Damali shut her eyes for a moment, remembering the terror that had coursed through her as a girl, and what she'd experienced in Hell. Something tall and huge and deadly and aroused, with a steel jaw and red eyes had come up behind her in tight, subterranean confines... only she didn't try to hurt the one that had fangs - even with a blade in her hand. All she'd try to do was reason with him and get away.
She rubbed Inez's back harder and held her closer. No, this wasn't Inez's fault at all.
But Inez broke Damali's hold and went to a far side of the kitchen with her arms wrapped around her waist. "I should have told you how my uncle was," she murmured, her voice rising with hysteria through mucous and tears in her throat. "But I couldn't tell even Momma. She'd left me there with my aunt and uncle until she could get enough money to come to the States and get me. She had a good job in Rio, but... after Poppi left her, she needed time to get the money. I will never forgive myself - if I had just told."
"I know, I know," Damali said, but not going to her friend. She understood space. "Inez, baby, we've been over it a hundred times, if once. You don't owe me. And I never told anybody what he did to you before I came... how long it went on."
"My uncle was a demon, a nasty, perverted, sick bastard who beat my aunt, so she was afraid, and I was there all alone for months until you came. I swear I didn't want anything to happen to anyone else like what was happening to me. He wanted to make money on foster care, and my aunt was so afraid of him, they didn't have kids... and Momma thought - " Inez drew a shaky breath. "She thought I was safer, had better schools, more chances here. He had a good job. They were respectable people. If it weren't for you... he would have kept doing what he did to me."
"Baby, listen, it was not your fault. You were just a kid, like me. Stop blaming yourself."
Inez closed her eyes and turned away from Damali. "As soon as you came, two weeks, that was it. I could see him plotting, trying to bide his time - but it kept him off of me." Inez spun around. "I am so sorry."
Her voice was so quiet that Damali almost couldn't hear her. "He got to you, didn't he? That's why you're messed up - don't trust any of them. You were younger than me."
With that Inez crossed herself and fetched more wine, took a swig of it out of the bottle, and then set it down hard on the counter. "I should have been protecting you. I was too scared, though. In a new country. Momma had said behave, I didn't want to let her down... I thought I did it, made him act like that. And I saw how he beat my aunt. He was strong, but God forgive me. I couldn't warn you."
"Listen to me, Inez," Damali said very carefully, coming to her slowly and extracting the bottle of wine from her grip. She lifted Inez's chin with her finger to force her friend to look her in the eyes. "You were sixteen. I was fifteen. The man was as strong as an ox. That was your family. I was in foster care. Nobody had your back. He didn't get to me. I kicked his ass and ran. Remember?"
She folded Inez into her arms, hugged her tight, and whispered to her like a mother would speak to a hurt child. "I should have never left you in there. I should have killed the bastard. Period. But I ran, and I vowed to never run from a fight like that again, or to leave my own behind in danger. I'm sorry I didn't get there for you earlier, Inez. Trust me."
For a long while they just stood there like that, holding each other and allowing the memories to wash over them while their tears washed away the grit, horror, and hurt they'd shared. Yeah, there were demons and predators in the world - inhumane humans as well as the living dead. Wasn't much difference between the two entities. Both stole lives, shattered futures, broke spirits, and twisted healthy minds.
"You had to live on the street for a month, until Momma could come get me. She asks about you all the time." Inez's voice was a ragged whisper, and she sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. "Damn, this shit takes me back. We were supposed to be laughing and having fun tonight. I don't know why I went there."
"I was all right," Damali said. "This conversation was probably good for both of us." She pulled back from Inez, and wiped her girlfriend's tears. "I kicked his ass good, though. Left his ass jacked up and in the hospital so he couldn't mess with you while you waited for your mom. Right? You got out, I got out. We survived. It's all good."
"You saved my life, D," Inez murmured, her gaze tender with gratitude. "And your crazy ass had the balls to call my momma long distance, using his stolen credit card, and you told her everything. Just confessed." Inez shook her head. "And then told everybody about him coming for you - even called foster care on the run, and charged his plastic until it melted."
Damali smiled sadly and took Inez by the arm and brought her to the table to sit down. "It was reparations," she said quietly. "Fair exchange is no robbery." She then retrieved the wine and poured two new glasses for them both, and plopped into a chair across from Inez. "Girl, you know me. I'd been in foster care all my life. I knew how to survive - so, by rights, I was really older than you, experience-wise. Gotta let it go. I ain't mad at you, never was. If we never talk again, for whatever crazy reason - 'cause life ain't promised, please, Inez, you gotta believe that."
