in a thick Irish brogue.
“It’ll be more’n a kiss when I’m done,” Curly said with a nasty edge.
Gilda glanced over her shoulder at the lights of the low building from which they’d emerged. No one else seemed to be exiting; only the distant music of a stride piano punctuated the night.
“Commere.” Curly grabbed at Gilda as she easily ducked his grip.
The one on his knees found it all so funny he couldn’t get up. Gilda tried to back up to create enough room to turn away, planning to move so swiftly that they would never see the path she’d taken. Curly, now enraged by the failure to capture his prey, drew back his fist. His arm was broad under the heavy work jacket and his fist was massive as he struck out with the force of a wrecking ball.
Gilda stopped the man’s fist in the air before it reached her face and squeezed until she heard one bone break. The man on the ground sat contentedly, still laughing as if he were listening to Fibber McGee and Molly on the radio. Rage filled Curly’s face; then was replaced by fear as he saw first the anger and then the swirling orange flecks in Gilda’s eyes. To come all this way and still be faced with the past made Gilda dizzy with outrage. She listened to the bones snapping in Curly’s hand and in her mind saw the man who’d tracked her down when she’d escaped the plantation. A simple overseer who did not see her as human. The memory of the ease with which he’d enjoyed trapping her and his excitement as he’d anticipated raping her blazed inside Gilda’s head. The hard crackle of barn hay sticking the flesh of her back as she’d prayed not to be discovered; that light in his eyes that burned everything around him; the stink of his sweat as he’d hulked above her. The feel of the knife in her hand as it had entered his body. A sound of crying. Gilda shook her head to free herself from the images of her past that crowded in.
She held the curly-haired man with her gaze, leading his mind into a foggy place where he would rest until she was done. She let his broken hand drop, sliced the thick skin on his neck with the long nail of her small finger, and watched the blood rise rapidly. A ferrous scent filled the air and she pressed her lips to the dark red line, drawing his blood inside her. A kiss had not been all he’d had in mind. Any woman alone by the stockyards was fair game to him. And no one would ever hear a colored woman’s accusation of rape.
She pushed into his thoughts to find something she might fulfill rather than let herself enjoy his terror as she drained him of life. Inside, his insecurities flooded him like a mud broth; her rape would not have been the first. Only his camaraderie with his friend, the short one on the ground, still drunk and laughing, held any importance. As she started to pull away and leave him with his life, she probed further and saw the image of a young girl, the daughter of the woman who ran the boardinghouse where he lived. A parasitic lust clouded the space around her in his thoughts. Gilda pushed them aside and inserted a new idea: This child could be your friend, just like the short man who sat oblivious beside them. He’d never imagined women as anything other than prey, but his investment in this girl’s safety—her nurturance—might provide a renewed connection to the world around him. Gilda wiped her mouth clean and released him. He fell to the ground beside his friend, who only then looked up, puzzled. The short one who laughed almost toppled over when he tried to stand and better assess the situation.
“Hey … you … what’sa matter?” He blinked and as he swayed Gilda stepped backward away from the two, leaving them frozen in their comic tableau as she sped away.
The blood that would carry her through centuries burst inside her veins. A flush of heat rose in her body and suffused her face and neck with deepening color. Her dark skin glowed with the renewed life flowing inside her. The definition of her arms and shoulders sharpened imperceptibly with each step. Yet, even as she sighed with enjoyment of the fresh blood, she wondered why she would want all