Wounded Love (G Street Chronicles Presents From Love to Loathe Series) (13 page)

“We have two minutes,” I shouted. “Jyme, throw the jacket out before we leave the grounds.” Jyme let down the window and chucked the jacket out. He threw his gun out, and I handed him mine. We were almost at the casino’s entrance when the sirens went off.

“Get rid of your phones, too.” I shouted. Cinnamon and Jyme threw theirs out the window. I gave Jyme both of mine, and he threw them out too. We drove through the entrance, and I took a breath.

“Walt, you have to hurry.”

He reached below the seat and put the blue flashing light on the dashboard. Then, he slammed down on the gas some more, and we all fell back deeper into the car seats. We made it to the small airport in twenty minutes.

We all jumped out the Hummer, and Cinnamon ran to the back and swung it open. Chyna was gripping my arm out of straight terror now. Jyme helped Cinnamon with the four bags, and they ran to the small plane.

“Walt,” I smiled at him.

“You just take care of that little angel of yours.”

I ran to the plane tugging Chyna along with me.

Chapter 7

Nantucket

I
sat looking out the tiny window next to my seat. Jyme was on the plane’s phone with Mrs. JJ, and he told her to call everybody and give them a serious heads up. I noticed he didn’t tell her about the baby, and that kind of hurt me a little. Maybe he didn’t think she really was his anymore.

“Things got bad and we had to leave right away. There was a lot of fighting and damage. Mom, please be careful.”

Everything became silent on the plane, and I felt myself becoming numb.

I felt someone sit next to me; I knew exactly who it was. I didn’t turn to face him because I wasn’t ready to have
this
conversation, but I knew I had to. He didn’t say anything at all, so I decided to start.

“Jyme, I didn’t find out I was pregnant until July. I never had morning sickness or any other signs of being pregnant. I had a period until June, and then it stopped. My period has always been irregular, so I thought nothing of it. We were having our Independence Day fireworks show, and everyone was on the roof. I got so dizzy and passed out. When I woke up, I was in the doc’s office at the casino, and he was examining me. He pressed down on my stomach, and I almost came off the table. Troy and Trey were there with me, and Doc asked them to leave the room because he needed to do a thorough exam. They left, and Doc prepped me for a pap smear. He was down there for maybe a minute or so, and then he jumped back. He asked me when my last menstrual cycle was. He said I was pregnant and asked when the last time was I’d had sex without a contraceptive. I told him, “never.” He gave me a dirty look and pulled out an ultra sound machine and checked my stomach. About a half a minute later, we both heard the heartbeat and I saw the tadpole on the screen. I freaked out because I honestly truly couldn’t remember. My thoughts went to Troy and Trey. Maybe they had drugged me somehow, but I pushed that thought away quickly because I knew there was no way they could have done that.

My thoughts wandered further and I started reliving that moment.

“I’ve only had sex with one man vaginally, Doc.”

“Cricket, please forgive me, but Honey, I know what you do, and you didn’t just start this lifestyle.”

“All of my previous partners enter elsewhere. Therefore, unless I could pregnant through the butt, I have no clue.”

“When was the last time you had sex vaginally?

“Three weeks before I started at the casino.”

Then, we both started counting back. I sat up straight on the table. Doc placed both of his hands on my shoulders.

“Cricket, everything is going to be fine,” he tried to assure me, but there was no use.

“It’s going to be alright.”

“Troy and Trey will kill it,” I whispered. My eyes now staring at an invisible spot on the door.

“Cricket, do you want to keep it?”

I thought of Jyme and I told him yes. I couldn’t kill anything that was a part of him. I started crying and then Doc promised to help me.

“Since your menstrual cycles have been going on this long, you might not show too many of the symptoms; and since you are a fuller girl, you can hide it better.”

Jyme’s eyes were all glossy, but he didn’t wear a sad face. He was different and I didn’t know how to approach this Jyme. It was obvious that I had broken him, and I didn’t know how to put him back together again.

