Page 27 of The Birthday Girl

Tahlia parked two spaces down, sliding low into the leather seat of her sedan.

Each hour stacked on the last, but she didn’t mind.

She’d always believed patience was the trap that never failed to spring.

Predators didn’t rush. They waited until their prey was lulled, fat and drowsy, and sure that the danger had passed.

The motel's threadbare curtains betrayed Shanice's every move.

Tahlia saw the tender way she tucked sheets around her son, and how her fingers lingered as she smoothed her daughter's braids away from closed eyes.

For hours, Shanice's shadow paced the yellow rectangle of light until it finally slumped onto the edge of a bed.

Tahlia remained motionless in her sedan long after the highway's last truck rumbled past, ignoring the burning sensation in her eyes.

Only when the room's silence was unbroken for thirty minutes did she reach for her door handle.

She grabbed what she needed from the trunk of her car, then headed to the room.

At Shanice’s door, Tahlia quietly placed her items at her feet while she listened intently. A television murmured from the next room over, the sound of canned laughter spilling through the paper-thin walls. There was no sound from Shanice’s room. Nothing. Only the fragile rhythm of sleep.

She slid a bobby pin from her hair, knelt, and slipped its end into the keyhole. The lock surrendered with two precise movements, yielding a whisper of metal that vibrated through her fingertips before reaching her ears.

She slid on a pair of gloves, flexing her fingers once before curling them around the handle. The door hinges whined as she eased it open, releasing a gust that coated her tongue with the taste of wet newspaper and the sour breath of a space where even air had given up hope.

Inside, the room was shrouded in shadows, broken only by the glow of the neon vacancy sign, which bled red through the blinds.

Shanice lay stretched across the nearest bed, one arm flung over her face as if to block out the world.

Her children were cocooned in the other bed, limbs tangled, small chests rising and falling in steady unison.

Tahlia set her items down with care, her eyes never leaving the figures before her. Hours of waiting had funneled into this single moment, and she was ready.

Her gaze lingered on the children long enough to register their innocence and to set it aside. She reached into her purse, her fingers brushing over the needle before drawing out the syringe that waited for Shanice’s veins.

She crossed the threadbare carpet with unhurried steps, the drug gleaming in its chamber. She did not expect Shanice to stir, but mothers never truly slept. The moment the needle’s point pricked the smooth span of the forearm, her body tensed, and her eyes cracked open in wild, hollow terror.

Tahlia whispered, “Shh. You don’t want to wake the kids,” as if she could coax the panic back to bed.

Shanice writhed, every muscle screaming against the paralysis crawling up from her veins.

The bedside lamp snapped on in a frantic halo.

She tried to lunge, but her body betrayed her, and all she could muster was a slurred, “No—my kids… please don’t—” before her tongue uselessly thickened and her eyelids fused halfway shut.

Tahlia leaned over Shanice, so close she could see the flecks of gold rimming her irises. “I’m not here for your kids. I’m here for you. I have a few questions.”

Across the room, Tyriq Jr. squeaked in his sleep, but did not stir.

The pupils in Shanice's eyes darted back and forth like flies trapped inside a jar.

Her jaw slackened even as the muscles in her arm spasmed and her fingers snatched for the bedside lamp chain, missing it by inches.

The drug was strong, though not perfect, but it preserved her awareness even as control of her limbs faded.

Tahlia waited for the paralytic to settle before she spoke again. That time, she didn’t whisper, nor did she raise her voice. Hers was the tone of a surgeon explaining which organs she planned to remove, and why.

“I know you’re scared, and I assure you that you have every reason to be, because if you lie to me, I will hurt your children and make you watch.” She perched on the bed beside Shanice, one leg tucked beneath her, eyes locked and unblinking. “Now. Start with the truth. Why did you come for me?”

The only rational thought in Shanice’s mind was that this couldn’t be real. Surely, she was dreaming, and her exhaustion had spun into a nightmare. But Tahlia’s grip on her chin, fingers grinding bone against bone, anchored her to the horror of the moment.

