Ava Jade launched to her feet, her breaths long and heavy as she watched the woman follow her aunt into the living room.
I didn’t like the look on my Ghost’s face. She didn’t like this.
She was… she was fucking panicking.
“Who the fuck are you?” I asked, putting myself between the woman and my Ghost.
“Oh!” Ava Jade’s aunt exclaimed, her hand flying to her mouth, but I couldn’t be bothered to play nice anymore, not until I knew exactly what had just walked into the room.
“Sparrow, who is this?” Corvus asked, a vein in his temple throbbing as he made himself stand, too. Grey watched the woman, and I got the sense he already knew who she was. His expression was dark, and I didn’t like it. My fingers twitched toward my gun, and maybe I shouldn’t have had that last bourbon because it roiled in my stomach now like a poison.
“Her mother,” Grey said for Ava Jade. “Right?” he asked her.
The woman clasped her hands in front of her, lowering her head.
And I could see it now.
Even though this woman looked like she’d been fed through a fucking wood planer, there were similarities. The long, dark hair, hers shot through with silver, coarse. The light colored eyes, her mother’s bloodshot and surrounded in hollow flesh. The frame… it was hard to tell beneath the clothes hanging from her body, but it looked like Ava Jade’s mother might’ve once had curves much like her daughter’s. But drugs had eaten the meat right off her bones.
I knew the look of her better than anyone else could. She was strung out. Probably just coming down from a weeklong bender. Her shoulders were hunched. Her fingertips shaking. A slight twitch to her right shoulder.
She was trying to hide it, but even the expert makeup she’d hastily applied to her face couldn’t hide the truth.
This woman was an addict, and my Ghost did not seem happy to see her.
It was enough for me.
“What are you doing here?” Ava Jade asked, her voice abrasive as she stared at her mother.
“I… I heard you were staying with—”
“Oh,” Ava Jade interrupted, smacking an open palm to her forehead like she was the idiot here. “I get it,” she said with a poisonous smile. “You heard that dear ol’ Aunt Humphrey took me in after Dad was murdered and you thought wow, what a great opportunity to wring some cash out of the old hag. How far off am I?”
“Ava Jade!” her aunt exclaimed, turning to the woman. “I’m so sorry, Valerie. I don’t know what’s gotten into her.”
“Violet, would you give me a moment alone with my daughter?”
Ghost’s aunt hesitated but left like she was asked.
Valerie turned her attention to the three of us, but none of us budged. At least the bitch was smart enough to know not to even bother asking. We weren’t leaving.
“What is it this year, Ma?” Ava Jade demanded, taking two purposeful steps forward, making her mother cringe. “Blow? Smack? Fucking meth? How long since your last fix?”
Valerie lifted her chin, staring her daughter in the eyes, chin quivering. “I’m clean, baby,” she said, and Ava Jade looked like she was going to vomit. “I came tonight because your aunt invited me. I wanted to see you. I wanted to… to apologize for—”
“Oh, Jesus fucking Christ,” Ava Jade said, throwing up her hands. “We’re out of here.”
“Please,” Valerie pleaded, and when she made to step closer to Ava Jade, I intercepted her, holding out a palm to stop her. I shook my head. No.
That was far enough.
Valerie looked between me and Ava Jade, clearly distraught, but not for the reasons she wanted Ava Jade to think she was.
“It’s part of my recovery, baby. I need to apologize for the things the drugs made me do. I should’ve never…”
She stopped, unable to continue, and I felt my darkness rising like smoke through my veins.
What the fuck did this bitch do to my Ghost?
I shoved her back a step, and she put a fearful hand to the place where I’d touched her, cowering back.
“It’s fine, Rook,” Ava Jade said in a deadpan voice. “She can’t ever hurt me again. If she tries, I’ll fucking end her.”
Valerie’s throat bobbed.
“I really am clean, Ava Jade. I’m… I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin your Thanksgiving.”
Enough.
Before Valerie could turn away like the kicked dog she was pretending to be, I lifted the purse from her shoulder and upturned it on the carpet, shaking out all its contents.
Valerie shrieked.
