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Fourteen Years Before
Ruby slid the steel-gray handgun into her beach bag, so grateful, so sure this would be the solution she and her son desperately needed. For the first time in ages, she saw a way out. Day One of a better chapter in a bitter life.
She felt a tear snaking down her cheek, but she wiped it away before the boy could see. “Do you remember your name?”
He scrunched his eyes. “Of course I do. I’m four fingers old.”
“I mean your new name.”
“Aw, that.”
“Do you remember?”
“Yeah.”
“And where you’re from? And your mama’s new name? And why we’re traveling?”
“I wanna go home.”
“We can’t, son. Ain’t safe for us.”
“Are we safe now?”
Here? In a twenty-year-old Yugo GV that barely started, barely ran, and looked like hell? Were they safe when the most powerful person she had ever known hunted them? She didn’t know what the word safe meant any more. “You just stay close to your mama. Mama gonna take care of you.”
She felt him scoot a little closer. Good. I can take care of you. I can stop the bad from coming.
“Mama, are we almost there?”
“Almost, baby boy. Almost. We’re like Moses. Mostways to the Promised Land, standing outside the gate, hopin’ someone will let us in.”
“I’m hungry.”
“I am too, son, but we gotta keep movin’. There’s people lookin’ for us and we don’t want them to drag us back where we come from.”
She slowed for a stop sign. The car choked, shuddered, then died.
She swore under her breath, hoping the boy didn’t notice. She had no time for this. She turned the key in the ignition.
Nothing happened.
She tried it again. Barely even a churning sound. She let up, not wanting to flood the engine. Hard as it was, she made herself count to thirty before she tried again.
Nothing. This sorry excuse for a car wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
“Come on.” She tugged her boy’s arm and together they slid out on the passenger side.
“Mama, I need my box.”
“We’ll come back for it later.”
“It has all my stuff. My Power Rangers and my drawing book and—”
“We’ll come back for it later.” She pulled hard on his arm. “You be a big boy. You be the man Mama needs you to be, understand? We can’t be sittin’ still. We got to move.”
She felt her heart pounding inside her chest. Her pulse raced. She had never felt so afraid in her entire life. Please, dear Lord, just give me a chance. Just one chance.
She looked both ways down the street. Her car had stalled in the worst possible place, one of the dirtiest parts of St Petersburg. Mostly industrial, with a few taco stands and massage parlors and other places she had no intention of visiting. Southside Imports had a big ugly warehouse to the north. Gossips said that was a front for drug-runners. Best to stay away. She needed someplace they could hide till she found a ride out of town.
She couldn’t afford the Tradewinds or one of those rich white-people places in the tourist district. But there were some cheap motels nearby where they could hole up. They needed to get off the street and they needed to do it fast.
He was looking for her. And she knew what he would do if he found her.
“Come on.” She jerked the boy forward, not permitting any resistance.
They had barely walked a hundred feet when she heard tires squeal. A car barreled down the road, straight toward them.
Was that him? Or someone working for him? So soon?
Nowhere to hide, no way the driver could miss them. Maybe she shouldn’t have worn this bright yellow dress, but she had few choices. Since Carl died, she couldn’t afford to do much shopping. She knew that bastard wanted to get rid of her, to take her boy and send her somewhere she would never return from.
The car slowed as it approached...
Then turned left. She felt the air rush out of her lungs. It wasn’t him. Not him and not nobody working for him. They were safe. A little longer.
But that wouldn’t last long.
“Mama! You’re bleeding!”
She looked down, just above her waist on the right side. Sure enough, blood stained her dress from the inside out. Damn yellow. It didn’t hide anything. Looked like he’d cut her worse than she’d imagined. She told him she was taking the boy and leaving. He tried to stop her and they both got hurt. She didn’t mean to push him but he got in her way and—
He’d hated her before, but now—she didn’t even know a word for it. He would do anything to find her, stop her. Maybe kill her, just to tie up the loose ends.
Not that it mattered. He could cut off her head and she would keep moving forward. Her boy didn’t have no one, not one soul in the world he could trust, except her. She was gonna do what she should have done a long time ago.
“It’s nothing, darlin’. Just a cut. Don’t worry yourself none over it.”
In the distance, she spotted a Motel 6 sign. That would do. She could afford that, just, with the money she’d stolen from his wallet. Hole up a little while, then once the heat died down, get out of here. Leave Florida. Go someplace her boy could be the man he deserved to be, safe from the ugliness and pain she’d dealt with for so long. Just a few days and—
Another car careened around the corner behind them.
