Blackness Within (4 page)

I pull her in close and rock her body.

“I’m married,” she whispers gleefully.

“You’re married,” I mutter into her forehead before kissing her porcelain skin.

“I never wanted this.”

“I know.”

“I’m so fuckin’ happy I have it.”

“I know.”

She tips her head up and looks deeply into my eyes before asking, “Are you happy?”

“I loved you the moment I met you, Kid. A seventeen-year-old girl with the world by the balls. I found peace the day I found you. I’ve been happy every day since then. I’ve hurt when you hurt. Tortured when you were tortured. I was devastated when you were attacked the first day I met you. I was inspired to watch you fight your way out of the blackness that took you over. I laughed harder when you joked. I smiled broader when you smiled. I grew as you did. When you fell in love with Kellerman, I loved you even more. And when you were stolen from me, I perished. Then I died the day you were almost ripped from this world. When you came back, my life was bright again. But through all of that, I’ve always been happy because I’ve spent just a minute with you in my life. I’m happy Kid. I have you.”

“I love you, Sully,” she whispers with tears pooling in her eyes that she won’t shed, capped emotion in her throat.

“I love you.”

I crush her with my arms and hold her close before I push her away and twirl her three times. When I tug her back to me, there’s once again joy radiating in her face and I cherish the sight. I move with her until our time together comes to an end. She has a husband to attend to. Shannon Kellerman, my sister, the bright spot that lightens the blackness within me.

Kellerman sweeps his bride into his massive arms when she reaches him. He loves her with everything he has, just as he should. I didn’t lose a sister today. I gained a brother. A man I’m proud to call family.

“I’ve got dibs on the brunette,” Kav says, nodding toward the girl he wants at the bar. “And the strawberry blonde.”

“You should write this down so you don’t forget in a few whiskeys.”

He pulls his phone out of his suit jacket pocket and types away.

“Remind me to check my phone if I get too blitzed.”

“I’ve got my own list to keep track of,” I inform him.

“See you in the morning,” he replies through a cocky grin and then saunters away to capture his prey.

I peruse the room full of people, zeroing in on a chestnut-haired beauty in a short blue dress and decide she’s the one for tonight. She’s not blonde so she’s a good option. There’s only one blonde I want and I haven’t been able to get her for over a year and a half. That’s a long time to wait for a piece of ass. Natasha has stuck to me like glue, and no matter how hard I try to wash her off or fuck her out of my system, she’s still there.

I followed her home a few nights ago. I saw her at the hospital and something was off with her. She seemed sad, tired and in pain. I wanted to make all of that go away and not just with my dick. That’s not normal for me. At all. I’m chalking it up to temporary insanity from lack of getting into her pants. I only care about the women in my family. It’s not a hard rule or something, but I don’t form relationships with women long enough to give a shit about them. I find that easier in life.

So I’m going to take this woman in a blue dress up to my hotel room, fuck her brains out and hopefully I won’t find Natasha on my mind while I’m doing it. I need to forget her and move on. It’s never going to happen between us and if I don’t leave her alone, I’m going to end up with a restraining order. Luckily, I don’t spend a lot of time in the maternity unit so it’ll be easy to avoid her. It’s time to let the hypnotic blonde go. I’ll keep telling myself that until it finally happens.

Natasha

Present day

Early January

The end of three twelve hour shifts is the last time I want to hear from Darla Reynolds.

“Hey, Mom,” I huff into the phone as I fold into my silver Camry. I bought it used five years ago and I baby the damn thing like everything else that I’ve worked for. And I’ve worked for every single thing I have in life.

My mother tried to help, but she’s barely been able to make it throughout the years. She got pregnant in high school and promptly dropped out, leaving her with a newborn, single and no skills. She made ends meet working two jobs as long as I can remember. It was usually a combination of fast food work during the day and cleaning jobs at night. It was a hard way to grow up. Goodwill clothes, cold winters trying to save on heating bills, no air conditioning in the scorching Midwestern summers, sometimes days without food and weeks where I wouldn’t even see my mother. If it wasn’t for Blake, I’m not sure I’d be here today.

I’m three years younger than Blake, but he’s been my protector since the day I was born. We may be half siblings—call us that and I promise both of us will go off—but he’s everything to me. Blake’s a kind soul at the base of who he is. He protected me when no one else was around to do it. I wish that Blake was still around now. Drugs have turned him into a muddled shadow of who he once was and now I have to look out for him. That’s why my mom is calling me at the end of my shift.

“Tosh, you need to go to Blake’s,” my mother orders in her gritty smoker’s voice.

“I just got done with three twelves. I’m beat, Mom,” I protest weakly.

“Well, I just got done with an eighteen-hour day and I live in Cameron. I haven’t heard from your brother in two months. Are you really gonna make me drive a fuckin’ hour to find him?”

And there’s the guilt I’ve come to expect. I turn my car toward Midtown and roll my eyes at myself. I’m too easy. I should stand up to both of them and stop this crazy pattern we’re in. But I can’t. Blake is a drug addict and resembles something that I used to know and love. I know he’s still in there and someday he’ll come back to me. I wake up every morning believing today is the day. I’ve been doing that for nine years now. I would have been doing it longer, but I didn’t know things were bad back then.