“Doc got me all the prenatal vitamins I needed, and he promised to examine me in secret. We became good friends, and he did any and everything to protect me. October got bad for me. I’d gained all of the weight in my breast, butt, thighs, and hips. My stomach was still practically as flat as it is now. I had a very small bulge, but Spanx took care of that. I had already been saving every single penny I had way before I found out I was pregnant. I had to eventually tell Cinnamon because I didn’t know what I was going to do once the baby came.”

Jyme balled both of his hands into fists; they were so tight that his knuckles turned white.

“I knew Troy and Trey wouldn’t let me keep it, and I knew I couldn’t leave. So I remembered when Chyna and I were small, we stayed with this lady in Tennessee who kept mob kids mostly. She has a well-secured compound; many important people send their kids there because they are targets. Chyna and I accidently ended up there one day. We met this nun in the church and we trusted her dearly. She knew our true story and she fell in love with Chyna and me. So she called her sister who kept kids, and told us it was children’s camp and that it was super fun. She took us there and we stayed for a year.”

He frowned a little and then his face relaxed.

“There was a raid there one night: men looking for two little boys that belonged to a king pin. So many got shot and killed that night, and I was one of them. I was nine years old and playing basketball in the gym with a ton of other kids. These men came in shooting, and Chyna ran from the bleachers toward me screaming my name. I tried to reach her, but everybody was running, and I got knocked down and was hit by a stray bullet. Chyna somehow got me to the infirmary before the lockdown happened. We were stuck in there for a week, and then a bunch of nuns showed up to get us and take us to the Catholic Schools. Some parents came and got their kids; others just sent money for them to go to private schools, or they paid the nuns to put them in the Catholic Schools. No one ever knew each other’s real name so we fit right in. The woman who ran the compound was named Nadine Tucket, but we all called her Auntie Nan. We found out later that there was a breach in the security and that’s why the compound was overrun.

Jyme’s eyes shifted a little, but he said nothing.

“But since then, Auntie Nan has stepped up her security one million times over. It costs a small fortune, but if you want your child to make it to their eighteenth birthday, Auntie Nan was and
is
your lady. I thought of her when Cinnamon and I were planning this baby’s birth. I needed a safe haven for the baby; I couldn’t risk Troy and Trey finding out I was pregnant. They would have held the baby over my head for the rest my life, and I couldn’t put that innocent child in that kind of danger. I thought of you so many times, and I wanted to tell you; but I knew you’d come get me and they wouldn’t let that happen. Then I thought I could just give you the baby; you’d take care of it. But I knew they knew where you were, so if I ever pissed them off, they’d come looking for you and they’d find the baby.”

Jyme jerked a little, but he still said nothing. My mouth was so dry, I just swallowed hard and continued.

“Cinnamon and I came up with a plan: my aunt was sick with cancer. I was her only living relative and I needed to go see her in Nantucket, Maine. Cinnamon and I made arrangements for a safe house just in case something went wrong. We bought a small cabin in the mountains and hired someone to keep up with the grounds. We had everything planned, the escape route, money, IDs…you name it, we covered it.”

I reached for his hand, but he just stared back at me with the coldest eyes I’d ever seen. I just let my hand drop and I looked back out the window.

“I left the day before Thanksgiving and flew to Maine, and then I hired a driver to drive me to Tennessee. I couldn’t risk the chance of renting a car.”

My voice cracked and I had to stop. I took in a deep breath knowing this would be the hardest part for him. I rubbed my sweaty palms on the seat cushion under my thighs. He watched me silently, I’m not sure if he knew how hard this was for me or not. But he waited patiently, never rushing me or the story. I wanted him to reach for me and tell me everything was okay between us. I needed him to show me something. I looked into his dead eyes, pleading with mine for him to do or say something. But he never did. He sat right next to me, but he seemed miles away.