I kicked around the lipstick tubes, dollar bills, and panties that were now dotting the Persian carpet, but didn’t find what I was looking for.
I stuffed my hand into the purse, checking the other pockets and the zippered closure, but they were all empty. I thrust the purse back at Valerie, finding Ava Jade staring at me. “It’s clean,” I announced with a shrug. My Ghost didn’t seem upset though, a deep understanding was all I saw in her eyes.
She knew I suspected her mother wasn’t clean, and she trusted me. But the purse devoid of drugs or any drug paraphernalia begged to differ.
“You want to go, AJ?” Grey asked, settling a gentle hand on Ava Jade’s back as her mother dropped to her knees to collect her things back into her purse.
Humphrey returned, glowering at the scene.
“How dare you, Ava Jade, that is your mother. She’s been in rehab for months. I thought you’d be glad to see her.”
Humphrey helped the woman to her feet, whispering reassurances in her ear.
Ava Jade seethed quietly, watching her aunt and mother with a mix of dark and painful things glittering in her eyes.
“I don’t believe that for one second,” Ava Jade said. “She’s here to fleece you, Aunt Humphrey. Go ahead and call the rehab center she claims to have attended. I doubt they’ve ever heard of her.”
That struck a nerve with Valerie.
She pulled away from Ava Jade’s aunt and spat onto the carpet, her expression quickly changing from practiced weakness to the sort of deranged mania that only an addict could bring to the surface. “You always were a little bitch!”
“Valerie!” Humphrey exclaimed.
“Oh, don’t act so surprised,” Ava Jade slung at her aunt. “You know what she did to me and you still let her come here? You’re just as bad as she is.”
“I can’t stand for this,” Humphrey said, lengthening her spine, lifting her chin. “I must ask you all to leave. I never should have taken you in, you vile, vile girl. I should’ve known you’d turn out just as rotten as your father.”
Ghost’s eyes flashed with malice.
“When those men came here looking for money, I thought it was an opportunity to save you, but I can see now you don’t want to be saved.”
“What?” Ava Jade hissed, and I could see her pulse racing in her veins from here, could almost hear it. Taste it. Like when she was fighting in the ring, my Ghost radiated violence. My darkness was ready to go to war with hers.
“What?” Ava Jade repeated, showing her teeth. “What men?”
“Those awful gangsters. They said they’d kill him if I didn’t pay what he owed but I don’t negotiate with criminals.” She folded her arms over her chest.
Ava Jade snapped.
She took out a blade and closed the gap between herself and her aunt in a flash, not even I was fast enough to stop her. Though, I didn’t want to.
I watched, enraptured as Ava Jade held a blade to her aunt’s hanging throat. “You fucking monster. You could’ve saved him!” her voice broke.
Grey and Corvus stood next to me now, watching as our queen exacted the justice she deserved. She didn’t need our help here, as much as I would’ve loved to have a piece of it.
Valerie finished with her purse, dragging her skinny ass from the floor to leave. She was muttering something to herself, her words all jumbled together, spoken with too much saliva in her mouth.
“Never should have listened to that guy. Stupid motherfucker. Why did I listen to him?”
I reached to grab her, wanting to know what the fuck she was talking about. Who she was talking about. She stabbed something into my forearm and I hissed, drawing back, giving the cunt the perfect opportunity to grab my Ghost by the hair. Prying her from her aunt with a screech.
Ava Jade grunted as she jerked free, spinning on her heel like a dancer, her blade held out in a dangerous arc. Her mother managed to save herself from a certain death, falling backward just in time. The blade skated across her mother’s throat, just enough to kiss the flesh there, to make bright red bloom over the pale skin. Not enough to kill her.
But there was still time.
“Oh my god,” Ava Jade breathed, and I found her staring at me, all the frenzied rage in her eyes gone, replaced with a horror I didn’t understand.
Until I felt it. The rush of euphoria taking over so swiftly I couldn’t feel my legs under me. Couldn’t feel my face. But I could see the needle now, stuck in my arm, the plunger pushed all the way down. I shut my eyes, grinning as the heroin shot through my blood, erasing all the dark.
“Rook!”