Blake started out smoking pot when he was fourteen. All his friends did it and he was never one to be left out. The one time I tried to join in the seeming merriment, my brother beat Josh Harding to a pulp for handing me a joint. That’s my brother. Destroying himself and saving me.

“Just go home and get some sleep, Mom. I’m headed to Blake’s now. He’s probably passed out on some chick’s boobs.”

“Not everyone can be as perfect as you, Natasha,” she sneers in return. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. I’m tired and worried. You are perfect, Toshy and it’s harder for your brother than it is for you.”

I know she doesn’t mean to take this shit out on me, but I always seem to be on the end of her insults while Blake is on the end of her babying. I wonder if she didn’t hear from me for months if she would worry like she worries about Blake. I don’t think she would. At twenty-nine years old it doesn’t bother me anymore. This is my life.

“I’ll text you once I find him.”

“Thanks for doin’ this for me. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

We hang up and I crank the volume on some old school Linkin Park. I’m tired and my body hurts. We had a tough delivery tonight and I can feel it head to toe. The mother and the baby both survived and that’s all that matters at the end of the day.

I’ve been a labor and delivery nurse just shy of six years. Working my way through nursing school took over five years, but I did it. I waited tables, tended bar, sold shoes, worked in a hardware store, cleaned office buildings and any other thing I could find to make money. When I started school, Blake wasn’t into the drugs he’s on now and he helped me out a lot. He got me my first studio apartment. It was in Northeast, a pretty rough Kansas City neighborhood, but I felt safe enough.

Then about a year later, Blake started doing cocaine and when that got too expensive, he moved to crack. Things have gone progressively downhill from there. I see three options for my brother: rehab, jail or death. Jail and death will be the same for Blake. He doesn’t have enough self-worth to make it through the prison system. So I’m still hoping Blake will pull it together and make the right choice so I don’t have to identify his body in the morgue one morning when I wake up and realize my love isn’t enough to heal my beloved brother.

I find street parking in front of Blake’s rundown house. If I’m being honest, it’s a crack house. The hovel barely has a piece of siding intact. I can smell the stink of pot and the chemical odor of meth as I traverse the dilapidated stairs onto the porch. The front door is cracked open which is ridiculously dangerous on this street. I cover my face with my hand as I push into the house.

It’s worse than I’ve ever seen it and that’s saying something. There’s not a bare space on the floor. It’s filled with garbage, empty food containers, bottles, broken glass, cigarette butts, animal droppings, used syringes and that’s only what I can identify with the small amount of light streaming from a lantern sitting on an upturned milk carton.

Tears prick my eyes as I tiptoe through the space, trying to avoid the worst of what I see. As I approach the couch, I can see a woman’s body flopped precariously over a beanbag, face down. Her shoulders are moving with shallow breaths. She’s alive. Another man is passed out on the 1970s couch that used to be a swirly pattern of red, brown and orange but is now just brown with burn holes. I know he’s passed out because his snoring is shaking the rafters. I finally spot Blake.

I drop to my knees and search for a pulse. He’s pale, nonresponsive, dirty, hairy and laying in a pool of vomit on the filthy floor.

“Goddammit, Blake! You selfish motherfucker, don’t do this to me!” I wail as I smash my fingers into his carotid. I release a shaky breath when I find his pulse strong and even.

Lowering my butt to my heels balancing on my knees, I roll my brother to his side and begin to try to wake him when my world stops. I’m frozen in place and my heart is thundering in my chest. What the hell is that? I get my answer immediately as I hear another wail from a baby.

I leap to my feet and leave the junkies where I found them. I no longer move carefully across the floor, I trudge through the dumpster beneath my feet on a mission. Find the baby. I can tell by the cries it’s not a newborn. Not that it matters right now. I’m just absorbing information as I search.

I shove my way into the bathroom first.

Nothing.

I fight my way into a bedroom and shout as a giant rat runs across my feet. The baby has stopped crying making my search harder now. I sift through newspaper, Styrofoam, dirty needles, food, rat shit and I don’t know what else. The only light I have is a tiny flashlight on my key ring. There’s no baby in here.

I move into the hallway once again. There’s only one more room. Blake’s. The baby has to be in there. I struggle mightily to shove the door open as it resists everything on the floor. I’m careful in case the baby is up against the door. Once I have it open enough to slide my frame through, I do just that. I frantically flick my light over every surface until I see it. A tiny naked body on the floor. I thought I moved fast to get to Blake a few minutes ago. It’s nothing compared to my swift movements to this baby.

I immediately begin checking it over. There’s a pulse but it’s weak, the breathing is rapid and shallow. I scoop up the diaper-covered baby and move: through the putrid house, past the unconscious bodies, down the rickety stairs, across the uneven sidewalk and into my car. I place the baby on the passenger seat and I drive. I check the pulse almost the entire time until I meet my destination.

Home.

Natasha

I rush into my small two-bedroom bungalow in North Kansas City, cradling the baby in my arms.

“Zeus, get back,” I snap at my greatest companion in life. He immediately obeys my order and sits at the edge of the kitchen watching me intently.

I can check the baby more thoroughly now that I have supplies available to me. I grab my bag from under the kitchen sink and begin digging out everything I’ve got. I run the five steps it takes to enter my living room and snatch a throw blanket from the couch and cover my two-person dining table before gently lowering the baby to it.