“I went into labor on Christmas Eve. No one at Aunt Nan’s could believe I didn’t know the sex of the baby. I told the doc several months before that I didn’t want to know. He asked me why, and I told him that since the baby was due in late December or early January, she or he would be my Christmas present and you’re not supposed to peek. I had the baby in no time, and the labor wasn’t that bad. She came out with a head full of hair, and she went right to the tit. I breast-fed her for a month and then we had to wean her off because I wasn’t going to be there to feed her. It almost killed me to leave her, but I had to protect her.”

“What’s her name?” he whispered.

“I call her Babe for now. After all the planning Cinnamon and I did, we never thought of a name.”

I smiled at Jyme, but he didn’t return the gesture. He turned from me and faced forward in his seat now. I sucked in a deep breath and leaned my head back. There was a huge wedge between us now and I didn’t know how to fix it. I looked over at Chyna. I was still in complete confusion on how she was sitting here now. I had searched all over for her and no one had seen or heard from her. I couldn’t understand why she wouldn’t have contact me. We had a plan; we were supposed to meet up at the church if something were to happen. But she never showed; she never sent word for me. She just let me think she was dead.

Chyna started getting restless, and she had scratched her arms so raw that they were bleeding. I got up and went to her. I told Cinnamon to give me the first aid kit in my purse. I looked at Chyna’s arms real good; she was a shooter. Her arms and veins looked awful. Where had she been and how did she end up like this? Troy knew she was alive, he had over a year to tell me this but he didn’t. He was using her as a weapon against me. But why would he? If he was only going to bring her to me, why did he wait so fuckin’ long?
That twisted fuckin’ bastard.
Hopefully, Nan would show us some pity and help her. I didn’t know a lot about junkie’s recovery. Chyna was my sister and she had to recover.

I had absolutely nothing that would fit her small frame. Our family was big-boned people; and I’d never seen Chyna this small ever. Cinnamon, Jyme, and I all had clothes. I would have to get something from Cinnamon for Chyna to wear. Chyna’s dress was filthy and it looked three sizes too big. What had happened to my beautiful, big sister? We all changed clothes on the plane and I borrowed clothes from Cinnamon for Chyna.

We landed in Nashville as the sun was rising. Cinnamon ran ahead of us pressing the unlock button on the big key. We were running through the long-term parking and heard the chirp. Cinnamon pressed it again, and we ran over to the four-door Nissan Titan truck. We piled in and buckled our seatbelts. Then we were off. I drove the truck and Jyme sat in the passenger seat. Cinnamon pulled the plastic off the baby’s car seat that was already buckled up in the back. We had a bag packed with three weeks’ worth of baby stuff.

Chyna started moaning and rocking uncontrollably; I told Cinnamon to give her two of my orange pills. Cinnamon handed the two orange pills and a mini water bottle to Chyna. She swallowed them without even asking what they were. I prayed those pills would keep her calm for a while, but I knew it wouldn’t last too long since Chyna was used to much stronger stuff.

“How far?” Jyme asked.

“Twenty-five minutes,” I said.

We made it to Mount Juliet exactly twenty minutes later, and six minutes after that, we were driving down the gravel road. We drove about three miles and pulled up to a high electric fence. I rolled down the window and pressed my code in. The gate opened and we drove up to a guard booth. Two guards stepped out and made all four of us get out of the truck. We showed them picture IDs; Chyna used her fingerprint as her proof since she didn’t have any ID on her. We waited a couple of minutes for her to be cleared. They went through everything we had on and everything in the truck. They looked under the truck and stepped into the bed.

After fifteen minutes or so, we got the clearance to go through and drove up to another booth. This guard took all of our fingerprints and checked us in his system. He waived us on to the next set of gates—iron this time—and we sat there for a minute before the doors opened. There was huge water fountain out front and a few dozen flowerbeds. We drove up to a small, gravel parking area that said,
Visitor Parking
.