“Joyce? You had these thugs kidnap me? Untie me!!”
“If I were you, I’d shut the fuck up. The only time I want to hear your voice is to answer my wife’s questions. I promise if you make any noise outside of that, it will be met with more pain than you can imagine, and this is your only warning,” I growl out and clamp her lips together. I turn to Joyce and tell her, “Ask your questions, Hairkoa.”
“What did I do to you for you to never have loved me?” Joy asks, and rage begins to bubble inside of me from the hurt I hear in her voice.
“I never wanted to be a mother, Joyce, but you wouldn’t die. I went to a back-alley doctor to have an abortion and he assured me he had gotten rid of the baby, but once my stomach began growing, I knew he lied to me, or your stupid ass didn’t die in the abortion. I have tried several times to get rid of you and you just keep coming back, like a roach.”
Joyce clears her throat, and I can tell she is holding back tears. “Who is my father?”
“Make a guess, because your guess would be as good as mine,” Jessica says, laughing. “Your father could literally be anybody. I wasn’t too picky then or now. All I wanted was to enjoy my life. I’m here for a good time, not a long time, and having you put a dampener on that. But on the bright side, you did help me get money. I told a number of men you were their daughter, and they would pay the bills and give me money for you. Once they figured out you weren’t their daughter, they’d be pissed and leave, and I would move onto the next one. Once you got older and began to fill out, I knew I had to get rid of you and college was the perfect way to do it. I wasn’t going to have competition in my own house.”
Joyce is holding my hand and I feel her involuntarily squeeze my hand at her mother’s words and I want to snatch her tongue out of her mouth. I have always had a problem killing a woman if it was not self-defense, but I am going to make an exception with this woman. I tap the gun I have in my right hand
“What about Mr. Oliver? I can remember when we lived with him when I was a little girl. He came one day and found you in the bed with another man and put you out. He begged you to let him keep me, but you wouldn’t let him. He came around for years asking to see me until you moved us to Monroe, Louisiana.”
“Are you listening, dummy? I told every man I ever fucked you were their child, and it could’ve been true for all I know, but all you were to me was a burden.”
“You really are useless; it’s women like you who shouldn’t have children. What about Ellis?” Joyce asks quietly putting all the pieces together.
“What about him?”
“You sold me to him?
“I owed him money and he caught my old man selling dope out of his house. I didn’t really have a choice. It was either that or my man would go to jail, and I would be homeless. I offered him a cut of what we were bringing in and the use of any one of my holes, but he said that wasn’t enough, so I offered you to him. In the end, he got all three, a cut from the dope proceeded my body whenever and however he wanted, and you. That is until you ran off on him. I told him to give you some time to get the whorish nature out of your system. If you were anything like me, I knew you needed time to be a whore. But we didn’t expect you to create that business or get married. Ellis tried to get to you before you could get married but once you moved into that big ass house, we couldn’t get near you. There was always one of those big ass men with you. I came to your wedding to try to force you to come with me, but their mammy wouldn’t let me in.”
The whole time she is talking, Ellis is quiet. He woke up shortly after Jessica did but remained quiet until she started spilling his beans, and he began yelling for her to shut up until Jaasiel punched him in the mouth.
“I have always wanted you to be a mother to me, to have a real mother. I questioned myself repeatedly about what was wrong with me that you didn’t love me and now I know it wasn’t me. It was you. You have no love inside you; your heart is black if there is one inside you at all. I hate that I wasted even a minute wanting your love, but I don’t hate you. I pity you. I am not sure how you are going to die and once I walk out of here, I won’t give you a second thought.”
The door opening gets both our attention and Joyce and I turn to see who has entered, and it’s True. I love my sister. Atlas told her I have a weakness when it comes to hurting women, but True has no such issues and offered to step in. Joyce turns to me, gives me a kiss, and stands to walk out.
