King of Slaves (Jenna's Story) (The Slave Series Book 5) (46 page)

Darcia gave Michael a dirty look. “I’m not doing any counseling.”

“I’m afraid that’s not really up to you, since it will undoubtedly be part of your sentence. Either you get it done now, before the first court hearing in a month, or you wait and get placed on active probation by the court.”

“Why would I do it now?” she asked.

“Because it will save you a pile of money in probation fees and it will show the judge that you take this seriously and want to change your ways.”

Darcia was focusing only on Michael. “Okay, so do I just go to AA meetings or something?”

“A support group is good, but you need counseling or therapy to impress the judge. Let me give you the number to a phenomenal place that has turned people around in a matter of weeks. Their methods are supposedly a bit unorthodox, but one of the judges referred a client of mine to this place six months ago, and he became a whole new person.”

“You really think I should go there?” she asked skeptically and took the business card he had found in his bag.

“Yes, I definitely think you should,” Michael said and then he shook our hands for goodbyes. “Good luck with it.”

When he walked away, we stood for a moment in awkward silence.

“Do you have time for a cup of coffee?” I asked.

She shrugged. “Sure, but you’re buying because I’m broke.”

Her comment hit me hard. I had just left my childhood home in Medina, one of the poshest places around Seattle. My parents, Darcia’s grandparents, regularly dined and golfed with neighbors that included Bill Gates and others like him. There was no reason why anyone in our family should be unable to buy a cup of coffee.

I took her to the nearest Starbucks and even though she only ordered a cup of hot cocoa, I made sure to buy a selection of cake and fruit in case she was hungry.

We found a table in the corner and I noticed how she meticulously wiped the table clean with napkins before she sat down.

For a moment we sat and looked at each other. She had a lot of piercings in her ears, a large nose ring, and one more in her lower lip. Her hair was black but I could see blond roots and figured she was naturally dark blond like her father. She might be a pretty girl, if not for the exaggerated use of black eyeliner, mascara, and purple lipstick. The only thing that looked remotely natural were her green irises and the little beauty mark above her upper lip, and even that had me wondering if it was real of painted on like Madonna’s used to be.

“Are you just going to sit there and stare at me all night, or do you have something to say?” she asked in a bitchy manner.

I took a sip of my coffee. “You’re not being very nice considering I just paid three hundred dollars to bust your ass out of jail.”

She gave an uninterested shrug. “I’ll pay you back.”

“How?… You said you’re broke.”

I received a look of annoyance from her. “Yeah, well, it may take me a while, but I always pay my debts.”

“Tell me about yourself,” I said and leaned back in my chair.

“Why?”

“Because I just found out I have a niece and I want to get to know you.”

“So I reckon Brent is your brother, then?” she asked.

“Stepbrother,” I corrected.

Her eyes narrowed. “That explains why you look nothing like him.” She glanced me over, speculatively. “I bet you played football in high school and was popular with all the girls.”

I gave her a wry smile. “Why do you think that?”

She arched a brow and picked up a blueberry muffin. “Because you have that wholesome American boy kind of look. You’ve even got a dimple when you smile.”

“I’m twenty-nine. I hope you don’t think I look like a boy.”

She didn’t look at me but picked off a large chunk of muffin and put it in her mouth. “Nahh… I can see you’re not a boy; I’m just saying that I bet you were dreamy in high school.”

I laughed. “Dreamy?”

She lifted her shoulder in another shrug and chewed her cake.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been called dreamy before.”

“Maybe not to your face.”

“I don’t know if I should be amused or offended,” I said. “I see myself as a badass soldier, not a dreamy high school kid.”

She gave me a bored expression. “Again, I’m referring to the past.”

“I’ll tell you about me if you tell me about you,” I suggested.

“Okay. Here something about me,” she said. “I’ve been living on my own for seven years, I don’t have any family, I’m good at drawing, and I like lime pie.”

Has she seriously lived on her own since she was fourteen?

I cleared my throat. “Okaaay, I just came back from Afghanistan. I’ve been there three times as a sapper.”

“What’s a sapper?” she asked.

“It’s a combat engineer, which means I’m good at building
things, blowing up shit, and repairing things that are broken.

“So you didn’t fight the enemy?”

“What do you mean?” I tried to hide my emotions. “Are you asking if I’ve ever been in combat?”

“Yeah.”

“I have, and I’ve had to kill to survive too.”

Maybe she sensed my resistance to talk about it because she moved on. “So, are you home for good, or just on a break before you go back?”

“No, I’m home for good.”

Her next question came out with a sarcastic undertone. “And was your family happy to see you?”

I nodded. “Yes. My mom threw a party today to celebrate that I received a Silver Star.”

