Page 11

Chapter eleven

The house smelled exactly like I remembered it.

Pine.

My mother loved that damn smell, be it Pine Sol, pine-scented candles, pine air freshener, or even essential oils diffused in the air. It should have been comforting, but it just felt like a ghost of something I could never recover.

“Santari.” Mama wrapped me in a warm hug the second I set my purse down.

Her arms were spindly, her frame a lot smaller than the last time I saw her.

Gray dotted the edges of her temples and spidered through her shoulder-length hair.

The skin on her face seemed to sag like it was weighed down by something.

I knew what.

Grief.

“Hey, Mommy,” I murmured into her hair.

She held on for a long time before stepping back, her tired eyes scanning my face. “You hungry?”

“I’m good.”

She nodded. “It’s been a while.”

Guilt settled over me like a thick, heavy fog.

Daddy was in his usual place in the living room, lounging in his recliner, the TV playing at a low volume so as not to irritate him. He looked up when I walked in, his lips pressing into a hard line, his greeting a singular nod.

I rushed over to hug him anyway. He used to be so animated. So affectionate. But that all changed when Revere died.

I sank onto the couch as the weight of their grief pressed down on me. But the longer we sat in silence, the more I realized it wasn’t just them that made me sad. It was this house. It wasn’t a family home anymore. Just a gaping void Rev’s absence had left behind.

I didn’t feel his absence at the Omega house. There, I felt his presence . Joy. Warmth. Nostalgia for the good times. His aura and energy were powerful there, filling the space in a way that comforted me.

But here? It was the opposite.

“How’s work?” Mama said.

Small talk. Okay. I guess that was all she could manage.

“Work’s fine. Same old foolishness.”

Mama nodded. “You still talking to that boy…what was his name?”

“Samar. And, no. He’s blocked.”

Not that he'd done anything wrong. He was a perfectly nice young man, but there had been no spark. No desire. Not like what I had with my guys. Not even close.

I could see it in Mama's eyes, the strong desire to dig deeper into my love life. She wanted to know if I had someone, or if I was all alone in this world with nobody to lean on. If there was anybody looking after me now that my brother wasn’t here to do it .

I couldn’t be honest, so I said nothing at all.

I cleared my throat, hesitating before I shifted the conversation.

“Are you guys okay?”

Silence, then my mother’s tears and my instant regret.

“I just don’t understand,” she wailed. “It doesn’t make any sense.”

I had no answers. None I could share, anyway.

So I just sat there, my throat tight, my nails pressing into the skin on my palm. Daddy stared at the TV like he wasn’t listening, but his body was taut. His eyes glassy.

Mama snatched a tissue out of the holder on the coffee table, and I wondered how many of them she had planted throughout the house just in case she broke down in an inconvenient place and couldn’t make it to the bathroom.

This was depressing.

I excused myself before I had my own breakdown, retreating up the stairs and down the hallway.

Revere’s room was exactly how he left it the day he went off to college .

Glossy magazine cutouts of pretty black girls in bikinis covered one wall.

A Jay Z Blueprint album cover hung over his desk, while a life-sized Michael Jordan poster stared intently at me from the wall next to the closet.

G-Unit and Roc-A-Fella took up residence on the wall opposite the bed.

Several car mags with curled edges lay stacked up on his nightstand.

I trailed a finger over his red comforter—he’d always loved that color, so it felt like fate that he ended up pledging Omega Theta.

I smiled at the empty rack on the floor.

It was where he kept his millions of pairs of Jordans and Air Force Ones, which he meticulously cleaned every night with a toothbrush when he took them off after a long day at school.

A boombox. CD cases. An Xbox near the small TV on the dresser. Old controllers and DVDs. It was like a time capsule, only we never buried it. It was available, and open like a wound.

My heart sank when my eyes landed on a tissue box next to the TV .

Mama sat in here and cried for her baby. Parents aren’t supposed to do that. Mothers shouldn’t ever have to bury their children.

Tears welled in my eyes, hot, salty, and blinding. I gritted my teeth and tried to swallow them down, but it was useless. They spilled over, and my shoulders shook as the sadness freely poured out of me for the first time in months.

I hated this so much.

The questions.

The answers, or lack thereof.

I knew more than my parents did, but I didn’t know everything, and what I did know, I couldn’t share in a million years. They wouldn’t be able to handle it. I was barely handling it myself.

I took one last look around my brother’s old room and steeled myself. I had a new resolve.

Storm was going to give me the answers.

Because he had already given me something valuable, a tool I could use to get whatever I wanted —power. Control.

I’d make him tell me, and dare him to refuse his princess .

Dinner was delicious, but silent. Mama barely ate, which explained her thinness. Daddy dined in his recliner in front of the TV, something he never did when we were growing up, and I picked at my pork chops, my appetite barely strong enough to get me through the first one.

“This is delicious, Mama.”

Several seconds passed before it seemed like she heard me. “Yes. I made your favorite.”

I cringed internally, because she’d gotten it wrong. This was Revere’s favorite meal.

I couldn’t take this anymore.

After another few minutes of picking at my food, I excused myself and went to the kitchen, washing the dishes and wiping down the counters before I hugged and kissed me parents.

They were basically…zombies. And while I understood it, being around them, being in that house, was way too painful. I had to get out, to catch my breath before I suffocated.

It was almost dark when I stepped outside, and eerily still for a Miami evening. My parents’ street usually bustled with activity, but there wasn’t a single shrieking child riding a bike or tossing a ball. No souped-up car thumping bass.

Strange.

That’s probably why I noticed a car parked down the block, engine off, with someone sitting inside. I couldn’t see their face, but I felt their gaze on me. Watching. Waiting.

A chill went up my spine.

I turned at the end of the driveway and walked faster to my car, my heart pounding in my chest.

It was probably nothing. People parked on the street all the time. I was parked on the street.

But I couldn’t be sure, and that worried me.