"What!" Berkfield's voice imploded within the room as he crossed it to snatch his wife by the arm. Immediately Bobby and Krissy jumped between their parents.
"Don't even think about hitting her, Dad," Bobby said, his eyes filling. "You worked a lot of nights, did a lot of shit that left her all alone. You don't f**king hit her."
Krissy walked away with her hands over her face as Dan gathered Marjorie Berkfield into his arms to comfort her.
"We need to get back on mission," Dan said, his quiet authority quelling the chaos. "There'll be time to sort this all out later, once we get Carlos back, and put this other thing down. Whatever we saw, or think we saw, could have been illusion--never forget that. We don't turn on each other. We're family. We work it out. We're one." For a moment, no one spoke. Lines had been drawn, sides taken, and nothing would ever be quite the same.
"For what it's worth," Damali said, her breaths still shaky, "I never slept with him."
Again, silence permeated the battered room and hung between everyone in it.
"I love Carlos, wouldn't do that to him, and the kiss you saw was my attempt to appease that being and send it away before anything worse happened. I was in here singing to appease it, to keep it from manifesting, but Carlos interrupted me before I finished the song, and the entity wigged."
Marjorie looked up from her hands. Her face was red, tear-streaked and her mouth quivered as she spoke. "I believe you," she said in a resolute tone, and then lifted her chin higher. "I know that that's possible. And while the attention was flattering, and the temptation great, I trust you when you tell us that you never did anything... anything permanent."
Marjorie's hot gaze shot around the room, landing on every male within it. "Tell me none of you have ever thought about it? Ever saw another person who simply turned your head for a moment, but then you remembered what was at risk.... Because maybe you were lonely, weary, unappreciated, felt like your whole life was spent giving for everyone but yourself," she said, her voice growing shrill as she leveled her charges.
Marjorie held Rider in her glare, and went to Shabazz, Big Mike, then the younger Guardians, and held her husband's eyes until he looked away. "I won't let you be hypocrites and denigrate Damali in front of me. Don't you dare make assumptions about any woman in this house!"
Marjorie stormed out of the room. Krissy went with her.
Rider nodded. "Well said, and duly noted." He sighed and holstered his weapon. "What's the bastard's name, so I can put a bullet in his head if--"
"She doesn't know," Marlene said quietly, once the storm had passed. "C'mon, D... you don't even know his name?" Jose walked away, disgusted, leaving Juanita fuming.
"Put your guns away," Marlene said in a sad voice. "You can't kill him." "Why not?" Shabazz snapped and looked at her hard. "Because he's her muse--the muse of Damali's music."
Crash landing in the middle of a grassy knoll, hands clenched around throats, neither would relent nor drop his grip.
"You can't die on this side," the entity growled through his teeth.
"But I can enjoy strangling your ass.until the end of f**king time," Carlos snarled.
The entity released Carlos and pushed him off him so hard that Carlos went sprawling across the grass. The entity stood and stared at Carlos, who was back on his feet in seconds.
"This is futile," the entity snarled. "Enough!"
"It was way f**king enough when you put your hands on my woman!"
"She was mine, first. Be clear!"
"Bullshit!" Carlos walked back and forth, trying to decide which limb to detach from the arrogant thing's body. But the fact that it was sunny outside was jacking with his mind. "When'd you meet her?"
"I am her muse; I have always been with her. You cannot compete for her in this regard!"
Stunned, Carlos stared at the thing before him. Both beings wiped the blood from their noses. "Look around. It is daylight. This is not the dark realms."
Carlos glanced around quickly, but kept his eyes on the thing before him. The fact that it was built like a tank, and by male standards all-right looking, was really eating him up. "You got fangs, man, so you need to--"
"As do you," the entity said, glaring at him and retrieving the blade that he spied off in the distance. "Same fathers."
Carlos hurried behind the thing that had nearly stopped his heart when he'd leaned down and kissed his boo. But this new information was setting off a new wave of concerns. "You need to stop jacking with my head! My father was a Rivera, all human. And if you're trying to say some shit about my mother, the blade ain't gonna help your ass at all!"
"I cast no aspersions on your mother," the entity said, glaring at him as it picked up the blade. "Mine has suffered more public ridicule than ever deserved, therefore I do not speak ill of another man's mother-- ever. We are brothers, by right, by Neteru law. All Neterus are brothers."
Carlos slightly relaxed, but not much. Having to come face to face with a slightly more robust equal was not something he was ready to deal with. It was always the thing that one had never had to contend with that presented the greatest challenges. Shabazz hadn't lied. Although, at the moment, he failed to see where any so-called growth would come from this experience.
"Aw'ight. I see the tattoo. You got da silver. Neteru moves. Blade to match it. Fine. But the crack about same fathers--"