Unleashing Sin - A. M. Wilson Page 0,80
look around at the markers around me. Hundreds of people gone from this earth, just like my mom is lost to me. Tears pool on my lower lids. I blink rapidly and swipe my arm across my face.
“I have missed you so much. I’m sorry it took me so long to come and visit. If I would have known…” My voice trails off like the breeze stole it as it blows past.
“Well, I guess it doesn’t matter much. You were gone long before I was freed,” I say softly. I chase a tear from my cheek with my thumb.
“I’m so sorry I wasn’t there for you. To take care of you like all the times you took care of me. I’m sorry the past year of your life was spent ill and wondering what happened to me. I wish you could have lived peacefully and comforted instead of tormented about where I was. It wasn’t your fault, Momma.” My voice breaks on the last word. I kick my legs out behind me and lay my stomach on the rough grass, my head turned to the side and pressed into the ground.
“It wouldn’t have mattered if you waited for me to come home or not. You wouldn’t have found me. The police wouldn’t have found me. I want you to know that. I’d never blame you for what happened, and I hope that wherever you are, if you can hear me, that you don’t blame yourself, either.”
Dirt gathers beneath my clenched fingers.
“I love you, Mom. For as long as I live and beyond.”
I don’t know how long I lie there, pressing myself to the ground as if I could somehow reach her below the many inches of disturbed earth. The remainder of my goodbyes I speak with my soul.
I do know the second I’m no longer alone.
“You alright?” His soft voice is a balm to my battered heart.
“I think so,” I answer what I feel is the truth. I flip to my back and gaze wistfully at the cloudless blue sky. And if I’m not right now, I will be.
Alex extends his hand, and I grasp it, allowing him to tug me to my feet.
“I hate to do this, but if you’re ready, we have to go.” Urgency and stress underline his tone. We set a swift pace to the car.
“What is it?”
“Tonight’s the night. Everything is ready.”
It takes me but a second to catch on. Sickness settles in my gut, the putrid taste climbing my throat. I’m strong enough to survive this.
“When?” The only word that matters when life is hanging in the balance.
“Now. We’re meeting at Elias’s, and we’ll split up after dark.”
An hour or two.
“What happened to waiting?”
We reach the car and climb in, Alex firing the ignition and driving away before I’m even belted in.
“Elias secured another car just this morning. Richard says there was talk of movement. That they might be down a few men tonight for the regular girls. He said this is our shot if we want to take it.”
“And we want to take it,” I mutter to my linked fingers on my lap.
The car is jerked to the right, dirt and rocks kicking up behind us, and we come to an abrupt halt.
“Do you want this or not? Because I’m all in, blossom. My guys are all in. For you. But if you don’t want this, if you’re changin’ your mind, tell me because I’m more than ready to waltz into the merry fuckin’ sunset with you.”
I peer out the windshield sight unseeing.
“My mom is dead.”
“Yeah, I know,” he replies quietly.
“Your sister, too.”
“Probably.” His voice grates the word.
“So many good women have died for nothing. I feel like, I don’t know. Like I have this purpose now. Like I didn’t survive only to live my own life but to help others similar to me. And maybe that means I can’t save anyone I used to know. Maybe I can only do good work with those who are already saved, but I want to try. At least this once.”
Alex smoothly pulls the car from the curb and sets us back on our course.
“Then I’m in.”
This man. I think back to what Elias said about his lack of self-preservation and vow to myself, to him, to God and the universe, we will make it through this.
I take my courage and feel it, cradle it, encase it in steel, and infuse it through my blood and bones.
Tonight, I pay a visit to the devil who owned