Page 92 of Property of Necro
Heaving a sigh, knowing she’s not going to get through to me no matter how often she tries, which she has every day since I got back, Kali sets a blue-and-white crystal on the bar in front of me. I don’t know anything about it, and she doesn’t explain, but I slip it into my pocket anyhow. Because this is what she does. She tries to help, and even if I don’t buy into her earthly holistic practices, carrying around a crystal can’t hurt. I’ll add it to the others.
Kali’s the mom I’ve never had. Maybe not exactly. Okay. More like a big sister. She cares. All the sisters do. I get that, and I appreciate it. But I… I don’t care, and that’s the crux of the problem. I don’t want to take another job where I need to get close to another sex trafficking asshole. I don’t want to fuck him and pretend to like him. I don’t want to search his belongings when he’s asleep to send pictures to the club. I don’t want any of it.
I want to be free.
I want to be me.
Not a version of me.
Just me.
And I don’t know what that looks like.
I’ve spent most of my life just surviving. Existing. Twisting myself into a person to appease someone else so I could sign their death sentence. I slept with them all. I took pleasure from them. Then, when I was done and got all I could, I sent the guys in and, in the famous words of the badass Queen of Hearts, “Off with their heads.”
I’m not much different from…them.Am I?
The ones who sent me packing.
The ache in my chest throbs at the thought ofthem, and I shove my glass away. Liquid sloshes over the edge and drips down the sides.
I need to go.
Leaving my sisters without a word, I fly out of the bar and into the mid-afternoon heat. The sun bathes my face in its rays as I speed walk in my Crocs, trying to get as far away from here as possible, even for a moment, to breathe. To be. To release the pressure valve before I burst.
It’s suffocating, living with so many women who want to help.
And talk.
Well, guess what? I don’t want to talk.
Coming to the local park, I claim an open swing next to a blonde girl with pigtails who can’t be older than four. She lays her belly over the black rubber seat, pushes off the gravel in her pink sandals, puts her arms out, and soars like Supergirl, giggling the entire way. It’s mesmerizing. Watching her with such joy. Smiling. Her hair flappingin the wind.
Her mom snaps pictures close by, laughing along with her daughter.
The bond they share is beautiful.
I never had that.
My mother never took me to the park or watched me swing on the swings.
I never learned how to ride a bike or roller-skate like other kids.
This little girl lucked out. She has a good mom, and I’m grateful. In my now former line of work, you never witness this—the simple joy. You swim in the ugliness so often you forget there’s good. That there is a normal. If that’s a real thing. Normal. Whatever that means.
Gripping the chains on either side of me, I push off the ground, and like the little girl, I fly. Only I do it without lying on my stomach and getting my knees dirty. I drop my head back, close my eyes, and soar for a little while.
I’m free.
Clickinga fuckton of keys on the computer in my lap, I chew on the inside of my cheek as Coffin paces behind me.
“What’s she doing now?” he asks, as we follow the trackers he placed on Sola that she doesn’t know about.
“She’s at a park.”
“What’s she doing there?”
“How should I know?” I huff.
