A Commitment to Love, Book 3 (35 page)

Jasmine

“
W
hat
took you so long?” Troy met me in the kitchen.

Where’s Benny? He must be near. How am I going to tell them about the phone call, without saying things that Benny or his guards will listen to and pick up?

“Was it long?” I wiped the sweat off of my forehead. “It felt like a few minutes.

We did our best to speak in code, since we were in the east wing.

“You look well rested.” Vivian chuckled.

“What the hell are you trying to say?” I turned away and scanned the space for Benny.

“You look like you just had sex.” Vivian tugged at the bottom of my shirt. Some of the material had gotten stuck in between my pant’s zipper. I looked like I’d just had sex and hurried to put on my clothes.

“It seems your
exploration of the house
involved a whole lot of voyaging on the dark side,” she said.

So you think I got freaky on the phone call, fine. I slipped. Sue me.

“Oh be quiet.” I set the flashlight on the table. “Is Benny back yet?”

“I thought we were going to keep the sexy stuff to a minimum this week?” Vivian asked.

I said through clenched teeth, “I did keep it to a minimum.”

“It doesn’t look that way,” Troy insisted.

“There’s no looking anyway. I checked out the abandoned parts of the house and then returned.”

I made the call. Leave me alone.

Troy muttered, “Freak call.”

I pretended not to hear him. “Where’s Benny?”

Troy folded his big arms across his chest. “He’s not here yet.”

“What the fuck? Why did you signal me?” I asked.

“Signal?” Troy nodded to the ceiling as if to suggest that Big Brother could be watching. “I’m not sure what you mean, dear sister. However, if there was a way to do what you said, I would’ve done that because we don’t know how much longer you had or if there’s some sort of tracking system.” Troy’s volume decreased. “And we figured we should end your freak call.”

I mumbled, “Oh shut up.”

“So tell us about your
walk
around the house.” Vivian stepped between us. “Anything interesting?”

“The walk through the house was good. It reminded me of my conversations with Chase.” I hoped that they understood the meaning between the lines. “Yes, that walk was just like our talks.”

“So very sexual with no depth?” Vivian asked.

My mouth parted. “We talk about deep things.”

“It’s like you two are in heat for a continuous span of time. Is there ever a moment when you both just sit and talk, and it doesn’t deal with sex?”

I scanned my mind. “We’ve discussed the Beatles and politics.”

“I bet you two were butt naked at the time.” Vivian picked up the flashlight and placed it under the sink.

“Fine. We talk about food,” I offered.

“Again, probably butt naked or minutes later, butt naked.”

Troy raised his hand like a good little student. “I would rather we not talk about Chase or Jazz being butt naked.”

I raised my hand, too. “I second that vote.”

He dropped his hand. “So … your
walk
.”

“Yes, my walk was interesting.” I headed to my room.

They followed behind.

“I didn’t see a lot. Most of the house is damaged, but what reminded me of Chase and our old conversations was the vermin.” I opened the door and flicked the light on.

Vivian’s beautiful murals glowed around us. Chase’s version of Hades’s pale face brightened in front of my Persephone-brown one. Bright red pomegranate juice dripped from my image’s lips. The liquid sparkled, almost rippling a little bit right in front of my eyes.

Or was it that magic flowed through me due to Chase’s deep voice inside of my ear earlier?

Troy touched the wall, placing the tip of his finger right on the pomegranate. “Why are they looking all sexy at each other and eating fruit?”

“It’s Hades and Persephone.” Vivian got on my bed and lay on her stomach.

“Jasmine is in love with the God of Death.” Troy bobbed his head in agreement. “That sounds depressing.”

“Are you going to listen to my story about rats or not?”

“Go ahead.” Vivian stepped inside. “I’m listening.”

“So, yeah. There were a whole lot of rats all over the house. And all of the rats are making sounds and talking to each other.”

Mom and Sherman are definitely involved. This shit is nastier than we thought.

“Right.” Troy shrugged. “That’s nothing new. We knew there were rats all around us. Big mother rats stealing people’s food.”

“Well, now it’s confirmed.” I hopped on the bed.

Troy followed and targeted me with a hard gaze. “Sherman was real good at catching rats. I wish he was here. You know what, Jazz, when’s the last time you talked to him?”

Sorry, Troy. Sherman was in another plane, and even if he wasn’t, Chase wouldn’t have given him the phone.

I frowned. “I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to Sherman in a
long, long time.
”

“Wow!” Troy’s voice raised higher than before. “That absolutely sucks. You haven’t been able to talk to Sherman in a long time? That really, really sucks.”

“Yes, I agree,” I groaned. “I thought about all of that on my walk.”

“A lot of good a
long walk
can do, if in the end, you don’t keep up with your brother,” Troy grumbled.

“Maybe we should just focus on the rats,” Vivian suggested.

Troy muttered, “Yeah, let’s talk about the freaky ass rats.”

“None of these rats are freaky,” I argued.

“Well, next time you won’t be taking these walks by yourself, just in case the rats get too freaky.”

Vivian whispered, “Now, I’m lost.”

Troy glared at me.

“Can I get a hug, Bro?” I extended one arm and put my free hand in my pocket.

He raised his eyebrows, yet leaned in anyway. “Sure, Sis.”

I embraced him with the one arm and slipped the phone to him with the next. Thankfully, he figured it out, swiped it from me with no problem, and snuck it in his pocket. “So anything else that was interesting as you strolled around this house? Anything else about rats?”

“Well, the rats are definitely in London.”

Troy’s annoyed expression faltered.

“I ended up seeing a big rat, too.” I picked up my pillow and hugged it. “I think she was a mother, but I’m not sure.”

