"Not sure why it was a big secret, but you do you, Mom. Like you don’t always do that anyway." I grunted. "I ain’t got all day. Got shit to be doing that don’t involve you. So, get moving with the conversation. Tell me what you want so I can tell you to go fuck yourself."
She cackled. "Now who’s acting like they’re something better." Her eyes dropped to the VP patch on my cut. "Thought you didn’t do that?"
"I’m a grown ass man. Just like you’re a grown ass woman. We went our separate ways a long time ago—"
"I got cancer, Asher. I ain’t got long left to live."
I studied her, really studied her. She made a pile of shit look good, but, in all honesty, I didn’t see anything other than damage from substance abuse. That wasn’t to say she didn’t have both, of course.
"What do you want from me?"
"I know you got a daughter. Scarlet told me."
I tensed up. "You’ll never meet her if that’s what you want."
"You’d deny your mom the chance to see her only grandchild?"
"To hell and back. Don’t you dare go anywhere near my family, Ellen. Or I’ll make you fucking regret the day you were born," I snapped. "Now, if we’re done, I got things to be doing."
"Heard you were the VP now. Seems as if the rumors were true." She hummed under her breath. "Like father, like son, in more ways than one. Trash always reveals itself. You’ll never run past that. Though, I’ll admit, I didn’t expect you to make it to the council."
"That’s because of Bear and Rene. It has jack shit to do with you." I scrubbed a hand over my chin. "You know where Scarlet is?"
"No." She tipped her head to the side. "Heard she was doing something in Manhattan."
"You hear a lot, huh?"
"Always got my ear to the ground, boy."
"Looks like it," I said with disgust, even as I wondered why Scarlet was in Manhattan.
I couldn’t see her serving turkey subs in a diner, nor could I see her sitting behind a desk in an office, typing boring emails for a boss or working construction. She wasn’t the kind of woman who did menial very well, but thanks to bombing high school, it wasn’t like she had many options open to her.
"You can’t let go, can you?" Mom murmured snidely.
"She’s my sister." That was all the explanation she deserved.
I cut her out a long time ago, but I kept an ear to the ground, just wanted to hear that she was alive and keeping her ass out of jail. As of right now, I hadn’t heard a whisper of her in years. Neither had I known about her being in Manhattan.
"I’m your mother," she hissed. "Don’t I deserve some loyalty too?"
"You deserve to burn on a fucking bonfire. Hell, if you were on fire, I wouldn’t piss on you to put out the flames—"
She grunted, then she did the damnedest thing.
I thought she’d back off. I thought my words would have her shuffling backward, retreating to whatever shithole she’d been living in.
But she didn’t.
She struck me.
It didn’t hurt.
Not really. Pain tolerance shifted the more you had the shit kicked out of you and under Grizzly, I’d had that happen plenty of times.
It was a needle.
It quivered in my forearm.
I stared at it, unable to believe what I was seeing, unable to believe what she’d done.
"If I’m gonna die, then I don’t see why I shouldn’t bring my hellspawn with me."
I didn’t hear her. Not at first. I just stared at the needle. The dirty fucking stick that was in my arm. That could be carrying only the fuck knew what. Which was when it registered that this was why she’d brought me here.
This.
She cackled at me, baring yellowed teeth that were tinged black, most of them missing. Her stringy hair fluttered a little with her laughter, and she crowed, "You should see your face, boy—"
My hand snapped out, faster than she anticipated. As it closed around her throat, I grabbed the needle, tossed it aside, then climbed off my hog. I didn’t give a shit that it clattered to the ground, didn’t even fucking notice when it sank onto a pile of trash.
She had my full focus.
She had every bit of it.
As I squeezed her throat, choking her, she didn’t fight me. Her nails didn’t drag or claw at my forearm, no, in the meager light, I saw her smile.
The bag of bones that was Ellen O’Shea rattled as I pushed her against the wall, and her smile seemed to beam at me. So bright that it seemed to cut through the shadows, illuminating the murky alleyway, taunting me with her glee.
I felt the grim rictus of my jaw, frozen as I accepted what she’d just done to me.
Infected me with something.
Killing me with something.
I wanted to ask her why she had to do that, why she’d fucking destroy me, but that was my mother.
Poison.
From beginning to the end.
She’d poisoned me.
First with crack, and then this.
"It’s almost poetic," I whispered, staring into her eyes, eyes that were mirror images of my own, squeezing hard, not enough to kill her, just enough to hold her in place.
"Knew you wouldn’t let me see my granddaughter," she choked out.
"So you could infect her too?" A laugh escaped me, one as bitter and twisted as she was. That was when I raised my second hand and brought it to her throat. This time, I squeezed with the intent to kill.
But as I did, a shimmer of light pierced the gloom, just as Keira’s ringtone buzzed through the alley.
It jolted me. Not just because it made me think she was there, but that light, made me see the desperation in my mother’s eyes.
She wanted me to kill her.
That was when I accepted she had cancer.
That was when I truly accepted she was dying, not lying.
She wanted to die, just not by her own hand. Not by the cancer eating away at her flesh.
She wanted me to do it.
Which was when I let go of her. When I watched her crumple to the ground.
"No!" she barked, but her voice was a croak. "No! You want me to die, I know you do."
"Oh, I do," I agreed, my heart pounding in my ears, my lungs burning as if I’d been running ten miles. "But I think I’ll let whatever shit you’ve got eating into you do the job.
"Always knew you were a coward. The amount of times you OD’d accidentally and didn’t do us the fucking honor of dying, but this time, you can’t do it, can you?" I scoffed. "I hope you die in pain. I hope you die in agony and alone—"
I stopped speaking, stopped listening, stopped seeing and feeling as I backed off.
Maybe she wouldn’t be the only one to die in agony?
Terror slalomed through my veins.
What had she infected me with?
I backed off, hauled my bike into an upright position, and as I kicked it into gear, I saw her clamber to her feet. When she threw herself in front of me, I swerved out of the way.
"I won’t be the only one dying in agony!" she screamed, mirroring my thoughts but vocalizing them, wishing that on me.
As I gunned the engine, I knew I had to find a clinic, had to uncover whatever the hell it was she’d poisoned me with. As if being born addicted to crack because of her wasn’t bad enough, she wanted to taint my death too.