Page 1 of Moon's Promise

PROLOGUE

“It’s time to go, Riley, Eric. Say bye to Devon. You won’t see him until we get settled.”

The three children sat huddled on the couch, hugging each other. Devon held his tiny three-year-old sister on his lap as she sobbed into his chest while he hugged his young five-year-old brother closer to his side.

“Why can’t Devon come with us?” His brother raised his tear-stained face from his shoulder to ask.

His stepfather glowered down at them at the question he had answered repeatedly since Vance told his mother he was moving away to live with another woman. “Because he doesn’t belong to me. I can’t make his mother let me take him. I’d go to jail if I tried to take him. Do you want me to go to jail?”

Vance’s harsh question had both his brother and sister trembling in his arms.

“No,” both Riley and Eric sobbed out their answer.

Devon remained silent instead of yelling out yes like he wanted to. If he did, Vance wouldn’t keep his promise to bring Eric and Riley to see him once a month.

He might not have said anything, but his stepfather easily read his hate-filled expression.

“Come on; grab your shit,” Vance ordered the clinging children. “I want to be out of here before Kiko comes back.”

Devon watched as his brother and sister reluctantly left his arms to go to their bedrooms to grab the two backpacks they had worn in from school. Vance had already packed their belongings while Riley was in daycare, and Eric was at school.

Walking to the door as Vance pushed his sister and brother to the doorway, Devon picked up his little sister.

“Don’t cry,” he tried to soothe Riley. “Vance will bring you to see me.”

Riley gave him a tearful nod.

Carefully, he handed her over to Vance and hugged Eric.

“Make sure you keep practicing your timetables. I have something special for you if you can tell me the sevens.”

Eric’s somber expression switched to excitement. “What is it?”

Devon gave him a gentle smile. “You’ll have to wait and see.”

“Okay”

“Bye …” Devon told them miserably.

Before he could say anything else, Vance grabbed Eric’s hand and led him out the door. Devon wasn’t surprised that Vance hadn’t bothered to say goodbye. As he held the doorknob in his hand, he had never felt so much hatred for anyone in his life as he did for Vance.

Devon waited to close the door until Vance’s red truck pulled away from the curb before he returned to the living room and sat down on the couch. He was still staring blankly at the television screen when his mother came home.

Placing her purse on the end table, she sat down next to him.

“You okay?” she asked hesitantly.

“No.”

His mother released a sad sigh as she laid a comforting hand on his arm. “I’m sorry. I wish you had stayed at school the way I wanted you to until I could get off work.”

Devon shrugged away from her touch. “I wanted to say goodbye to them.”

“Are you blaming me for them leaving? It’s not my fault Vance wants to be with another woman.”

“You could have been here to tell them goodbye. They cried when you weren’t here.”

His mother’s eyes brimmed with tears. “I know my weaknesses. If I had been here when they started crying, I would have broken. I am not strong like you, Devon. They are my babies, yet I have no legal right to them—I am not their mother. I didn’t trust myself not to beg him on my knees to stay. I couldn’t do that, Devon, not even for Riley and Eric.”

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