Vivian ran her fingers through her blonde hair. “Mother rats are the worst.”

“In my mind, I pretended that I called an exterminator to get rid of all of the rats. It was the craziest daydream ever. It was just like putting the phone to my hand and saying the address.”

I basically told Chase that we were on Bishop’s Avenue.

A nervous laugh left Troy. “What a stupid, stupid daydream. First of all, you don’t even know the address.”

“True. I just know that we’re in an abandoned house on Bishop’s Avenue. That’s not much information.”

“That’s enough,” Vivian whispered. “An exterminator would find us based on that. The only question is, if the exterminator can actually get rid of the problem.”

Troy frowned. “And will it bring more rat problems? Will the exterminator bring more rats to us?”

“Or cats and dogs,” Vivian added.

Troy and I stared at her in confusion.

“What? Does that not make sense?” She checked both of our blank expressions.

I tapped her hand. “I didn’t see any cats or dogs, Vivian.”

“If we had a cat, then all the rats would be gone.”

“Unless, the cat was not big enough to eat all of the rats.”

“What?” Troy asked.

“Then you would need a family of cats.”

Now it was my turn to be confused. “A family of cats?”

“You two are really bad at this.” He rubbed that bald head of his. “Rats or cats. Things are going to be happening soon, since our proposal for your
walk
clearly didn’t go as planned. You seemed to go off in other places versus right where I fucking told you to walk.”

“Sometimes things take you off the path.”

“Like cats,” Vivian insisted.

“Let it go, Vivian.”

Troy mumbled in a low voice, “Glad you got your freak on.”

“I did not,” I insisted.

“Well,” Troy rose from the bed, “I hope you did because shit is about to get real.”

“Yeah.” Vivian jumped up. “And then the elephants will be trumpeting and the lions will roar—”

“Just stop.” I shook my head. “You’ve completely lost it all.”

“Is this not the
Lion King
?” Vivian asked.

“No! What the hell?” I covered my head with the pillow. “There were no rats in the
Lion King
. How would you even go to that movie?”

“There had to be rats in the
Lion King
. It was Africa.”

“Why did it have to be?” Troy asked. “Because it’s Africa? And where there’s black people, there are rats?”

“What?” Vivian blushed. “No. Why are you making this a race thing? Of course there’s rats in Africa. It’s a huge continent. Rats are everywhere. I’m just saying—”

“There were no rats in the
Lion King
.” I pointed to the door. “And you both can get out. I’ve told you about my walk, and now we’re done.”

“That was a great walk. I hope you burned a lot of calories.” Troy headed for the door.

“Go blow yourself, Troy.”

“Such an invigorating little stroll through the house.”

I held two fingers up. “Blow yourself twice.”

“Wasn’t Mufasa’s main helper a rat? The one who kept watching over his kid,” Vivian asked.

“He was a toucan, and now you’re no longer allowed to watch Disney movies with me.”

Vivian placed both of her hands over the space above her heart. “I’ve lost that right?”

Troy sucked his teeth. “I would like to inform you two that you both suck at Mission Impossible.”

“Mission Impossible?” Vivian scrunched her face in confusion. “Now I’m lost.”

I kept my finger targeting the door. “Well, the trail to clarity is in your room.”

Troy placed his hand on the door knob. “We need to talk tomorrow, Jazz. Maybe you should get some much needed rest and then take a shower.”

“I’m not dirty!”

“Hey, I only suggested a shower due to your long walk.” He tossed me an innocent expression. “And Viv, I too am wondering if you would like to walk with me.”

“Hmmm. I do love to walk.” She winked at him.

I waved my hands. “Absolutely no walking for either of you!”

Laughing, they both left.

The door slammed closed. I didn’t have the energy to take off my clothes or fold myself into my blanket. Anxiety had rummaged through my insides all day. If Benny wasn’t stabbing knives into plates or trapping us to him some more, then Troy had me on edge with his constant need to plan Benny’s death and his insistent reminder that Chase could die. My dear love, a man whose hard head could crack steel and break that metal into tiny pieces.

Chase is in London.

My body woke up again. Every cell missed him. My flesh tingled at the thought of his hands on my body. How selfish I’d become that even though he could be putting himself in danger, I craved his arms so much and didn’t care.

That orgasm had exhausted me. If Chase was right about tomorrow, I would have to get my rest.

Wait. Stop thinking about his dick, and figure out what to do with Benny. And what about Mom? I can’t think about her now. How will we take care of Benny? Do we ask Sherman to kill him? Wouldn’t that be wrong? What kind of sister would I be? Troy’s convinced Sherman loves to murder people. That’s not exactly a vote to get Sherman to do it. But is there any other way? Will Benny ever listen to reason?

My thoughts collided.

Darkness drowned the space.

Sleep found me fast.

I sank into a dark dream world. The ground glowed shiny, black. Its cold surface smoothed against my back as Chase thrust his hard cock into me. A blazing fire served as the sky. Clouds of gray dotted the burning landscape and promised no rain. Stark, white beats flew around us, more witnesses to our sex than the vultures of my world that circled the dead.

But were we dead?

It wasn’t necessarily my love. He wasn’t Chase. He was Hades, and I Persephone. Shadows dressed his body. Those black wisps of smoke danced around his pale, muscular chest. Silver sweat dripped down the ripples of muscle on his stomach.

Chase tore away at my gown, ripping off the flower petals that formed the garment. Tearing away at the thin branches that sewed the flowers together. Yanking off the polished stones and gems that my mother, Demeter, had sewn around the collar and wrists. The gown fell into bits of nature, now looking more like the things left over from a forest’s storm.