He lets out a huge breath and a curse. “Yo, Nena, your life’s complicated. Your fam’s fucking intense.”
If only Keigel knew how complicated and intense life can really be.
Because here’s the thing about the complexities of life, its cruelties and injustices, which permeate everything good and pure.
I can write a book about all of it.
71
AFTER
In her lifetime, Nena had experienced terrible things. She’d been left to die. She’d suffered immeasurable loss. She’d killed without remorse. She’d lost a large piece of humanity, the part that made her soft and caring and able to have relationships beyond her immediate family. She wondered more times than not what she’d done to deserve her lot in life. She thought maybe she’d offended God somehow, made him abandon her to the likes of Paul and Monsieur.
But she had found the Knights. She’d been given a new mother, a father, and a sister. Nena had recently found something she’d never imagined having, love and a daughter in Georgia. Now, she stood to lose them all to the same man again.
Would God do that to her again? Surely there were consequences for all the killing she’d done. Maybe tonight was her reckoning.
Or maybe he had grace, she thought as she raced her bike past Keigel’s home, ignoring his single wave from where he sat in his chair on the porch.
Maybe there would be a reprieve, she thought, maneuvering her roaring machine into her driveway and cutting the engine. She barely gave her property a once-over. It was dark, with no lights, normal. She hurried through the front door, not bothering to check the premises or draw her sidearm.
She walked quickly; there wasn’t time to spare. She had one singular thought: to get Georgia.
She went to the hall. Everything was as she’d left it. The guest room door was open, and she ignored it, heading to her office-slash-command-center, where she conducted business if she wasn’t in her backyard. She quickly keyed in the access code to the door.
Five steps took her to the closet. She pushed the clothes aside and stood before the large chest of drawers that from the outside looked like any typical piece of bedroom furniture. If someone pulled open a drawer, they’d see underwear and bras. But beneath the top drawer was a tiny hidden panel where she needed to hold her thumb on the biometrics scanner long enough for it to register her pulse and confirm her prints. She ignored the larger arsenal hidden within the closet, focusing on the bureau.
The level of urgency and anxiety she felt made her hands feel cold, and she balled them into fists, rubbing the fingers against each other to warm them, before placing her left thumb on the sensor.
The door popped open softly, revealing her assortment of weaponry—assault rifles, knives, garroting wire, handguns, explosive charges. From the bottom of the compartment, she popped out a box of ammunition.
She grabbed a black duffel from the corner of the closet, began stuffing it with what she might need. She didn’t want to weigh herself down. But she wanted to make sure she was prepared for whatever Paul had waiting for her.
She heard a creak behind her and spun around with her gun locked and loaded.
Her muzzle came face to face with Keigel, his arms raised in the air. “What the fuck, Nena! Don’t shoot. It’s me.”
It took a second for her to blink Echo away and bring Nena back.
She scowled at him. “What are you doing here? You’re lucky I look before I shoot.”
Arms still raised, Keigel asked, “Can I?”
She slipped her gun in her back holster, her silent permission for him to lower his hands. She resumed the business at hand. “Next time knock before entering.”
“One of the homies told me you left your door wide open. And you blew past like hounds were on your ass. I came to check on you ’cause it ain’t like you.”
He watched her load up her bag and zip it. He noticed her arsenal for the first time. “You preparing for war?”
She turned to him. “Not your fight, Keigel.”
He leaned against the doorframe, crossing his arms on his chest. “You been good to me since I’ve known you. We like family. Your fight is mine.”
“This isn’t lemon-pepper wings and gang turf wars, Keigel.”
He looked at her. “I know it,” he said somberly.
“I can’t risk another important person being put in jeopardy.”
He broke out in a grin. “So I’m important to you?” He chuckled. “I always knew it.” He did a little dance, which any other time Nena would have found amusing.