The punches were real.
“Creed.” Auralia was sidling over to get to Brandy. This was a shit show. This whole damned day had been a goddamned shit show. “We have a situation.”
Rou had moved her body to drape over Auralia’s shoulder, and that was good in that Auralia could hold her up with one hand. Though she had to shift her angle to keep the camera focused on the men. With her free hand, Auralia grabbed Brandy’s arm to pull her out of the fray.
Brandy was slowly letting herself be drawn backward.
The men were fierce. And Auralia thought they were hellbent on killing each other. To the victor would come the spoils. And that looked like Brandy.
Brandy had her eyes fixed on them when she froze. The woman had been pale throughout the situation, but now her lips were blue.
Was the new guy a good guy or a bad guy?
New Guy had Shane up over his shoulder and tried to throw him onto the ground, but Shane had hold of New Guy’s pockets and held tight.
Neither shrank from the fight; they were going full bore.
Both of these men had tricks up their sleeves. Whether it was through their military training or a barroom brawl, it didn’t really matter.
Even in war zones, Auralia had never seen anything like this. Shane made a move that put New Guy on his back on theground, and as Shane straddled the man, he was hooking his thumbs into New Guy’s eye sockets.
But New Guy responded by planting the sole of his foot on the ground and rolling his hip up just enough to rip his weapon from his kidney holster.
“Gun. Gun. Gun.” Auralia said as the pistol barrel landed on Shane’s temple.
Auralia spun on the spot.
“Lady, you move,” New Guy panted out, “and I shoot you in the back. Easy as that.”
Blood was pouring from a deep cut on Shane’s head, dripping onto the gun barrel.
Auralia watched as the color drained from Shane’s face. His lips looked white and chalky.
She’d only seen that one other time in her life. It was back home. The guy had been in the water going after his pole that was tugged in by his fish. He didn’t see the croc, but the bite went into his femur, and he bled out right there in the water.
All the kids standing on the pier were pointing and screaming for help.
Her Uncle Sebastian was the one who got to the rowboat and got out to him first.
But by the time he got there, there was nothing that could be done.
Auralia had asked one of the elders from her neighborhood if seeing a man die like that meant she was going to be possessed by his soul? “Like, would he see that I was young and healthy and want to stick around and be part of me?”
“Now, child, why would you ask such a thing?”
“Because I felt him start to brush past me, then it was like he paused and looked really hard at the top of my head. And I didn’t feel him fly off again.”
Miss Cinnamon was her name. Wow, Auralia hadn’t thought about her in ages. Hadn’t even thought about her when Creed and she were talking about Sheelah in the car.
But Sheelah hadn’t died.
Was Shane dying?
When Auralia told her story to Miss Cinnamon, she got up and called Mamma, asking for permission to help. Mamma had apparently said yes, because Miss Cinnamon took Auralia out of the garden, sat her on a stool, and pressed colored stones into her palms. Out came the blue box of salt, and Miss Cinnamon traced her way around the stool three times, keeping them both within the lines.
There was a smudge stick, as Auralia remembered, and chanting.
Yes, she remembered that. She remembered that her eyes were closed and the skin on her scalp prickled and itched, but she knew not to move her hands to scratch at it. It felt like her hair lifted up like the childhood game of rubbing a balloon on your head and seeing the static.
