Ruckus (Sinners of Saint #2)(102)

I stood up, my feet unsteady. Owl was underneath me. His face was so blood-soaked, I couldn't make out his eyes from his nose, or even lips through all this mess. I hadn't even noticed that my wife-beater was drenched in gore, and it wasn't mine. I looked straight into the camera. The red dot flickered at me. Almost taunting. Nina held it in one hand and yelled at me to kill him, her voice hoarse from screaming.

Film running.

Act one  – record your spawn committing a crime.

Act two  – blackmail him with the videotape.

Act three  – get rich and bail out on his ass again, this time starting over somewhere new.

The End.

My biological mother never took a picture of me. She never recorded a video of my first step, first word, or any birthdays. Not to mention even owned an album where you could find a picture of my face. But here she was, recording me in my plea to save her. Framing me. Pulling me down into the abyss that swallowed her chance to be a someone in this life.

"The fuck are you doing with that thing, Nina?" I asked, taking one step toward her. My voice was cold, and even though the adrenaline was sizzling in my bloodstream, I was no longer angry. She did it. After all this time, she managed to staple that dark chip onto my shoulder. I would live with it-and die with it-because of her. "You have one second to explain, and it better be good." 

"This is attempted murder," she slurred. God, she was high. Bitch was all over the place. "I can put you in prison for a very long time for something like this, son."

"Son?" Tiffany gasped behind me. Fuck. She was still there. Part of me wanted her to leave me alone. A bigger part wanted her to stay so she could serve as my witness. I tilted my head sideways and smiled. Because it finally dawned on me.

My mother was the devil.

My mother hated me.

My mother envied me.

And my mother was never going to stop unless she was stopped. By me.

"You really think you can pull this shit off?" I chuckled. I wanted to scare her, and by the way her face collapsed into a frown, I knew I'd succeeded. "C'mon now, Nina. You're a goddamn mess. Don't let my chivalry confuse you."

She lowered the camera, just by a few inches, taken aback by how well-spoken I was. Yeah, I definitely wasn't the same polite, wide-smile bastard who wanted to please her. The penny had dropped, and with it, any type of sympathy I'd had for her. I realized that she was going to piss all over my future if I was going to let her have this hold on me.

"Put that fucking thing down, Nina." I walked over to her nightstand and took out a blunt, lighting it casually, her camera still following me. "I won't ask twice, and trust me when I say, you don't want my dad to find out about this."

Owl cried in pain on the floor, and I kicked him, the rolled blunt still between my lips. "Shut the fuck up, asshole."

"Should I call an ambulance?" Tiff asked, biting her fingernails, still leaning against the doorframe. I cracked my neck and sighed.

"Owl brought this shit on himself by listening to his junkie, brain-dead wife. Let her take care of him. So, this is how you wanna play it?" I made the necessary steps to Nina, grabbed the recorder, took out the tape, and tore it to tiny shreds, before throwing the camera to the floor and smashing it into a fucking flatbread with my foot. "You wanna blackmail me with a stupid tape?"

Nina's pupils were dancing in their sockets. Reality started to sink in for her, and it wasn't pretty. I tipped the ash from the blunt on her sheets, exhaling smoke through my flared nostrils.

"Well?" I growled in her face. "You gonna talk, or what?"

Up until that point, I didn't know about Walmart. I didn't know she had abandoned me. I didn't know she went to get fucking cigarettes and a beer right after she left me to die, naked and screaming, in a public restroom. My parents saved all the juicy parts for themselves, and I didn't blame them. Their version of things was far easier to digest: Nina had a drug problem. She couldn't take care of me. So she gave me to them, knowing that they would love me fiercely. Which they did.

"Like you were even going to miss this money!" she screamed in my face, pushing me away. "You got everything! They give you everything, goddammit!" Her Southern twang deepened.

"They do, because you didn't." It was my turn to raise my voice. I tried hard not to fling my arms around. To stay composed. But the need to kick something was intense. And Owl was right there, but he was starting to look a little purple so I didn't want to push it. Nina shot up from her bed.

"That's right. I didn't. I threw your ass where you belong. In the toilet. Because you were nothing and a no one!"

The blunt almost fell out of my mouth.