ll call the police—”
“No. Call my father and tell him to get here now.”
“Kerrion—”
“Neha. Call. My. Dad.”
She stared at me for a moment before retrieving her phone from her pocket.
I left the shed and went back into the house.
My feet carried me down the hallway where the bedrooms were.
The first place I checked was KJ’s room.
Immediately, I noticed the open closet. Several empty hangers dangled from the rack.
There was an open box of wipes and diapers on the floor, along with a plastic bag from a dollar store.
Seeing that made me sprint from the room and down the hall to Ms. Anita’s room.
Shoving the door open, I went to her closet to find several empty hangers for her too.
Several things looked to be missing from her vanity and bathroom as well.
I couldn’t believe that she had taken my fucking son and left.
All week long, shit seemed normal. She was laughing and smiling with him anytime I came over or called her.
She seemed to be in good spirits.
I thought back to the heavy feeling I felt when I walked out of the house after leaving KJ with her for the week. I chopped it up to the weight of everything that transpired over the last almost year. I thought back to her comment . . . “Grandma’s gonna take good care of you, precious.”
I knew now that it was a warning.
I should have paid attention to it.
I should have seen this shit coming.
“Fuck!” I yelled, swiping everything off the wall in front of me.
Rage filled me, and anything I could reach went crashing to the floor. The dresser. The mirror. The TV. I went to her bed and flipped that shit over too. My fist flew into her pictures on the wall before it went through the wall itself.
“Son of a fucking bitch!”
Neha appeared in the doorway, eyes wide.
My father appeared behind her. He must have been close by because there was no way he’d gotten here that damn fast. He moved her out of the way and came to me.
For a moment, all I could do was stare at him with tears in my eyes.
The moment he wrapped his arms around me, my knees buckled, and I fell to the floor, bawling my fucking eyes out.
“She took him, Pop! She took my fucking son!”
I’d never felt pain like this. She told me I never wanted to feel this type of pain, and I had no idea that she would be the one to inflict it upon me. The range of emotions I felt in this moment was crippling.
I was angry. Enraged. Hurt. Afraid. Sick to my fucking stomach.
“I gotta find my son,” I said, trying to get out of my father’s grip. “I gotta find him, Pop!”
“You gotta calm down first, Kerrion.”
“I can’t fucking calm down! She’s got my baby! He can’t defend himself, and you want me to calm the fuck down!”
He gripped me tighter. “You don’t think I’m mad as fuck right now? You don’t think I want her fucking head for this shit?”
“That’s my son! Mine!”
“And you’re mine!”
“Kerrion, . . . baby, please,” Neha begged. “Just breathe.”
I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t think logically.
My son was gone, and I had no fucking clue where he was. All I knew was his grandmother clearly lost her muthafucking mind and took him. Was he okay? Was he crying? Was he afraid? Would she hurt him? If she fucking hurt him, she was going to meet her daughter, and that was on my fucking mama.
I sat on the floor, crying my eyes out. It wasn’t long before my brothers, Quaid, and Jaeda were walking into the room. They looked around at the disarray then at me.
“Shit,” Smoke mumbled, coming over to me.
He knelt and wrapped his arms around me too. Clearly, this family was no stranger to someone being kidnapped. It had just never been a child. This changed everything.
Smoke and my father helped me up from the floor. Maceo and Deuce came to hug me as well.
“We’re gonna find him, man,” Deuce said, palming the back of my head. “I promise you that.”
“I’m gonna pull the cameras from the neighbors,” Quaid said from the door. “See if they caught anything.”
“I’m gonna see if she left a paper trail,” Jaeda said, sniffling. She broke into tears as she stood there, staring at me. “Oh, God. I can’t believe this.”
She turned to Quaid, burying her face in his chest. He wrapped a protective arm around her and kissed her temple.
“I can look into all of this, love,” he offered.
She shook her head. “No. That’s my nephew. I have to do something. I can handle it.”
“The moment it becomes too much, you let me know.”
“I’ve got it, Quaid.” She wiped her tears as her pretty face hardened. “Elder or not, grieving or not, I’m whupping her old ass when we find her. That’s on my fucking mama.”
I didn’t say anything as I walked out of the room and down the hall to KJ’s room.
Standing in the middle of the space, I could practically see my baby sleeping peacefully in the crib.
I could hear his laughter and see his gummy little smile.
He was usually always so happy. I could only imagine how scared and confused he might be, even if he didn’t know what was going on.
I felt myself going weak in the knees again. I dropped, pressing my head against the floor. Audible cries left my body, and as hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop them. I smelled Neha as she entered the room. She joined me on the floor and pulled me into her arms.
“I got you,” she whispered, rocking me. “I got you. We’re gonna get him back.”
I was quiet as she hummed to me and stroked my back. When she started praying, that just tore me to shreds.
“Father God, I come to you as humble as I can, asking that you watch over KJ. Wrap your arms around him and protect him from all forms of evil. May no harm come to that precious little boy. Father, I ask that you cover Kerrion and our family. Touch their hearts and minds. Keep them covered as they work to find KJ and bring him home . . .”
She paused for a moment in the prayer and rocking me. She took a deep breath before continuing.
“Father, I ask that you touch Ms. Anita. I know that this is an act of grief. We may not understand her thoughts at the moment but pray that she is of sound mind not to cause harm to this baby. I pray that you guide her to take care of him until he’s found and safely home.
These and all blessings I ask in your son Jesus’ name, Amen. ”
She kissed my temple and went back to rocking me.
I hoped her prayers reached Heaven because the way I was feeling, I was about to raise fucking hell.