BooksBarbecue
Back Fractured
Chapters (42)
  1. TITLE PAGE
  2. COPYRIGHT PAGE
  3. DEDICATION PAGE
  4. CONTENTS
  5. ONE
  6. TWO
  7. THREE
  8. FOUR
  9. FIVE
  10. SIX
  11. SEVEN
  12. EIGHT
  13. NINE
  14. TEN
  15. ELEVEN
  16. TWELVE
  17. THIRTEEN
  18. FOURTEEN
  19. FIFTEEN
  20. SIXTEEN
  21. SEVENTEEN
  22. EIGHTEEN
  23. NINETEEN
  24. TWENTY
  25. TWENTY-ONE
  26. TWENTY-TWO
  27. TWENTY-THREE
  28. TWENTY-FOUR
  29. TWENTY-FIVE
  30. TWENTY-SIX
  31. TWENTY-SEVEN
  32. TWENTY-EIGHT
  33. TWENTY-NINE
  34. THIRTY
  35. THIRTY-ONE
  36. THIRTY-TWO
  37. THIRTY-THREE
  38. THIRTY-FOUR
  39. THIRTY-FIVE
  40. THIRTY-SIX
  41. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  42. ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Of course he’d figured it out. I shouldn’t have expected anything different. “I didn’t want to talk about it. I still don’t want to talk about it.” I crumpled onto the couch and bowed my head, letting my hair fall around my face as my misery finally bubbled up to drown me. “In fact, I almost wish that bolt had hit me a few inches to the right. Then you wouldn’t have to deal with me, and I wouldn’t have to deal with this.”

Malachi sank to his knees in front of me like someone had punched the air out of his lungs. “Don’t say that, Lela,” he whispered. His hands moved forward, reaching for me.

I jerked backward and slid sideways along the couch, away from him. I couldn’t take him halfway. I had to have it all—or nothing. “Don’t touch me. You’re the one who wanted distance.”

My boots hit the floor, and I was up. Rage singed me on the inside, turning all my edges black and brittle. With my fists balled up tight against my sides, I whipped around, ready to loose some of my fury on him—because the alternative was to collapse on the floor and cry, and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to stop once it started.

Malachi was still on his knees in front of the couch, his head bowed, like he was comforting the ghost of me.

I spoke to his back, hurling words like knives. “I’ll tell you the deal, and then you can decide if you’d like to request my removal as your Captain. Are you ready for this? Because the irony here is beautiful. That Mazikin was my mother.”

Malachi raised his head.

“Yeah. You see now. My mom must have been living on the streets. And they got her.” It was so much easier to do this when I couldn’t see his eyes, when I didn’t have to deal with what they might reflect. “Think how you would feel if you hadn’t seen your mother since you were a small child. If you were too young when she left you, too young to remember her face, too young to remember if she really cared for you. But when she shows up, when she looks at you with your own eyes, it all comes back. The way she sang to you and loved you once, before she couldn’t do it anymore. All of those memories, buried deep in your head. For years. Waiting to ambush you.”