Page 45 of The Birthday Girl
Danielle’s lips curled into a grin, mean and gleaming. “I’m his baby’s mother.” She let the words hang like a machete between them before shoving it deeper into Shanice’s back. “While you were busy playing the dutiful side bitch, I was the one he wasdevoting his life to. I got his seed, and I’m the one he comes home to and who he runs to when you hoes are getting on his nerves.”
Air scorched through Shanice’s throat as if she had swallowed fire. “You dragged my daughter into this for your sick obsession?”
Danielle tilted her head, laughter spilling low and sharp. “Obsession? No, bitch. I’m far from obsessed. I asked your kid ‘cause I knew you’d lie. At least she ain’t as dumb as her mama.”
Shanice’s pulse thundered as Kali’s voice echoed in her head.She asked if I was really Daddy’s or if I belonged to someone else.
“Stay the fuck away from me and my kids,” Shanice snapped, her voice raw.
Danielle smiled wider, vicious as ever. “You and your kids are irrelevant. Tyriq ain’t thinkin’ about y’all, and neither am I. Now, get your bitch ass off my porch before I shoot you dead in your face for trespassing on my property.”
Shanice’s breath sawed in and out, rage burning so hot behind her eyes she swore the night tilted around her, but Kali’s small fingers tugging at her sleeve kept her rooted.
“This ain’t over, bitch. Not by a long shot. You better pray I never catch you in the streets without my kids,” Shanice spat as she snatched her son’s hand while guiding Kali with the other and hurried her kids off the porch before her rage won out over reason.
Shanice’s threat still hung in the air when the porch light bled into the street, spilling over a black sedan parked half a block down. Behind the wheel, Tahlia leaned back against the leather, one manicured finger tapping the steering wheel in a slow, dramatic rhythm. She watched Shanice yank her children away from the house while Danielle loomed in the doorway, her arms locked across her chest and her chin tilted toward the sky.
Tahlia didn’t need to hear the words to know there was an issue. Their body language said it all. Shanice looked furious and was shaking like a live wire, while Danielle stood with her weight on one hip with the corner of her mouth curved in what could only be described as satisfaction.
Watching them, Tahlia felt Mercedes' final gasping words rise to the surface of her memory, each syllable now crystallizing with terrible clarity.
“You… you really think… Shanice just… just showed up… on her own?” She gagged on her next breath, then pushed harder, her lips trembling. “S-somebody… close… to you… made that happen. They… want to… humble you.”
The scene unfolding confirmed what she'd suspected all along. Shanice, the very woman who had made her a laughingstock, was working with Danielle, and their connection was no accident. Mercedes' dying words had to be true. Shanice hadn't stumbled into Tahlia's life by chance. She was merely a pawn, carefully selected and positioned by Danielle to strike where it would hurt most.
Tahlia tilted her head, watching as Shanice buckled her children into the car. A smile ghosted across Tahlia’s mouth, not amusement but hunger, the kind that curled low in her belly and pulsed behind her teeth. Mercedes had been an appetizer, and Danielle was the main course waiting in her sights. But Shanice? Shanice was different. She wasn’t meant to be touched, but standing there, she looked like the dessert fate had served early, a temptation too perfect to ignore.
Why waste her fury on Danielle when she could savor Shanice… and save her for last?
Shanice’s two kids pressed their faces to the glass, wide-eyed and oblivious, their small hands smudging the window as they pointed at nothing in particular. Tahlia’s gaze followed them, steady and unblinking. Children had never been her target, butMercedes had taught her that secrets didn’t just fester; they spread, and children, with their wide eyes and loose tongues, were the most dangerous carriers of all.
Shanice was the disease, yes, but if her children stood between Tahlia and her work, then their souls would be claimed. Innocence meant nothing once it stood in the way of justice. Mercy wasn’t compassion. It was currency, and she had no intention of letting anyone else spend hers.
Tahlia's lungs filled with resolve as she watched the family. When payment came due, their voices would join the chorus of consequences. The mother's fate was sealed, but now the children had been added to her ledger.
When Shanice's taillights flared red at the stop sign, Tahlia eased her foot off the gas, letting three cars slide between them. She clicked her headlights to their dimmest setting and kept her gaze fixed on the back of Shanice's Honda as it merged onto I-30. The yellow porch light from Danielle's house had disappeared miles back, but the image of their betrayal stayed lodged in her mind.
The drive dragged them to a sagging roadside motel with a flickering neon sign that buzzed like an insect trapped in a jar. Shanice hurried to pay, then hustled her children inside their room with arms full of bags, her gaze repeatedly flicking over her shoulder until she locked the door.
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 herdaughter'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.
