Total pages in book: 159
Estimated words: 149301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 149301 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 747(@200wpm)___ 597(@250wpm)___ 498(@300wpm)
He sighed. She was gazing into his soul, holding on to every word.
“I was purportedly his favorite grandchild at that time, so everything he did was intended to train me. Condition me. It was deliberate. He wanted me to be his right hand. My grandfather is religious, and warped. He believes blood and the Bible are everything. He takes the Word literally, unless it applies to him.”
“So, he’s a hypocrite.”
“Amongst other things. He wants his offspring to be in the family business, so to speak. He handpicks who he wants, folks he believes have special gifts, strength, talents, or high intelligence. I refused. Several of my other cousins refused, too, and now he’s pissed. He is the type of man you don’t say no to without consequences. So, after my failed murder attempt on him, he told my mama to put me away in a nuthouse, or else.”
“Or else, what?”
He simply looked at her, his eyebrow raised.
“Are you serious?!”
“Of course, I am. He convinced my mother that I was crazy—because apparently I’d have to be, to do such a thing. She complied, to keep me alive. Plain ’nd simple. Problem was, I was abused and neglected in one of the hospitals. The one I was in the longest. I was drugged up half the time, too, but I still knew what was going on around me. I would defend some of the other patients there, and they’d beat me for it, or isolate me, or give me so much medication, I’d be doped up and out of it for days.”
A tear rolled down her cheek. She shook her head. “I’m so sorry you endured that, Kage. How terrible.”
“Don’t cry, possum. It’s over. In the past. Yeah, I’m technically crazy, at least on paper, but at the same fuckin’ time, I’m not. I’m not ashamed, either. It happened. Everything I’m tellin’ you is well documented in my hospital and therapy records, which I’ll show you if you feel so inclined to see ’em. I never posed a danger to anyone but him. I want you to understand that this isn’t me tryna make it look better than it was,” he pointed to himself, “or feed you a line of bullshit, either. We all do things to survive, darlin’. It’s part of life.”
Her face was now unreadable. The same expression she’d made when he stood in her kitchen for the first time.
“Kage, why are you tellin’ me this? You probably could’ve kept this a secret for months, maybe even years, and I wouldn’t have known a thing.”
“Because criminal charges, and times spent in a mental ward for attempted murder ain’t somethin’ you keep from a woman that you care about. I don’t want you hearin’ it from somebody else, either. I want you to get the story straight from the wolf’s mouth.” She hung her head and turned away. “I’m admitting this to you because I want you in my life, Poet.” He closed the space between them, and lifted her chin. “… I’m fallin’ in love with you.
“My time in that hospital is in the past. I’ve gone over two decades without any need for mental intervention. ’Cause wasn’t nothin’ really wrong with me in the first fuckin’ place. I was singled out for doin’ what grown folk in my family shoulda done years before I was even born. That man has ruined so many lives. My grandfather is still tryna cause trouble, but this is my life, and I run it how I see fit. Not him. I like my life, and I like my life with you in it. I come with a little baggage. Now you know the truth.”
She wrapped her arms around him and squeezed. It felt so good. He closed his eyes and squeezed her right back. Creedence Clearwater Revival crooned, ‘Fortunate Son.’ He held her cheeks with both hands, then crushed her smile with his own.
“I never did ask you where you found that blue jay?” he asked, still hugging her tight. His breath as he spoke made her curls blow and spin slightly.
“Someone found it drowned in a river.” She was trembling ever so slightly.
“The river, huh? What a shame. Poor little bird. His reflection was the last thing he probably ever saw, and his baptism was his ticket to death.…”
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The Runny Egg and the Bruised Ego
It was too late at night to do much else but sleep, but Poet wasn’t tired. At least not mentally. She sat in her truck in front of her house, holding onto a file of old papers that she’d begun reading at work. Report after report, page after page, trauma after trauma. It was the sort of thing that put your gut in knots, and twisted hard. She’d already looked into Kage’s background. All she saw were some fights he’d had when he was in his twenties that led to him being placed in jail for short stints of time. She had no idea about the other stuff until he’d confessed it. A part of her wished he hadn’t. She had a high tolerance for death, blood, violence. She barely flinched at such a thing—but this was different. He’d been just a kid…