Just like that, my mistrust of Deborah Pratt flicked off like a light bulb, replaced by the empty ache that had gnawed at me ever since I’d accepted the god’s proposition. They’d be a family, and I’d be somewhere far away.
“Hey, auntie… this is for you.” I kicked a bag across the floor toward her.
Deborah’s eyes widened at my use of the word I’d avoided until now, the word that still felt foreign on my tongue but that I wanted to get used to saying while I still had the chance. But she knew me better than to acknowledge it aloud. Instead, she peered down at the bag. “What is it?”
“Two-hundred thousand dollars. Zehra needs it – you’re probably better off not knowing what for. Can you drive it down the coast to Innsmouth tomorrow so she can pick it up?”
“Of course.” Deborah took the bag, staring at it like it was a bomb about to go off. She glanced at the time. “As much as I wish you’d all stay with me longer, shouldn’t you get going?”
“Yeah. We’ve got a long drive.”
She tossed Quinn the keys to her Jeep. “Just watch it in third gear – it’s a little sticky. And I apologize in advance about the dog smell. It comes with the territory, I’m afraid.”
“We don’t mind. Quinn, give me those,” Trey grabbed for the keys. Quinn dangled them out of his reach.
“Nah-ah. Deborah trustsme.” Trey lunged, but Quinn was faster. He sprinted out the door and dived into the driver’s seat, letting off a stream of maniacal laughter as Trey tried to pull him out the window by his shoulders. Deborah laughed.
“With those boys protecting you, you hardly need me at all.”
“I wouldn’t say that.” I touched her hand, the sensation of her soft skin sending a fire through me. I’m touching my mother’s sister. My mom’s name was Jessica.“Thanks. For everything.”
“You’re welcome. I just hope it’s enough.” Her kind eyes flickered over mine – eyes that looked so much like my mom’s.
It’s enough to free them. And that’s what’s important.
I just wish I had time left to get to know you, to be a family, to read my mom’s journals and cry over them with you. But wishing is pointless.
Deborah pulled my hand to her lips and pecked the knuckles, the gesture reminding me so much of Mom that my chest ached. “Be safe, Hazel.”
“I will,” I promised. With one final scratch behind the ears, I said goodbye to the dogs and climbed in back with Ayaz, the second bag of money stashed between us.
“We’re off.” Quinn cranked up the volume on a CD of 90s gangsta rap and gunned the engine. We pulled out of the parking lot and drove out of Arkham in the direction of a place I never wanted to see again. A place where ghosts clung to every building and street corner, where my past had been written in blood and fire.
Back to the badlands of Philadelphia.
Chapter Thirty-One
It could have taken us two-minutes or ten hours to reach Philly – the car journey passed in a blur of spinning thoughts and nausea only partly caused by Quinn’s driving. I had no sense of time or geography, only a growing terror that crawled across my skin. I was speeding toward a place that every bone in my body urged me to avoid.
We wove through the outer suburbs before I recognized the skyline and realized we’d arrived in Philly. I wasn’t used to seeing the city from the outside in – in the Badlands, we all knew that we were never going to escape unless it was under police escort or in a body bag.
Not even I had escaped. Not really. I still carried the Badlands around like a shackle. My fingers tightened around Ayaz’s, and he squeezed back.
As we drove deeper into the heart of the Badlands, Quinn’s fingers gripped the wheel tightly. For the first time, I saw the burned-out cars, broken houses, kids playing on the street, and graffiti everywhere as the Kings must’ve seen it. Ayaz had been exposed to poverty in Istanbul – from what he’d told me, Turkey was very different from America – but Trey and Quinn had been sheltered by their privilege and never had to contemplate what it meant to live with a legacy of poverty.
As above, so below. The cycle of horror and violence drones ever on.
I dug my nails into my scar as the memories assailed me. Dante and I skipping school to wander the streets together, laughing at our own private jokes. Me as a ten-year-old having driving lessons from one of Mom’s old boyfriends in the empty lot behind the old railway station. I’d barely been tall enough to see over the hood. Mom taking her stripping clothes down to the laundromat and paying extra for fabric softener – the only treat she allowed herself.
The Badlands were part of me, etched into my bones. I might have gotten out, but I never really left this place behind. Even from across the universe, its ghosts would still haunt me.
“This is where you lived?” Trey was trying to sound bored, uninterested. But he couldn’t tear his eyes from a grey concrete duplex with windows blacked out.
I nodded.
“What a shithole.”
I bit back a defense retort. He wasn’t wrong. It was a shithole.
