“You little bitch!” she screams, slapping me hard across the face. My head rings with pain from the harsh contact. She grabs my arm again and starts hauling me toward her car. My reasoning scatters and my body vibrates with sudden rage. I grab her arm and pull her toward me roughly before I clench my fist and hit her as hard as I can in her eye. She yells in pain, letting go of my arm.
“You want to play rough?” she jeers, holding her eye. Before I can process what she says, she kicks me hard in the stomach, making me fall to the ground out of breath. She leans down in my face. “You are just like your father. Weak,” she spits, her tone laced with disgust while she grabs my arm hard. Thinking quickly, I grab her elbow and pull her down to the ground with one hard tug. She reaches back and grabs my hair, pulling it hard. I try to pull away, attempting to get to my bag, which is feet away. She straddles my back, pulling my hair hard as I crawl toward my bag, but my breasts scratch against the broken parking lot, making it painful. I claw at the ground, trying to pull myself with the weight of my mother on top of me when a chunk of the asphalt breaks free beneath my fingertips. I grip it tightly and thrust it backwards toward my mother’s head. It connects with her scalp hard, making her cry in pain as she lets go and grabs at her head. I scramble forward, knocking her off me in the process, and grab my bag. I pull the drawstrings and reach in, fishing for the gun Bobby gave me. I look over my shoulder and see her racing toward me, blood running down her face, so I turn the safety off and point it at her head in a split second.
“Dani, wait,” she commands slowly. Her eyebrow is bleeding where I hit her, and she has a huge gash at the top of her forehead from the rock I slammed into her head.
“I hate you,” I state calmly, my tone threatening.
She steps back, her eyes looking right into mine.
“You have fucked my life up enough. Go back to New York and never come back here again,” I demand, still pointing the gun at her.
“Dani, you are not one of them.” She reaches for my arm holding the gun, but my finger pulls the trigger back without a second thought and a bullet lodges into the ground next to her feet. She looks down at where the bullet hit and then back at me.
“The next one goes in your head,” I warn her, but I’m not sure if my aim will justify my threat. “This,” I wave the gun between both of us, “is over.”
She bites her bottom lip and smirks. Then my mother slowly walks back to her car and slams the door as she climbs in before pulling out of the parking lot. She’ll be back, I know it.
I let out a breath when her car is completely out of sight. Bobby’s words sling themselves in my thoughts.
‘Never aim at someone unless you have every intent of killing them.’ I bite my cheek, trying to hold the sob, which desperately wants to escape at the thought that I wanted to kill my own flesh and blood makes me feel ill. I blow out a steady breath, trying to get a hold of my emotions, I put the safety back on the gun. I grab my bag off the ground and stuff the gun back into it.
“You better hop on; cops will be here soon.”
I whip my head around and see Shadow on his bike next to the building.
“How long have you been there?” I ask, not thinking to look there when I walked outside.
“Long enough to know someone surely called that gunshot in,” he replies, holding a helmet out for me to grab. “Get on.”
I grab the helmet and swing my leg around the back of his bike. My arms cling to his waist like old times and my body molds to his perfectly, warming at the touch of his against mine, and I can’t help but find comfort in the smell of his leather cut. I hate how perfect this feels, because I know we are anything but perfect together. My body begins to tremble from the letdown of adrenaline, making it hard to hold on as we drive down the highway.
***
Arriving back at the apartment, Shadow pulls up to his designated parking garage after cutting the motor to his motorcycle. I climb off the back and as soon as my feet hit the ground, my weight sets, making them tremble with pain. I hand Shadow my helmet and start to hobble to the door.
“What’s wrong?” Shadow asks, eyeing my unstable walking.
“Nothing,” I lie.
Without another word, Shadow scoops me up like a bride.
“What the hell are you doing?” I slap at his shoulder, trying to pry myself from his grip.
“Carrying you, what’s it look like?” he states, walking into the elevator.
“I can walk by myself,” I tell him, clenching my jaw.
“Not very well,” he chuckles.
I sigh in defeat and let him carry me into the apartment.
As soon as we walk in, he plants me gently on my feet.
“You going to tell me why you can’t walk?” he asks, nodding toward my feet. “You twist your ankle cat-fighting with your mother?”
I look down at my feet. “They are just sore is all. I haven’t danced in a while and they’re not adjusting well.”
“How is the job going?” he questions. I can’t help the look of surprise on my face. The fact that Shadow wants to do the chitchat thing has my mind in a complete whirlwind.