Page 61 of The Prodigy 2: Rise of a Queen

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Jakari

“Whenareyougonnatell your people about this?”

Malika put a hand over her face to shield her eyes from the sun. I gently pushed her arm down so I could shield her instead.

“I don’t know. I might not tell them at all.”

We stood silently and watched as Bo and Will dug into the earth. Two shovels and a lotta muscle should have made it a quick job, but they were being careful—at my request. Malika wanted her mama’s remains treated with the utmost respect, so I was making that happen.

“It ain’t hard for you, being out here?”

She shook her head. “I told you, I need to be here. I wanna be with her on the way to her final resting place. I owe it to her.”

I nodded. I had already convinced her not to look at whatever came outta the ground, because I didn’t want that to be how she remembered her mother. She agreed with that, so we stayed back about a hundred feet.

It was hot as fuck, and humid, too. Mal had just got her hair done and it was already puffing up a little bit. But she didn’t care about that. All she cared about was getting her mama out the ground.

“You gotta tell your family.” I turned to face her, keeping my hand over the top of her face. “You ain’t gotta tell ‘emeverything, but I feel like…if it was me, I would wanna know.”

“They’re gonna ask questions. Questions I don’t know how to answer.”

“I hear you. Maybe we can come up with something. Together.”

She closed her eyes and nodded. I guess she didn’t want me to see her tears.

I bent down to kiss her lips, then I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her close to me. “You can cry, Mal. It’s alright.”

She nodded, buried her face in my shirt, and sobbed for a good ten minutes. I just held her, rocked her side to side, and waited. We were both getting even sweatier all pressed together like that, but I didn’t care.

I just so happened to look up in time to see that Bo and Will had stopped digging. I lifted my chin, and Bo nodded. That was my cue to take Malika back to the car.

I gave her one last kiss on the top of her head and pulled away. “Let me take you back.”

She immediately looked over at the guys, her eyebrows crinkling as a fresh wave of tears came out her eyes.

“Is it her?”

“Yeah.”

She sniffed and took a shaky breath, then she grabbed my hand and squeezed it so hard it hurt. But I didn’t say anything, I just led her back to the car and deposited her in the passenger side.

“We’ll take care of her.” I put a hand on her knee. “You gonna be okay by yourself?”

She nodded and put her hand on top of mine. “Thank you for doing this.”

“Nah.” I shook my head. “Don’t thank me. I owe you this. I owe her this.”

I cut the car on so the a/c would blast, then I trudged back to my guys. They had the stretcher out, but from what I could see, there wasn’t much need for it. What was left of Kenya Andrews was a pile of bones.

I pulled a pair of latex gloves out my back pocket and got to work alongside Bo and Will. I wouldn’t usually get my hands dirty like this, but like I told Mal, I owed it.

And honestly, it was partly for me, too. That night had chased me for eight years. Running away to Atlanta only blocked the pain for a time, but it was there, and now I had a chance to work out my guilt over what I did.

When we laid Kenya to rest, I was laying all my baggage in that coffin with her.

It wasn’t easy arranging for burial. We ain’t really fuck with funeral homes like that, so cash had to exchange hands to get a private ceremony where we buried her ourselves. A lotta cash. But I got it done.

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