Her eyes fell to the medal on my chest. “So
you
were the reason for the family celebration Brent talked about.”

“Yes.”

“And you left all of them to come and help me?” For the first time her voice was soft. She looked puzzled.

“I would have found you earlier, if I had known I had a niece.”

“Stepniece,” she said.

“Listen, Darcia, family is important to me and I’m ashamed on my brother’s behalf for having failed you.”

“I told you not to call me Darcia.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault that my mom had a thing for stupid romance books.”

“She named you after a romance book?”

“Yeah, ever heard of Darcy from
Pride and Prejudice
?”

I nodded. “That’s Jane Austen, right?” I said it without admitting that I had actually seen the series once.

“Oh, yes. Good old Jane was my mom’s obsession all through her pregnancy with me. She used to tell me that I was named Darcia Emma Nielsson after her two favorite characters, but I’m not sure it’s true because I once overheard her say that my middle name Emma was short for dilemma.”

“So you don’t like either of those names?”

“No. I’ve been Black since I was fifteen.”

“Well, I can’t blame you, I think Gabriel is kind of pompous too.”

She looked up at me. “Yeah, I suppose being named after an archangel does put you under pressure?” she said.

I don’t know why I was surprised that she knew about the origin of my name. Maybe because she looked more like a Satanist than a Christian, but it made me ask, “Are you religious?”

She picked up the banana on the table and peeled it. “No, I’m not religious, I just like to read. Besides, when your home is a dump and your mom is an alcoholic, a library offers a warm place to hang out. I once read the Bible out of curiosity.”

“You read the whole Bible?”

“Yes, and other religious books. I like to read.”

“Wow. But if you’re not religious, why would you do that?”

“Maybe I was looking for answers. I don’t know.”

“Did you find any?”

“Some, but dude, don’t you need to get back to your party or something?”

She was right, it was getting late and I too could hear the cell phone buzzing in my inner pocket.

“Maybe I should. Can I give you a lift somewhere?” I asked.

She lifted her palm up. “It’s okay, I can walk.”

I can recognize emotional pain when I see it because for years I’ve been among men who are trying to suppress it. You can’t hide it completely – at least not from someone who is paying attention. Just like eyes shine a little brighter when someone is excited, they become a bit duller when they are in pain. I could tell Darcia had suppressed her pain for a long time, because she was good at keeping her face impassive and not give anything away by making a frown or knitting her brows together. Even her mouth didn’t drop.

“I don’t want you to walk. Come on, let me take you home,” I said.

She wrapped the two last pieces of cake in some napkins and carefully placed them in her backpack.

“Thank you for bailing me out and for this.” She lifted her white cup of cocoa and gave a small smile. It was the first time I had seen anything close to a smile on her face.

“Where do you live?”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. “But give me your number so I can pay you back.”

I pulled out my phone, opened up a new contact, and handed it to her. “Just give me your contact info and then I’ll send you a text with my number.”

“I can’t.” She pushed up from her chair. “I lost my phone – can’t you just scribble your number on a napkin?”

I did, and handed it to her.

Black lifted the napkin. “I’ll see you around, Uncle G.”

And then she walked out of Starbucks without looking back. For a moment I watched her cross the parking lot and flip a finger to a driver who almost ran her over.

I wanted to invite her back to the party and introduce her to everyone, but Brent would make a scene and my grandmother would probably get a heart attack from the shock.

Still, I felt bad about letting her go without knowing she was going to be all right, so I got up to follow her.

CHAPTER 3

Home

Darcia

I didn’t know what time it was but I was tired and grumpy from this hellish day. I didn’t sleep last night because of my little after-dark field trip to Costco, and I was in no mood to go to work.

Work, to me, means painting portraits and doing street art, but it requires a bit more energy than I had when I left Starbucks. Not even the heavy intake of calories from the hot cocoa, the muffin, and the banana helped. I just wanted to sleep.

I had to take the bus back to Kirkland and walk to The Inn, a motel in Kirkland that has been my sanctuary for the last seven years. Years ago, on my fifth night as one of the homeless, the owner, Lee, who is a Chinese immigrant, found me curled up in the supply room where I had sneaked in to avoid the heavy rain. I begged him not to call the cops, and that night we came to an agreement. I would help clean the motel rooms after school, and in return he would allow me to stay overnight.

For a homeless person it’s actually not a bad deal; I have access to a shower and a meal a day.

When the motel is fully booked I sleep on the floor in the supply room. It’s not very comfortable, but it’s much safer and cleaner than being out on the streets.

“Where you been?” Lee asked when I walked into the reception.

“I slept at a friend’s house,” I lied.

“You no clean rooms. Lee not happy,” the old man said in his funny Chinese accent, using third person to talk about himself, which never ceased to amuse me.

