Dante moves closer. ‘I’ll spread her legs. You do her first… then it’s my turn.’
6:15 a.m.
Lilith staggers home just before sunrise. Her lower lip is swollen, her cheek bruised. Her shirt is torn. She is missing her shoes.
Lilith is no longer numb.
Lilith is sober.
Lilith is ready to die.
She sneaks around back and enters the kitchen. Hears Quenton snoring.
Quietly, she roots through a kitchen drawer. Locates the steak knife.
She enters Quenton’s bedroom. Sees the old man passed out on the floor. Enters the master bathroom. Stares at the tub and the razor blades lined up in the soap dish. Contemplates. Decides against running the bathwater for fear of waking her grandfather.
Lilith enters the walk-in closet. Tugs on the dangling ceiling chain, retracting the wooden step-ladder from the attic. Climbs up into the crawl space, searching for solitude.
Lilith hates the attic. As a four-year-old, Lilith feared the attic.
This morning, the attic is a refuge, a point of no return.
Dawn shines in from the cracked hexagon of glass.
Lilith stares at the veins of her wrists. She is not afraid to die, but she is afraid of the pain. Pain means noise, and noise could awaken Quenton.
She looks around for a towel or shirt, something to stuff in her mouth and bite down upon while she opens her veins.
She sits up, wincing at the sharp twinge shooting through her swollen rectum. She thinks about contacting Jacob, but feels too ashamed. He’ll think I’m a slut.
Her azure-blue eyes skirt the attic, pausing at an unrecognized cardboard box. She reaches over and opens it.
Curiosity captures her attention. It is her mother’s personal effects.
She removes the dusty photo album and opens the torn book flap, accidentally spilling half the unbound contents.
A yellowed black-and-white photo of her mother and father taking their wedding vows.
A legal document signifying Madelina Aurelia’s adoption by her foster parents, the Moreheads.
Madelina’s second-grade report card-all As.
A few disturbing watercolor paintings. Several more photos of her mother as a teen.
She fingers the sealed manila envelope. Tearing away the yellowed tape, she reaches inside, removing several old newspaper clippings and a black-and-white photo of a frightening old man.
On the back of the photo is scrawled: Uncle Don Rafelo.
She unfolds the aged newspaper clippings. Each story concerns her great-uncle, reputed to be a Nagual -a powerful Mexican witch.
Lilith reads, her schizophrenic mind absorbing the information like a sponge.
15
Students mill about the patched tarmac schoolyard, waiting for the sixth period bell to ring. Dozens hang in groups, smoking by the seven-foot-high chain-link fence. Others are preoccupied with palm-sized computer games. Shirtless boys play full-court pickup basketball.
Lilith kneels behind one of the basketball poles, then turns to Brandy. ‘Okay, we’re here. Now what?’
Do as I told you.
‘They’ll hurt me.’
Not this time. Get ready.
Lilith’s luminescent blue eyes follow the game.
Dante Adams dribbles between his legs, then launches a wild shot at the opposite basket. Ronny Ley grabs the defensive rebound and pushes the ball up court. Evading a defender with a crossover dribble, he pulls up in front of Brett Longley at the three-point arc and shoots.
Swish.
Lilith dashes onto the court and grabs the basketball before it hits the ground, then takes off running.
‘Hey! Crazy bitch, come back here!’
Lilith races for the seven-foot-high chain-link fence… and hurdles it.
Jaws drop. The boys swear out loud, watching helplessly as the teenaged girl dodges traffic and ducks behind a fast-food restaurant.
‘Come on!’ Ron, Dante, and Brett scale the fence. The three boys cross the street, then cut between a row of shrubs bordering the rear of the hamburger joint.
Lilith is waiting in back, seated atop an open steel trash bin that is surrounded by a rusty brown, eight-foot-high wooden fence.
‘There she is,’ whispers Dante, his rage tinged with lust.
‘Know what? I think she’s playing with us,’ Ron says. ‘You had a good time Friday night, didn’t you, girl? I think you want some more.’
‘Let’s do her right here,’ says Dante. Reaching up, he grabs Lilith by her ankles.
‘Get off me!’ She kicks at Dante and Ron as they drag her down, pinning her to the ground.
‘Hey, come on, easy guys.’ Brett backs away, but is unable to tear his eyes away as Dante pulls up Lilith’s skirt, grabbing for her underpants.
This time, a fully sober Lilith slips inside the nexus.
She immediately springs to her feet, rising through invisible waves of energy. Ron and Dante’s expressions morph into disbelief as she lunges for them, grabs them by the hair, and smashes their skulls together with all her might.
The violent collision sends blood and bone spouting in slow motion through gelatinous waves of energy.
Lilith stares at the dueling crimson streams, then turns her attention to Brett.
The boy has turned and is attempting to flee.
Lilith kicks him in the buttocks, launching him facefirst into the side of the steel trash bin.
The bruised teen collapses. Bleeding and barely conscious, he struggles to crawl away on all fours.
‘Finish him.’
Lilith turns in shock, the nexus suddenly filled with an icy aura.
The old man is tall and gray-haired, his appearance striking. A long aquiline nose, like that of a hooked eagle, dominates his wrinkled Mesoamerican face. The left eye is a piercing azure-blue, the right eye hazel and lazy, always glancing sideways. Loose silky white clothing hangs from his bony frame.
‘Who are you?’
‘You know who I am.’
‘Uncle Don? Why are you here?’
‘I’m here to guide you. Now finish the last one quickly, before someone sees you.’
‘I… can’t.’ She doubles over, the lactic acid buildup excruciating.
Don Rafelo seems to glide through the invisible waves of energy as he approaches. ‘You can’t finish him because you’re weak. Move aside and learn.’ Don Rafelo reaches down to Brett. Gripping the boy’s skull in the knotty fingers of his right hand, he twists, shattering the boy’s cervical vertebrae, severing the spinal cord.
Brett collapses flat on his face-dead.
Don Rafelo turns to Ron and Dante and inhales deeply, ‘tasting’ their diminishing life forces. ‘You did well. These two are close to death. Help me get them into the trash bin.’
Lilith complies.
The trash truck will arrive three hours later. By nightfall, the remains of the three teens, along with the rest of the debris, will be deposited in a dirt pit located atop ‘Mount Trashmore,’ a man-made mountain of garbage located twenty miles south of Lake Okeechobee.
8:10 p.m.
The motel clerk fingers his goatee as Lilith lays the five crumpled twenty-dollar bills she has stolen from Quenton’s wallet upon the coffee-stained front desk.
‘That should cover my uncle’s room for the rest of the week.’
The clerk scoops up the money, then hands her a key, his grip lingering a second too long. ‘Let me know if there’s anything else I can do you for.’
She ignores his leer, then heads outside.
Don Rafelo appears from behind a parked car. He follows her to Room 113.
The room is musty, reeking of mildew. Lilith turns on the air-conditioning, the antiquated unit growling to life. ‘Okay, Uncle Don, I’ve done everything you’ve instructed, now I want to know how you found me.’
Don Rafelo lies back on one of the twin beds, staring at her. ‘I never lost track of you, even when your parents tried to escape me by fleeing to America. I’m the one who arranged your parents’ marriage.’