Alayke Tru lost everything in her life with a single bullet. All her family is dead. She's ignored by almost everyone. All she wants to do is go home but home doesn't exist anymore.
If Alakye is willing to take the risk, she can disappear in...
The thick bars of the holding cells have that old worn down look. Suspects mill about and wait for whatever next will come to their lives. When I look through the bars I see what could have been me. I let out a long sigh and slide down out of the hard wooden chairs to the ground. The puppies work into my lap. Warm puppy bodies whine softly. Live music plays from the park next to the police station.
My fingers run through the puppies' soft short fur as they dream fitfully. Cold air moves through the crack window. My hands shake against the puppies fur. I feel the first claws of the little white pill withdrawal digs into my soul. The faceless people in the cell look at me but it's like I can't really see them back. If the detective hadn't listened to the answering machine I would be in the cell.
It's almost time for Child Protective Services to pick me up for a new house, new family, and new plastic life. The puppies' fur tickles my palm and I lose myself to a new dice roll.
Will the next family swallow me whole?
Another police officer joins the large group of gossipers. He leans in conspiratorially in, and acts like I don't exist, "Dr. Kingston woke up at the hospital and will not be pressing charges." They stand together more like a high school lunch hour then a police station.
"... The attempted murder deemed self-defense," not that they wouldn't have charged me. I keep my head down and the jumble strains of conversation fill the air.
"The two boys charged pled no contest," says one of the officers to the group. They chorus "poor boys," in whisper tones. "Poor boys," they say again like a chant. It's like the officers want to say the actions of those poor boys. It was nothing and they were only caught up in some kind of naughty game.
"The boy is in a coma. All those poor boys, getting in trouble becau-." I cringe, which seems to halt the little gossip session as the police officers move further away from me.
My hand gently shakes the puppies awake at my feet. Riverh and Rhain roll over. They open their little mouths in a puppy yawn. Two sets of big eyes look at me wagging their tails. I pick up my backpack leaving behind the trash bag with the rest of my stuff. They both follow me out of the station. We slip past his grief stricken mother.
My foster monster is still at the magical hospital. He's probably hooked up to so many tubes in a coma she can't look at him. I know his mother will go bankrupt trying to transfer him out. I can imagine the embarrassment of her son in a magical hospital alive. Her perfect son alive because of magic. She'll be too embarrassed to tell anyone about her precious son's location.
I feel the small coil of hate wrap around my heart. A gift from her son to me.
His mother will turn me into an awful person who attacked her son for no reason. A cautionary tale about foster kids from the system. She will probably end up losing everything to get her son into extended care at a hospital that doesn't use magic.
She has to keep up appearances. I roll my eyes.
My fingernails dig into the old camouflage backpack. My brother's bag is military camo and faded with age. I pull it close to my body and keep my eyes down.Don't think about the boy who tried to cut my hair. He thought my braids were ugly snakes. The boy who hated me so much he burned both of our worlds down.
Why?
Maybe it's better her son sleeps. She can imagine him as the boy he never was. The good boy she told everyone who would listen about. The boy who she thought was sweet, kind, giving, caring, and handsome.
The boy who would never touch me that way...
The boy she always believed over me.
He might not wake up again. He could still die on all those machines that breathe life into him. He could wake up someday. My hand shakes and I smell his overpriced cologne thick in my nose, overpowering my mind. Stop thinking.
I walked out the door past one of those plain economical government cars. A woman gets out of the car. She's in a threadbare women's dress suit. I take fast steps past her quickly with my head down. The CPS woman doesn't remember my face. It's not like I should expect her to remember she was the one who place me in that monsters family.
My feet move quickly into the park. A hot breeze brushes past my dry cheek filled with music. Throat raw a whisper escapes me into the hot Sacramento night, "CPS can fuck itself."
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