And she recognized it.
“It’s Derrick. Run, boy. Run.” She squeezed his hand and together the two raced down the asphalt. She knew she was holding the boy back. Her feet didn’t move the way they once did.
The car sped around them, then spun directly in front, blocking their path.
A second later, a wiry man covered in tattoos and wearing a torn tank top crawled out of the driver’s seat. “Where you goin’ in such a rush, Ruby?”
She stood her ground, took in a deep breath, and faked courage she did not feel. “Don’t you mess with me, Derrick. We’re leaving.”
“I know someone who doesn’t think that’s such a good idea. Especially not with the boy.”
“He’s my son. I’m the one that makes decisions ‘bout where he goes and what he does.”
“Well now, there’s a strong difference of opinion on that point.”
“We’re gonna walk down this street, Derrick. We’re gonna walk down this street and you ain’t gonna do nothin’ to stop us.”
“Not after what you did to the boss. That changed everything.” Derrick pulled a baseball bat out of the front seat of his car. “Don’t want to do this, Ruby. But I got no choice about it.”
“We all got a choice, Derrick. We decide who we are and who we wanna be. You’re making a choice right now. A bad one.”
He walked closer, swaggering and swinging the bat. “You two get in my car peaceful-like and we won’t have any problems. You know you can’t get away with this. Make it easy on yourself.”
The boy stepped forward. “You stay away from my mama!”
Derrick grinned. “What have we got here? A little hero?”
Ruby laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “He’s got more courage than you ever thought about having.”
“Courage can be a dangerous thing.” Derrick stepped closer, staring into her eyes. “Do you want your boy hurt? Hurt bad?”
“You wouldn’t do that.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes.” Before she knew what had happened, he brought his hand around and hit her hard across the face, knocking her to her knees.
She steadied herself, rubbing the side of her cheek.
The boy ran forward, screaming. Derrick knocked him to the ground with a single swat.
“You’re just making this unpleasant, Ruby. You’re both gonna end up banged up and bleeding. And you’re still goin’ back with me. Just banged up and bleeding.”
“Maybe not.” There was only one thing she could do. And if she hesitated, he might talk her out of it.
She reached into her bag and pulled out the gun.
Derrick held up his hands. “Whoa. Hold on there. Where’d you get that, Ruby?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret later.”
“I won’t. Should’ve done this months ago.” She pulled the trigger.
Derrick looked stunned, but he did not fall.
She shot him again.
Derrick crumpled to the pavement.
She put the gun back in the beach bag and did her best to remain calm. She looked every which way but didn’t see anyone. Maybe no one saw or heard. Maybe she was lucky just this once. But someone would find the body. She had to disappear before the cops arrived.
The boy looked stunned, frozen. She took his hand. “We need to get off the street.”
A few minutes later she was at the registration desk for the Motel 6. The clerk gave her a funny scowl when she offered him cash, but he took it.
“Just you and the boy?”
“Just us.”
The man was obviously suspicious, but he didn’t say anything. He slid the key across the counter with two dingy brown towels.
Two minutes later, they were in their room. Ruby sat on the edge of the bed. All at once, tears sprung from her eyes. It was like a waterfall, pent up for so long, then finally released all at once. Her whole body shook. She had been through so much. And there still was so much left to do.
“It’s okay, Mama. It’s okay.” The boy wrapped his arms around her ample frame. “We made it. We’re safe now.”
She didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. Her throat was choked and dry. But she knew they weren’t safe. She had bought them a little time, but as soon as he heard about Derrick, he would send someone else after them. Or the police would find them.
They would never make it out of town. She knew that now. Never.
She heard a rustling sound outside on the sidewalk.
There was only one way she could save her boy now.
She reached for her bag and slowly withdrew the gun.
“Mama, what are you doing?”
She raised the gun, her hand trembling. “What I have to do.”
“No, Mama!”
Tears streamed from her eyes. “I don’t wanna do it. Don’t you see that? But I have to. We’ve run out of choices.”
“You said everyone has a choice.”
She nodded, wiped her nose. “I just got the one now, boy. So I’m taking it.” She tried to concentrate, tried to stiffen her arm.
“Mama, don’t point that thing at me.”
“Don’t you see? It’s the only way. The only way left.”
“Mama!” The boy was crying and shaking, terrified.
“Goodbye, son.”
“Mama, no!”
The room was paralyzed by the crash of thunder.