Pinned by the drug, Shanice’s vision swam like oil on water. Her body buzzed with a low electric hum, heavy and useless. Only her tongue fought to move, thrashing against her teeth until sounds spilled out.

“Ga-dja-waj… wuh…” she slurred nonsense.

The noise delighted Tahlia so much that she giggled. “Keep fighting, Shanice. The words will come,” she cooed, brushing hair from her damp forehead. “You can answer. You just have to try harder. Did Danielle send you?”

Shanice’s head twitched in a jagged shake, lips parting, tongue sluggish as a wet groan dragged up her throat. “N-no… I—I went… ‘cause… she said—”

Tahlia’s palm snapped across her mouth, smothering the words. “Shh. Choose carefully. Every lie is gasoline, Shanice—and your babies are lying in tinder.”

When her hand peeled away, Shanice gasped for breath, chest rattling under the paralytic’s weight. “She… she said… she was… his sister… and… he hates you.”

Tahlia tilted her head, studying her like a pinned insect. “And you believed her?”

Shanice’s eyes rolled toward the other bed, toward the silhouettes of her children curled in cotton safety. Her mouth twitched, dragging words through molasses. “I—I never met… his family. I thought… he wasn’t… hiding us… anymore.”

Tahlia leaned in close, her whisper hot against Shanice’s ear. “Well, you thought wrong. Danielle played you.”

She rose, smoothing her skirt with deliberate calm. From the corner, she reached for the red can waiting by the door, and the stink of gasoline bled into the room before the cap was ever twisted free.

“She used you to take what was never yours or hers to have, and you—” she tilted the can, the liquid sloshing everywhere, “were stupid enough to help her.”

Gasoline splashed across the thin motel carpet, soaking into the fibers. The stench clawed its way up Shanice’s throat, gagging her as she struggled to drag in air.

Her tongue fumbled for words, her voice dragging against the weight of the drug. “P-please… not… my babies…”

Tahlia moved between the beds with unhurried steps, the gasoline can tipped at a precise angle. Her eyes never left the dark stain spreading across the sheets where Kali and Tyriq Jr. lay unaware, their small bodies rising and falling with each innocent breath.

“You should’ve thought of them,” Tahlia said softly, as though explaining a simple math problem. “When you chose to play games that weren’t yours to play, you wrote their names right beside yours.”

Shanice thrashed as hard as her body would allow, her legs jerking uselessly beneath the blanket, her eyes wide and streaming tears. “Take me… not them…”

Tahlia crouched beside her again, fingers brushing Shanice’s damp cheek. Her smile was almost tender. “Oh, I am taking you, but fire doesn’t know how to choose. It eats everything.”

She upended the can, drenching Shanice’s nightshirt until it clung to her skin. The fumes spread thick and suffocating, saturating the room with inevitability.

Then she straightened, smoothed her gloves, and reached into her purse for the silver lighter. It snapped open with the ceremonial click of a priest lifting a chalice, and Tahlia's thumb lingered on the wheel, savoring the grain of her engraved initials.

Shanice’s eyes swelled with such naked horror that even Tahlia felt the buzz of it, if not in her conscience, then in her skin.

Not that it mattered. Tahlia’s choices were governed by reckoning, not sentiment.

She didn’t believe in excess suffering, but neither did she see any world in which Shanice’s children wouldn't grow up poisoned by the rot their mother carried.

It was better, in the end, to cauterize than to let the infection spread.

The lighter's spark flared, illuminating Tahlia’s expression with a ghoulish orange mask, and for a moment she held the flame aloft as though she might confer a last moment of absolution.

“If you see Danielle in hell before I arrive, remind her that this isn’t over until I decide it is.”

The lighter's flame kissed the polyester edge with a whisper that became a hiss.

Blue tongues raced across the blanket in uneven lines, then bloomed into orange claws that snatched at the air.

The fabric melted and curled, black holes spreading as the room filled with a thick chemical stench.

Shanice's scream died in her throat as the heat slapped her face and the roar drowned her children's first startled cries.

Without a glance back, Tahlia walked into the dark. The screams, the fire, the collapse, all of it was already behind her—already nothing.