Page 104 of Holy Sinner

“And you left your mother and family to die.”

I tear at my hair and shake my head. The last of my composure snaps and crumbles away. “What the fuck are you talking about?!” I scream. Why is it that I can’t keep control of myself when my mother is involved? It’s like I’m an emotional and insecure teenager and I haven’t even spoken to her. Just the thought of her is enough to send me into a death spiral. You’d think the dead body in the freezer behind me or the fact that a madman has a gun to my best friend’s head would do it but no. It’s the threat of my mother that has me screaming and on the verge of tears.

“She’s not my mother. I don’t owe her shit.”

Alexia shakes her head. She looks so calm and collected compared to the chaos pulling me under. “You really are sick. You can say that and know that she’s dead because of what you did to her? Well, you know what? You’re not getting away with it anymore. You’re going to pay for what you did to her once and for all.”

The world stops and there’s a ringing in my ears. I sway on my feet. It’s like the ground has been pulled out from under me and I’m in a free fall.

“What?” I whisper.

“Did you really think you were going to get away with what you did to her? Leaving her for dead like that?”

I’m nothing if not an eternal optimist and my heart soars at Alexia’s words. “My mother is dead?”

Her pretty face scrunches up in anger. “What?”

I move towards her. I forget about the gun and the dead body and the fact that Jax and Scott are the two lunatics that have been stalking me. “Is my mother dead? She’s really gone?” My voice shakes and my knees are going to give out. If I’m not careful, I’m going to eat shit but I can’t help it.

Is my mother dead?

A world without her seems unimaginable. I’d worked so hard to block her out, to lock away her memory but it’s been eating me up. This entire fucked up nightmare is proof there’s no outrunning her memory or her touch. She’s been able to reach through time and wreck me. There is no world where she doesn’t own me but if she’s dead?

If she’s dead, I’m free.

My bones sing at the thought of being free. The weight of not having to look over my shoulder or hear her voice in my ear whispering how unworthy I am of the life I live, of the love I have. That I can for once and for all know that she’s never coming back, because she can’t.

I’d kill everyone in this room for that freedom to be real. Even the taste of it has me ready to lick it from the barrel of Jax’s gun after I use it on him.

I lift my chin to look Alexia in the eyes. “Is my mother dead?” I whisper. When I move forward, she falls back and her eyes widen. She’s a dead woman. She knows it.

“Stay back you crazy bitch!”

“Hey, back the fuck up, Kit or I’m gonna blow your bestie’s brains out.”

That stops me but just barely. I look over my shoulder at Jax. “I’m going to make you fucking scream. Now, answer my damn question. Is that cunt dead?”

Jax’s face twists in anger. He moves the gun off Alana and points it at me. “Call her that again, I dare you.“

It’s him that I advance on next. I throw my arms wide and spit at his feet. “Is my cunt of a mother dead?!” I scream the last word at him. He flinches and I smile. Alana looks at me like I’ve lost it.

Maybe she’s right. She has to be. It’s the only thing that makes sense when I hear my mother’s voice.

“Now, is that anyway to speak about your mother, little girl?”

Little girl.

She always did love to call me that, but I don’t freeze like I used to when she would say those two words. I don’t shake, either. The feeling that came over me when I thought she was dead doesn’t return. The thought of freedom is far too strong for me to give a fuck about fear right now.

“What the fuck is going on here, Noreen?”

My mother narrows her eyes. Disgust rolls over me when those familiar hazel eyes look me up and down. “Oh, you think you’re grown now, do you? Funny how that happened once you got those boyfriends of yours.”

I don’t say anything. I let her talk.

Noreen Salazar loves to hear herself talk.

For years I’ve thought of her only as my mother. The untouchable ghost of my past that broke me in so many delicate and razor fine ways that there was always another hurt to heal when I tried to put myself together and move on. Healing never seemed like a real option until Grant and Rafe came into my life.

---