“I really should have drowned you when you were a baby. You have brought me nothing but grief since the day I found out I was pregnant with you. You’re a bitch and–”
Her mother never gets the rest of her sentence out, because Joyce took the gun out of my hand, aimed it at her mother and pulled the trigger, effectively killing her with a bullet to the head. She hands me the gun, kisses me, and says, “I’ll see you when you get home.” I look to True who understands immediately and walks with Joyce out of the garage to take her home. She will wait with her until I get there. Ellis begins to realize that his fate is the same as Joyce’s mother and begins sobbing. Joyce didn’t bother asking him any questions at all. But he and I have a little unfinished business to take care of.
I go back to the case, fill another syringe with the contents from the second vial, walk over to Ellis and inject him with it. This one doesn’t take as long to take effect and before long he is screaming.
“The drug I gave you heightens your sensations to the point of pain. I can only imagine that the rope binding your hands and the clothes on your back is excruciating. You put my wife through hell the entire time she was married to you; you hit her, raped her and demeaned her every chance you got. What I do to you in this garage is only a fraction of what you deserve, but I will not let you take any more time out of our lives than you already have.”
Atlas hands me a knife and I walk over to Ellis and cut the rope that is suspending him from the meat hook, and he falls to the floor screaming in pain. I unbind his hands, take the knife and cut the back of his hand at the wrist and begin peeling the skin away. “Everything you used to hurt Joyce, I will make sure hurts you before I take your life.” He stopped screaming after I took the flesh from his other hand, but I made sure he stayed alive. I repeat with his penis, and I split his tongue down the middle before I eventually take his life. It has been a long time before I let this side of me come out and I hope it is the last time I have to, but for my family, for the woman I love I would become death itself to protect her. We place both bodies in the furnace created for this purpose. Tomorrow we will grind any bones that’s left and do a deep clean of all the surfaces and move on like this never happened.
Solo
The medical company is coming to pick up all the medical equipment I no longer need. I donated it to a VA hospital that works with vets that have mobility conditions. We are at home as one of the hospital staff comes to inventory the equipment.
“What are you doing?” I ask the man as he scans numbers on the backs of the equipment.
“Scanning in the barcode. All hospital equipment has them. It tells you when it was made, where, and where all it’s been used. With people selling organs and things on the black market, we are to make sure to keep detailed records of the equipment we use,” the guy explains and goes back to scanning. I practically run out of the room yelling Jabarri’s name.
“I do not know why we didn’t think of it. He had a shit ton of medical equipment on that houseboat, and he had to get it from somewhere.”
“I have already tried to track the medical equipment, but no one in Mississippi sold all the equipment you told me was there.”
“He was able to get in and out of the hospital I was in without raising any red flags. That lets me know it wasn’t his first time!”
“OK?” Jabarri says, looking confused.
“What if he stole the equipment from different hospitals and clinics all over the city and surrounding areas, not taking much from any one hospital to mask his movements. But if you can cross reference the equipment I saw with the thief, you can find out who he is!”
“That will just tell me where he got the stuff from.”
“Yeah, but you told me when he disabled the recording ability of the cameras, he had to reset the entire system. If he did that every time he stole something, it would have brought too much attention to him, so he had to be recorded when he stole the stuff.”
“You’re a genius! I will get right on it!”
For the first time since the accident, I feel like we are getting somewhere. I won’t be able to feel secure until the guy who took me is caught. I know now that Jabarri has a tangible thread to pull he’ll follow it until he gets to the end of it. The guy leaves with the equipment and my room finally looks like my room again. I head to my chemistry lab and get lost in there for a few hours, giving Joyce some time to work in peace from me, but I am also working on a special concoction. After I finish what I am working on, I head up to my fourth floor to take a swim. I still can’t deep dive, but just getting in the pool relaxes me. I lay on my back and let the water do the rest. I don’t know how much time went by when I feel Joyce’s hands on me. This is one of my favorite things to share with her. She knew how to swim, but I have shown her how to really swim, hold her breath, float and survive in the water. We stay in the pool until she tells me she looks like a California raisin, and we head down for dinner.