“I’m sorry… did you get Mona to do it?”

He nodded.

“I’m really tired, Lee, where can I crash?”

“All rooms full.” He lifted a hand and pointed his thumb over his shoulder. What can I say? Lee doesn’t use a lot of words, but I understood him perfectly well and trudged down the hall to the small room full of toilet paper, cleaning products, and clean towels. The room isn’t big enough for a mattress. In fact, I can’t even stretch my legs out, but at least I had a pillow, a blanket, and privacy.

Unfortunately, those things didn’t do it for me tonight and I was tossing and turning, trying to fall asleep.

Judge Kent’s words from earlier weighed me down; three hundred and sixty-four days is a long time to spend in jail for a failed crime. I was bummed that I didn’t even get as much as a single pill and wondered how I was going to cope without them. It’s not that I was a hard-core addict, but now that I had more to worry about, I could really use a pill to escape the craziness in my life and find a minute of peace.

But instead of pills, all I had was a court date and lame advice from the judge and the lawyer to get some counseling. As if my life wasn’t complicated enough.

I was lying on my back with my legs bent, trying to think of a plan to contact the therapy place and offer them some sort of barter. Maybe I could make some art for them, or clean… or something. If they asked me to pay cash, I couldn’t

When I heard loud voices from the foyer, I craned my neck, and listened in the darkness. Lee was shouting, which isn’t a rare thing as he is a temperamental old man and often shouts at the Weather Channel when they promise more rain. Yet, this time, someone was yelling back and it made me raise myself up on my elbows wondering if I should go and see if old Lee was okay. Before I got a chance to, the door was flung open.

It was dark in the supply room, and the bright light from the hallway blinded me like a beam putting me in the spotlight.

“What the fuck,” a deep voice said.

I blinked a few times to focus and saw Gabriel stare at me with anger on his face.

“Get up,” he barked as if I was one of his goddamn soldiers to command.

“I try stop him, he not listen,” Lee apologized to me while I got up from the floor and faced Gabriel, who was looking down on me with intense determination.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. But he was too angry to answer so I asked him my next question: “What are you doing here?”

“Just get your things and come with me.”

I didn’t want to make a scene, especially not in front of Lee, who hates drama and has kicked guests out of the motel without blinking.

“It’s okay, Lee, this man is my uncle. I’ll just go talk to him for a second,” I explained and pushed past the mountain of a soldier in front of me.

Gabriel let me pass before he bowed down to pick up my backpack. “Take your things with you,” he said. “We’re going to my place.”

And so we did.

Even though I’m kind of a loner and I prefer to do things my own way, I’m not stupid enough to say no when someone is offering to help me. Beggars can’t be choosers and all.

He was quiet and thoughtful on the drive from Kirkland to his place in Seattle, but that’s okay. The people I hang with all have quirky personalities, so I deal just fine with silence and brooding. 

His apartment was small but offered a great view of Union Lake.

“I’ve rented the place for the summer,” he said as we entered. “It’s not much but it was either this or staying with my parents,” he added and threw his keys on the kitchen table.

“Make yourself comfortable, Black, there are sodas in the fridge and I’ll be right back.”

“You know that rhymed, right?” I said dryly and kicked of my black boots.

He disappeared into his bedroom while I took a seat on the large couch, which was comfortable and soft. Sleeping here would be much nicer than on the floor in the supply room at The Inn.

Gabriel was only gone for a few minutes and when he returned he looked very different in jeans and a t-shirt.

I knew he was eight years older than me, but I felt like we could be the same age… maybe it’s because I feel much older than my years, which isn’t so odd, since my childhood stopped when I was fourteen, and I’ve been the only responsible adult in my life since then. The kind of shit I’ve seen makes you grow up, real fast.

Gabriel sat down next to me. “We need to talk.”

I didn’t like his intense glance as he turned toward me, tugging his right leg up under him and leaning his elbow on the back of the couch.

“How long have you been sleeping in a closet?” he asked.

“It’s not a closet, it’s a supply room.”

“How long?”

“Years.”

“How many years?”

“More than you’ve been abroad.”

He sighed. “Black, I need you to be honest with me and tell me what the hell happened to you.”

“Shitty parents is what happened to me,” I said with a mild snort.

“Why didn’t you come to us for help?” he asked. “We’re your family.”

I gave a bigger snort. “I did. When I ran away from my mom’s house, I went to see Brent, but he told me he was sorry I had been born and paid me two hundred dollars to stay away from him and his family.”

“Christ.” Gabriel rubbed his forehead with frustration. “Well, just so we’re clear, whether or not Brent likes it,
you
are
part of our family too,” he said with resolve. 

“Not according to Brent, I’m not.”

“Well, he’s a jerk. Now tell me, why did you run away from your mom’s house in the first place?”

