a video doorbell and caught Tabby’s face as she held the water hose and me as I papered a bush. Officers came to school and took us right out of our classes. I was so scared…”
“What happened next?”
“Mama Kerri talked to him. Explained our backgrounds, how we were both foster children trying to find our way, yada. He dropped the charges, but we had to pay for the damage and apologize in person. We spent the entire summer raking lawns, cleaning houses, babysitting…whatever it took to pay back the damage. All of our sisters helped though. It was pretty amazing. Everyone spent the summer paying off what Tabby and I’d done to get back at a teacher who was being unfair with Genesis. All for one, and one for all.” I shrugged.
“Wow, that’s something else…” Jonah’s voice was low and held a note of praise.
“The toilet papering?”
He shook his head. “Nah, the fact that your foster sisters and your foster mom all stepped up to help get you out of a bind. It’s like me and Ryan here.” He playfully punched his partner’s shoulder. “We’re brothers by choice. You are sisters by circumstance, but your love is a choice. Powerful stuff.”
I smiled wide with a sense of pride that he understood the connection I had with those women. “I think so too. Thank you.”
We stared at one another again, lost in the moment until Agent Russell announced, “We’re here.”
I dropped my head down to look at my lap and tried my darndest to hold back the outrageous smile stretching across my face.
Before long, the back door to the SUV opened and we all filed out.
The second we reached my complex, I knew something was wrong. The slider of my upstairs window was open, the billowy white curtain flapping in the wind.
“That shouldn’t be open.” I gripped onto Jonah’s forearm and stopped in my tracks, afraid to move even a single muscle.
He lifted his chin toward my apartment, which was on the second floor. “That your place?”
I nodded.
“Okay, stay here, out in the open. We’re going to go in first. “
I stood by a big tree, hiding most of my body, and watched while the two men climbed the concrete stairway up to my apartment, guns out and ready.
When they got to my door, they didn’t even need a key. Officer Russell just pushed the door with his hand and went in with his gun up. Jonah right behind him.
Please don’t let anyone be there. Please don’t let anyone be there. Pleasedon’tletanyonebethere.
I prayed over and over, my heart pounding so loud I could hear it acutely. All the rest of the sounds outside disappeared. No more cars. No more neighbors. No birds singing. Nothing. Just the sound of my own breath moving in and out of my body. My heart beating as loud as a base drum in a full marching band.
Until Jonah appeared at the front door, his face flat, his jaw tight.
Without thinking, I just ran. Flew up the stairs so fast I took them two at a time and slammed into his form when I hit the top, wrapping my arms around him. He went back a step and grunted, but held strong, bringing me close, his hand at my nape and one at my waist. I shook against him and waited until my nerves relaxed.
“It’s okay. You’re okay.” He rubbed the back of my neck.
When I could feel my heart rate going back to normal and my body no longer shaking, I pulled away. Nervously, I pushed back a long lock of hair, placing it behind my ear as I looked at the ground. “I’m sorry, I just…freaked out for a minute there.”
He grabbed my hand and squeezed. “Pretty normal response. Though I will tell you right now, it’s not pretty in there. You can’t go in.”
“What?” I hollered, pushed the door so hard it slammed back against the opposite wall, and slid by him before he could stop me.
And that was when I smelled it.
Blood.
I glanced around as Jonah tried to yank me back.
My home had been completely ransacked. The couch cushions shredded as though Freddy Krueger and Edward Scissorhands had been staying at my place and things got a little crazy. The TV was shattered, something having been thrown into it. Seemed as though it might have been one of my potted plants as the plant’s remains were in a pile of dirt mixed with leaves, glass, and other detritus from the carnage that was