"You're scaring me, girl. Don't even say we might never talk again. I've seen so many of us from the old neighborhood die young..." Inez shook her head. "Don't even say it; words have power." Then she shivered and looked at Damali hard. "Not my girl. You cannot die on me, hear?"
She held Inez's gaze. "I have a sixth sense about when bastards are plottin' on a sister. It's always in the eyes. That's why I don't have anybody yet. Until I can look a man in his eyes and see his soul - see no malice of intent..." Damali shook her head. "Nah. I ain't going out like that. Neither one of us are. It's settled."
She took a sip of her wine and allowed her gaze to travel out the window once Inez had squeezed her hand in agreement.
"Girl, you pray this house up good, hear? Like your momma taught you, she's a good woman," Damali murmured. "Your uncle tricked her into thinking he was cool, and your poor aunt, bless her soul, was trapped. So, you put down some salt and sage and incense and shit around you and your baby girl. There's all types of demons in the world. Predators. Fucking vampires. Goddamned werewolves. Snakes in the motherfucking grass, sis. Trust me. And I don't want you going out like that, either." She looked at Inez hard. "I have seen them. Ask me how I know."
Her girlfriend only nodded. "I hear ya."
Damali nodded, and looked out the window again. Inez had heard her, but hadn't heard the pure truth.
"Well," Inez sighed, "I guess if you made it a month on Rivera's mom's sofa without anything happening to you, then you're gonna be all right. The music industry ain't got nothin' on that. You were always a fighter, D."
"That was so crazy," Damali said, chuckling as the bittersweet memory threaded through her on another sip of wine. She couldn't fight it, had to relive just a little of it within the safe haven of Inez's kitchen. Memories locked so deep inside her began to surface, coming out of hiding in the sunshine of Inez's sad smile. Marlene couldn't even help them escape. The more she battled to keep from speaking, the more the memories fought with her, making her soul ache until she gave in.
"Inez, girl... feels like it was yesterday that I was standing under that bridge, all amped, a pipe in my hand, looking crazy and wild in the eye, clothes half ripped off, then these guys rolled up on me and were hollering out a car window and were probably about to gang-bang me..." Damali's voice trailed off as a red, souped-up Chevy came into her mind's eye. She swallowed hard. A street knight in shining armor, damn. She shook her head and chuckled again quietly to herself, her gaze going to the floor.
Inez looked at her and smiled, but said nothing. She was glad that her friend allowed a reverent moment of silence. She needed the time to just wrap that warm part of the memory around herself like a much-needed hug. It was so long ago and yet felt like it had happened yesterday. He'd jumped out of his car wearing a black muscle shirt, black jeans, a red bandanna wrapped around his head, pointing a huge silver Glock toward a pack of wolves. Her very unlikely hero had seemed insane.
It was the way he did it, and the wild look in his eyes. Crazy... crazy for her. She'd seen that look not so long ago. That I'll-take-a-bullet-for-her stare of ready-to-die-with-honor expression... the muscles in his outstretched arm corded so tightly the weapon in his hand shook with sudden fury. Then his arm had snapped back and he'd motioned for her to come to him with a nod. It had been reflex; she knew which way to run - toward him. And he'd gotten back into his gleaming red car on a leisurely stroll as the danger disbanded and drove off. He'd moved with casual authority, unafraid. His eyes were on the road, the muscles in his jaw pulsing, and once deep inside his territory where the music changed and the language on the corners was native to him, he'd pulled over, stopped, and looked at her hard.
Damali tried to keep the tears from rising beneath her lids as her mind refused to come back to Inez's kitchen. She'd been so afraid of him, then, too. But he reached out and touched her hair to move it off her shoulders. He'd fingered her micro-braids and cocked his head to the side with a lazy smile. She remembered flinching, her breath catching in her throat, wary of a possible new predator... but he wasn't one at all. Not when he dropped his voice to a tender murmur and said, "Don't. I won't bite you. What's your name... where's your momma's house?" Oh, God, he'd been so sweet to her... she had even kept his bandanna after all these years.
Seeing it in her mind's eye, secretly stashed in her dresser, she opened her eyes and tried to act like none of it mattered. She made her voice falsely upbeat as she spoke to Inez. There was no reason to allow her girl to see her bleeding to death on her kitchen floor.
" 'Nez, I was totally outnumbered, and would have gotten my ass kicked for sure. Then Rivera happened to roll up 'cause he was making a delivery and patrolling his territory; he jumped out his car, went off, cussed them out in Spanish, and pulled a nine." She covered her eyes with her forearm and leaned her head back against the wall and laughed hard to keep from sobbing. "Crazy, Latino, wild man. Oh, man, I miss his ass, girl."