Power (Romantic Suspense) (46 page)

But it was true. We were put here to love each other. To embrace life and show the universe the many different ways our existence could happen. We were here to inspire, fuck, breed, pray, and spread hope, not tear down. Not destroy. Not murder and maim. Not kill our own brothers.

That was why the nightmares came. Was I ever happy? Had I ever truly lived?

When humans walked dark paths, bad things came. When we spilled blood and brutalized. When we took away the breaths from other people’s children. Bullied and filled the neighborhoods with drugs and broken homes. When we went against the light, evil sprouted. Wicked energy brewed and lurked within hidden places. Unexplained things occurred where they shouldn’t. Forests reshaped into spooky woods. Monsters bred and ate human flesh. Houses became haunted.

When we hated and killed, bad things bred and rose around us.

I didn’t want to add anymore death and evil to the world.

All of my life, I’d been fighting for the wrong side. In the darkness, I’d raced with the wolves and tore flesh with my fangs. I devoured the sheep. I helped the sky bleed rain and the air reek of death. I’d delivered chills up many spines and shivers within their hearts. Within the blackness, I served as an alpha of blood-thirsty wolves that would eat their own kind.

I was done with that. I would go toward the light.

Vinese had said, “Look for the light in the darkness and run fast toward that light, like you’re about to die. Never look over your shoulder at the darkness. Any light you see boy, you run for it.”

I was a wolf and a sweet sheep saved me by stumbling within my darkness and not realizing that I’d been a wolf the whole time. She sang her song of humor in my ears and my claws retracted. She placed her soft body against mine and rustled my fur. Her natural scent surrounded me, and my fangs withdrew. My appetite for violence left, while a new hunger grew for something more. Something I hadn’t known I could touch. Something warm and heart-pounding. Something only she could give me.

She showed me love.

I’m going to end this with Butterfly and go back to my lovely little sheep. I hope to God I never eat her. Just nibble and fucking savor the taste.

My cock grew hard. Every part of me wanted to turn around and go back to Mary Jane’s arms. Had she been pissed when I left? There could’ve been no other way. If another minute passed with me in her presence, I would’ve stayed there. I had to leave then. Aristotle’s house had shaken me down to my bones. Never did I think evil could manifest to so much more.

I’d remained blind to the reality around me. I pretended the Ebony Forest was nothing more than odd angles in moon lighting. I acted like Vinese and her people weren’t that harmful and not out of this world. I’d even made excuses for Aristotle’s house, pretending like it was more bad luck than cursed.

And I was blind to Butterfly for sure. She was her own special type of evil and I pretended that I could tame her wicked ways by giving her power away from me. That was stupid.

Thirty minutes passed as I rode through the storm, slowing down to make out the few hotel signs still on.

Was Mercury Hotel on this block or further up? Wait. There it is. Right there.

I made a left and turned into the hotel’s parking lot. Only one car was parked out front. A pink jaguar. Aristotle had been right. Butterfly lived in the past. That was her jaguar.

The Volvo parked several spots down from me.

I put away my weapons, placing the guns under the seat and sticking my knife in the glove compartment. The only thing I kept on me was a tiny razor blade—no more than two inches long. I folded paper around it and stuck it under my left foot.

Back in the day, before we could get a gun, my friends and I used other things to gain power. The older guys taught us the way. I remembered Aristotle’s brother, Tap, towering over Crusher, Rasheed, Domingo, and me and passing out razor blades to us.

“Here,” Tap had said. “Keep it in your mouth, under your tongue. If you get in a little confrontation, spit it out into your hand, slice, slice, and you’re done. Best thing about a good blade is that when you cut a motherfucker, he doesn’t even know he’s cut. He’s still fighting as he loses blood.”

Domingo stood up and pranced around like a peacock with his blade. “Yo, I’m about to cut tons of motherfuckers in their necks. Trust me on that.”

Tap knocked Domingo in the head and pushed him back to the bench. “Yo, sit your little ass down. This shit is mad dangerous.” He slipped the blade into his mouth, leaned over, and held his lips apart so we could see that the razor had disappeared. Seconds later, he spit the blade out in a blur and slashed the air fast in front of us. “Boom. That motherfucker’s cut. You get him in the gut slash anything else that’s near you and he’s down.”

“Rasheed isn’t interested.” Rasheed gave his razor blade back to Tap.

Tap shrugged. “The shit is dangerous. The mouth and tongue are very vascular—”

“Vasa what?” Crusher asked.

“Yo, basically if you cut those nerves on your tongue, you might be fucked. So this is how you do it.” Tap loved having an audience. Out of all of the older guys, he was the coolest. In some way, I think he figured he was a role model to us boys. He made it his mission once a week to search us out, smoke a joint with us, and tell us something he believed was important about street life. “So go ahead and grab your blade.”

We did as he said.

“Turn the blades so it’s flat and make sure the non-razor sides face to the side. Got it?” Tap checked us out and we nodded. When you put it in your mouth. Go slow, Domingo. Real slow, man. Okay. So when you put it in your mouth, hold those non-razor sides between your teeth. The sharp sides are going to be facing forward and back.”

Something about the metal being in my mouth made my stomach lurch a little. But I had respect for Tap and carried the terrifying task out with the rest of my friends.

Tap continued, “Keep your tongue under the razor, but your teeth hinged tight on the non-sharp sides. I’ve heard of guys putting it under their tongue. Stupid. That’s the best way to not have a tongue.”