I didn’t like to think about it. Even less did I like to talk about it, so I set my boundaries like I do best and told my new Uncle G, “That’s none of your business.”

He didn’t blink but fired off his next question.

“Did you go to high school?”

“Uh-huh, four.”

“Four years?” he asked.

“Yes, and four different schools.”

“Black, can’t you just talk to me? I feel like I’m interrogating you. What’s with these short answers?”

I took a long deep breath. “There’s not much to tell. My mom is an alcoholic; I ran away as soon as I could, hoping my dad would take me in, which he didn’t… After that, I’ve managed on my own. End of story.”

“Why didn’t you go to child services? Didn’t your mom have the police search for you?” 

“I don’t think so… she was probably just grateful to have one less problem.”

“But what about school?”

“I moved schools a lot.”

“Why?”

“Because when they started to ask too many questions or asked to see my parents, I would just move.”

“But this makes no sense… we have a safety net that prevents kids from living on the street.”

“Right! Have you been to downtown Seattle lately? I see lost teenagers all the time.”

“But if you had spoken up to a teacher you could have been put in a foster family.”

I snorted. “Ha! I don’t think you know what happens in foster families. Did you know any foster kids growing up, G?”

“No.”

“No, of course you didn’t, because you probably went to a private school, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So rich families don’t take foster kids. But unlike you, I knew enough foster kids to know that it wasn’t for me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I wasn’t going to allow anyone to abuse me ever again.”

“Did your mom abuse you? Is that why you ran away?”

God, enough with all his questions.

“I asked you a question,” he said stubbornly.

“And I told you that’s none of your business,” I shot back.

He gave me a grim look but didn’t press any further.

“You’re staying here until we figure this out.”

“Figure what out?”

“You and your legal problems. We need to get you a place to stay and a job so you can pay the fine,” he listed quickly. “And tomorrow you’re contacting the counseling service that your lawyer referred you to.”

“Hey, back off, Uncle G, I’m not some broken thing for you to fix, you know.”

Gabriel lifted both palms and spoke in a soft tone. “I’m just trying to help.”

“Okay.” I said and softened my tone. “If I can crash on your couch that would be a help. I haven’t slept for almost forty hours and I’m exhausted.”

“You would probably be more comfortable in the bed,” he pondered out loud.

“Don’t worry about that, this couch is pure luxury to me.”

“Okay.” His eyes flashed to the TV, and I understood his dilemma. It was too early for him to go to sleep and he didn’t have a TV in his bedroom.

“Feel free to stay and watch TV; it won’t bother me, I’m used to noise when I sleep.”

“Are you sure?”

I yawned and curled up in the corner. “Yes, I’m sure.”

“I could give you one of my t-shirts to sleep in,” he offered. 

“No thanks, I always sleep in my clothes.”

“Why? I thought only soldiers did that.”

“Nope,” I said and closed my eyes. “Women living in motels with thin doors do too, at least I do.”

“Here.” He put a thin blanket over me and it felt awkward to have someone pamper me like that.

“Are you sure you don’t mind if I watch some TV?”

I opened an eye and shook my head. “Hey, it’s your house, just forget I’m here and if I snore, kick me.”

“All right.” He smiled.

⦓∞
⦔

The next day I woke up to the smell of coffee. I stretched and opened my eyes to see Gabriel tiptoeing around in his kitchen. I’m not used to people showing such consideration, so for a minute I lay completely still and just watched him.

There was a trace of something either Asian or Inuit in him, with his dark almond-shaped eyes and robust nose.

“How tall are you?” I asked and sat up.

He gave me a charming smile. “Good morning to you too.”

“Good morning.”

“I’m six-two, and you?”

“Five foot six.”

“Why do you ask how tall I am?” he wanted to know.

“No reason, I was just wondering. What’s with your heritage? You’re definitely not a pure Caucasian like my dad – Is your mom Asian or something?”

“Na-huh.” He found his wallet and pulled out an old photograph and came over to show it to me.

“My dad was from Hawaii.” The photograph showed a happy young couple. It was easy to see the resemblance between Gabriel and his father, who stood in full uniform in the picture.

“Your dad was a soldier too?”

“Yes, he was a marine.”

“What happened to him?”

“He died in Kuwait during the Gulf War. I had just turned five.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “Is that why you became a soldier?”

“Maybe… who knows, but it’s probably one of the reasons.” He walked back into the kitchen. “It’s almost nine thirty. I think you should call that counselor and get an appointment as soon as possible.”

I moaned. The thought of some hippie therapist telling me to think positive thoughts and be grateful for what I have made my hackles rise.

“You might as well get it over with,” he pressured. “Coffee?”

“I don’t like coffee.”