was off his chair and gripping my mama’s hair. He yanked her to her feet. Mama screamed, but Pop didn’t care. “She left you, kid. Don’t let her crawling on her slut knees, calling you by that piece-of-shit name she gave you, fool you. She fucking left you for a Diablo.” I frowned. We didn’t like the Diablos. They hated us and we hated them. My pop told me that one day soon he was gonna catch one and give me my first kill. He said that another war with them was coming. It hadn’t been long since the last one ended.
“River,” my mama said. “I can explain, baby. I’ve come back for—”
“Shut the fuck up, bitch.” Pop punched my mama in the stomach. Her legs buckled, but Pop’s hold on her hair kept her upright. Pop looked at me again. “She left you, kid. She chose her new man over us. She’s back now because he saw through her pathetic shit and doesn’t want her anymore. Or . . .” He turned her and slapped her across the face. I stepped forward, ready to stop him, but Pop smiled at me over her shoulder. I knew that look on his face. I didn’t dare move anymore. My heart was beating so fast, and all I wanted to do was rip her out of his arms and run away. “Or have you come here for that cunt? Has he sent you in as a mole?”
“No!” Mama cried. My pop turned her around until she faced me. Mama held out her hand. “River . . . I’m so sorry . . .” she whispered, but before she could finish what she was saying, Pop put a gun to her head and pulled the trigger. My eyes snapped shut as the bang thundered around the room. When I opened my eyes again, Mama was on the floor, blood pouring from her head. But her hand was still stretched out in my direction, and her eyes were open . . . and looking right at me.
“Mama . . .” I whispered. I felt a tear on my cheek.
Pop walked past me and slapped me across the face. “Cut the pussy fucking tears, Styx. That slut was nothing but trouble from the first time she spread her legs for me. Sanchez sent her to start the war. And it worked. She didn’t want you, kid. She didn’t love you. This was all bullshit, and she was using us to get in further with the Diablos. She’s going to the boatman with no coins on her eyes. She can wander lost for eternity. It’s what the whore deserves.” My pop slapped me on the back, then left the room. I stared at my mama until the prospects came in to move the body. I stared at her blood drying on the floor until someone came in and cleaned it.
She didn’t want me.
She’d only come back to start a war.
She was a fucking whore, like my pop said.
And I hated her for going off with Sanchez. I hated her for leaving. But most of all, I hated her for not loving me enough to stay . . . or at least take me with her . . .
Mae shifted, snapping me from the memory of that day, and moved closer to me on my lap. I looked down at my hands; they were fucking shaking. Asshole, I said in my head. Pop was right—you’re a fucking weak-as-piss retard. I closed my eyes and got my breathing under control. I was the fucking Hangmen Mute—I didn’t feel this shit. Especially over a slut who didn’t want me.
Mae’s arms wrapped around my waist, and the journal fell to my side, the spine digging into my hip. I took in a deep breath and breathed out through my nose. I clenched my jaw, fucking ready to rip out my own traitorous brain as the memory I’d tried to forget still played on a loop in my head. Doubt was starting to creep up my back. Had she come back for me? Had she come to take me from Pop and all the shit he put me through?
Mae sighed. “I love you, River.”
River . . . River . . . River . . .
I took another mouthful of Beam and swallowed it down, feeling it burn a path from my chest to my stomach . . . then, like the weak piece of shit I was, I picked up the