We all tried it. Domingo seemed the most comfortable with his blade. Everyone else looked happy to take the things out of their mouths.

All covered in saliva, I studied my blade not sure if I liked the idea of something sharp sitting in my mouth. “Tap, where did you get this idea from?”

“Everyone do this shit in prison, man. But I was doing this shit back in the day, man. Fucking elementary school just waiting to cut one of those teachers if they kept running their mouths about me.”

“Thanks, Tap.” I put the razor in my wallet that Dad always made me carry around. It had been his little attempt to teach me how to be a man. Little did he know, I’d already decided I was a man that would soon be a king where the streets served as my castle.

I never used that razor blade, but I kept it with me all the time. Tap died a week later. Some West side gang member had shot his pregnant girlfriend by accident. The guy had been aiming for her brother, but shot her instead. Furious and hysterical, Tap and his friends drove over there and shot up the guy’s house—full of him and his family. Those events had started the war between the East and West which ended months later by my hands.

Tonight, I would use the same razor blade that Tap had given me.

I, too, can remain in the past, Butterfly. You will deal with the old me this evening. Let’s hope your death won’t take too long.

With the car off, I studied Mercury Hotel through the sheets of rain. It was still a broken down property. I’d spent a lot of time here, bringing tons of females back in the middle of the night. I’d sneak out of the house, grab my motorcycle that I hid behind Rasheed’s Dad’s house, call up any chick that was available, pick up some food, cop some weed and spend the rest of the night with her. Every girl treated those nights like the most romantic evenings ever. I saw them as a great way to spend a couple of hours.

Yet, the place was the pits. Cecil B Jenkins the third had owned the place and required everyone to refer to him by his full name. He’d inherited it from his parents, after their deaths. He never renovated, too busy shooting his veins with junk. Still he kept the place open and took money from anybody who was willing to stay in the piece of shit overnight. His customers tended to be hookers, drug addicts, and gang members. Cecil B Jenkins the third never required identification or gave two fucks about what you would do in his rooms. He only wanted his money in cash and the key brought back in the morning.

It was a two level hell hole of cesspool beginnings. All the hallways had a multi-colored décor like neither of his parents could decide on what wall paper or carpeting to use, so they used them all. It was a collage of peeling samples. Some walls had a flower print. Others patterns of stripes. Another displayed something garish and bright. Most boasted solid colors. The carpet mirrored the same sort of disorder with ragged edges to highlight the hotel’s disarray. Water always dripped from the ceiling, whether it rained or not. I suspected a pipe had burst and wondered if the whole foundation would crumble or be flooded one day.

A urine odor always mingled with the smoke from every drug one could imagine. Mercury Hotel patrons did it all in those rooms. Something burned and seared every minute on that property, filling the air in a depressing way.

The rooms were no better. I’d never found one that I enjoyed. I just never fucked with room 207. That place had been a setting for many of my nightmares. I’d never enjoyed myself in there. When I turned off the lights, bugs came out. Things crept in the bed and under the sheets. Little feet skittered by. I always had the lights on and barely concentrated on whoever I’d invited. Once the mattress on my bed had bloodstains and holes in the center. I’d discovered it from one of the girls moaning so loudly and gripping the sheets hard, until she pulled them off. We’d fallen to the floor and when I rose, the center of the bed looked like a crime scene that had been covered up. Another time, I’d accidentally fallen asleep in the room. In the dream, ghosts stabbed my chest and drank the blood. I’d woken up screaming and ran out of there with no clothes on.

I never rented that room again.

Everyone knew by the end of the week. It was the only joke I allowed among my friends back in the day. As I rose in position with the streets, others began to avoid room 207 too as if that had been my claim to fame. Cecil would complain to me about it, but once I shut down the East and West gangs, Cecil kept his mouth shut.

Room 207 never saw action from anybody after that. Years later, Cecil died from an overdose and the place rotted on the end of the city.

It was pure poetry that as I walked toward this decrepit place and stared at the second floor, the seventh room had a light on.

207. Very funny, Butterfly.

Climbing the stairs, I raised my hands above me, sure that people watched me from the roofs of other run down hotels. Butterfly would be too smart to be here alone.

After I kill her, how am I getting back out? I should’ve worked that out, before I left. Fuck it. Everything will work out.

Chapter 32

Noah

A young actor was loved by two women, one with bad breath and the other with reeking armpits. The first woman said:
"Give me a kiss, master."

And the second:
"Give me a hug, master."

But he declared:
"Alas, what shall I do? I am torn betwixt two evils!”

–Philogelos (The Laughter Lover)

I
arrived at the second floor. Two big men stood outside of room 207 with their guns pointed at me. They were both white. I didn’t recognize either one. Butterfly had clearly sought someone’s help outside of Din City.

Who are you plotting with now and will this person be a problem for me?

I kept my hands in the air. “I just came to talk to Butterfly. I have no weapons. Check me, if you don’t believe me.”

They exchanged glances. The shortest one nodded and the tall one came over and patted me down longer than I appreciated. When he finished, he stepped away from me. “He’s clean.”

“I told you I was.” I smiled. “I’m trying to start a good friendship between us. One that’s rooted in trust.”

“Your reputation is all over the east coast, sir, but no one ever told me you were a funny guy.” The tall guy kept his gun out. “What other tricks do you have?”