Page 7 of Broken Cracks
“All of my family are dead. I have no one, Damon.No family.This man wouldn’t let me go,” I sob as Psych’s large hand settles on mine, encouraging me to keep talking as my head is down. “His wife found a way to allow me to go home and pay my respects. A couple of soldiers took me back to my village, my people. My cousin Pablo helped me. I had only a small amount of time and he found me a coyote to cross over with.”
The story makes me crumble to pieces, and the pain is unlike any other pain I’ve felt in my life. Psych wraps his arms around me and the sound of his heart calms me down. His silent power reminds me of a deep ocean, and I want to stay in his arms forever. His embrace feels like my father’s; I finally feel safe again.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I’m glad you’re here now. With me.” He strokes the strands of my hair, sending warm tingles down my spine.
“I’m not safe, Miguel has eyes everywhere and I’m going to have to watch my back for the rest of my life. If I have to go it alone, I don’t think I will last long. He will find me and kill me.” The tingles are replaced with cold shivers.
"Damn, you really think he'd take your life?" Psych asks with deep furrows in his forehead.
"I know he would. I lived with the man; I know how he works. There's already a hit out on me, I'm sure. And if Miguel ever sees me himself, the first thing he'll do is put a bullet in my head."
"Well, that's what you think, but you can't be sure. The guy has feelings for you,” Psych challenges.
"No, I'm sure,” I tell him firmly. I’d never forget Miguel’s beady eyes looking into mine that night. “He told me so himself. He'd come into my room, drunk and high in the middle of the night. He would wake me from my sleep and force himself on me. Anytime I tried to fight it, he'd smack me around to get me to submit and without fail, every time he finished, he would say ‘Si huyes, te meteré una bala en la cabeza.’”
"What's that mean?" Psych enquired as he tightened his hold on me.
"If you try to run, I will put a bullet in your head." I shiver at the dark memories of Miguel’s stank breath heaving and grunting on me in the shadows of the night. I gulp down the terror and lean into Psych’s heart, seeking safety.
"Fuck!" He takes a deep breath and rubs his bald head several times. A nasty snarl forms on his face. "Well, you don't have to worry about protection, I got you, and that means the Dark Angels got you. Fuck that shit."
"You promise?" I look up into his icy blue depths, hoping and praying that the interesting character of the man holding me is true. His steady heartbeat tells me that he is, but I wonder if it’s real.
"Of course, I promise. That piece of shit won’t get anywhere near you."
"Thank you."
I want to leave and be with my family, and there seems no reason to carry on in this life, but somehow this vagabond biker is giving me a reason to feel alive again. To want to live and move forward to my destiny—whatever that is.
Chapter Five
Psych
Hearing Isabella’s story sets me into the danger zone and once the switch is triggered, no one can bring me back from it. Not only on her behalf, but to other people. Her story is one that forces me into the dark dungeon of a killer. I can hear the thump of the hidden beast that I’ve contained in an underground cage lurking within, roaring to escape. It’s been craving its next kill and Miguel’s head is on the chopping block. I want him gone from planet Earth and Izzy’s clammy fingers clutching onto me and tapping into her terror has got me ready to die for her. Him forcing his mutt-ugly self onto her makes me want to take my hunting knife, and skin him alive. At the same time as I hold her in the cradle of my arms, I repeat to myself.
Don’t get too close. Don’t get too close. I kill every woman I ever know.
I shift back in a time warp, calling out to my mother, holding my teddy bear outside her room.
“Mama! Where are you? Mama?” Every time I call, I’m waiting, and there’s no answer. I open the creaking bedroom door and when I look at the peeled-back sheets, there’s nothing but a cold, empty bed. I hug my bear, who I named Hugo, to my chest, and I snuggle up on the same side that my mother used to lay on. I started to cry because I knew then.
I found my father on the couch, staring into the abyss with a beer in his hand and a foreign look on his face that I didn’t recognize.
“Dad, where is Mama?”
“Boy, your mother’s not here anymore. She’s gone,” he said to me in a sharp, clipped tone. “She couldn’t handle you kids. She up and left.” He burped loudly and waved his hand like a flag to the door.
I bawled my eyes out instantly, hugging my bear even tighter.
“Noo! She can’t be gone. Why would Mama leave us?”I wailed.“You made her go Daddy! Why’d you make her go? Bring her back, bring her back here!”As much as I stomped and cried until my whole face became blotchy, my father remained in his numbed-out state, rubbing his over-bloated belly.
“I’m sorry boy, that’s the way life is. We don’t get what we want all the time. Better get used to it.”He crushed his beer can with one hand, flinging it against the wall, its contents dripping down the cheap plywood wall. He picked up another can, flicking the remote control to another channel. He laughed so hard his stomach shook like jello at the screen, as if I hadn’t lost the single most important figure in my life as a young boy.
Today, I have no feeling. Like father, like son. The memory would flash on and off like stoplights back then, and now it’s been replaced by a thick comfortable fog of I-don’t-give-a-shit. At least I had my sister with me; that’s what little hope I held onto back then, but I should have realized my father’s pattern.
Two days after my mother departed, we were all scrambling to work out how to live without her. My sister cried all the time. All day and all night, while I just hugged Hugo and started throwing balls at a wall in outward anger.“Mommy, Mommy, where is she? Damon, where is Mommy?”
“I don’t know!”I yelled at her and if I could take a time machine back in time, I would have hugged her instead and forced her to run away from me. If I had, she would still be alive today.