Page 64 of Praying for Thunder

Tabi screeched and went running out of the kitchen.

Dad grumbled, “Ruining my fucking breakfast, shitheads.”

With a smirk, Piercer sat back down.

Placing the utensil I’d been using back on the table, I said, “Nah, Dad.” Even though I was in pain, I casually yanked prongs from my flesh. “Blood makes everything taste better.” I scooped up more eggs with the tainted fork, then repeated the process. Around my bloody eggs, I smiled at my dear uncle. “Ain’t that right, Murd?”

Anita’s blood on his hands was the only kill he couldn’t get over. Or maybe he could’ve, I just wouldn’t let him. In case Ani couldn’t haunt him, I was sure to get the job done. Hence him kicking his chair backward and storming out of the room.

Dad burst into uncontrollable—and choking on breakfast—laughter. So proud of his off-kilter son, he celebrated, “You crazy sonofabitch!”

Without my dad’s protection, Piercer could’ve easily killed me, but my constant harassment and willingness to deal with the repercussions had most Titans convinced I truly was Onus’ son. So, they tread carefully. It was clear that, once patched in, I would climb the ladder of command in record time. They didn’t want to face me later as their superior.

Sadly, my defiance had more than one purpose. It’s how I learned to withstand all the abuse. It was brutal against my innocence when brought to the first place Onus would have me live. It was an out-in-the-boondocks two-story farmhouse, which happened to also be a ‘massage parlor’ offering ‘specialties’. Having grown up in a strip club, I wasn’t too affected by the men in and out. It was my fucking ‘grandmother’—a name I was forced to use—that added to my horror of just losing everything and everyone I knew. The old bitch was no fool and knew I wasn’t her relative.

After Tiny’s murder, Ani and I had many days of healthy tears. Many talks to express our emotions. Rosa had been a wonderful teacher to Anita. Dio had been the perfect enforcer of such tenderness. His mother must have been an incredible human.

Ani and I were given space to mourn and let go of the pain…

The same kindness would not be offered in Grandma’s care. I was punished for every tear shed. I was not permitted to speak Anita’s name. Nor Rosa’s. I don’t know what happened between the three women, but Grandma deeply detested them both. Repeatedly, she told me I was a bastard, I had been raised by a snake, my mother was a whore, and she was the same in Hell, too.

No outlet provided, I had to quickly learn to contain the agony. I was forced to bottle up emotions…

At first, Onus visited every now and then, but those occasions became less and less. So young, I was useless to him. He was waiting for me to get to a size that could be of benefit.

At Grandma’s, I no longer went to school. She homeschooled me in a super strict fashion. Then, realizing what my other teachers had, that I was gifted, I faced serious repercussions. Having no neighbors, there was no one to hear my cries except for massagers and patrons. None of whom would dare report what they had heard.

Although, one day, men in suits did arrive and shut down the parlor.

Even though they didn’t rescue me, nor did they even know I existed, due to me being locked and hidden away on the second floor, the ‘shut down’ was my fault, according to a very bitter Grandma, who no longer had women to make money off of.

The only comfort I had was the Voice assuring me I was on my path, but that, too, started to fade. The more I was abused, the more I shut down. The more I shut down, the harder I was to reach…

Utterly alone and trapped with a woman who could make the Devil tremble, I started to feel my mind was fading away, too.

I didn’t dare run away for fear that Onus would torture my family back in Nevada. But when the old bat was down for a nap, I went wandering into the woods, searching for something to ease my overwhelmed mind. The land was flat but dense at times. There were even some marshier parts where I trudged through shallow water, very unaware of snakes and other dangerous creatures.

That’s the thing about fear and over-sheltering a child. When it’s time to face the world, they don’t know as much as they should. Not that Anita had any plans of me being on my own so soon.

When I came across a very small, abandoned, early 1900s church, I thought of Dio and how he had said the right church can be food for the soul. Taking steps forward and around overgrown brush, I hoped for a miracle.

And found one.

Inside, at the rotting alter, was a little girl on her knees, praying up to a man on a cross. I don’t know if it was her pocket-sized white sundress, the setting sunrays shining through the cracked glass windows, or God’s grace, but I swear she was beaming light from everywhere inside her.

Eight years old, that early evening I stood motionless at the back of the church and listened as her tiny voice said, “…and my rabbit, Chewy…” Her accent was nothing I’d heard before but would one day learn it was southern. “… if you could get him to stop having babies with Peppa, maybe Daddy won’t cook him in a pot. And,” she sniffled, “could you please tell Mama I love her?”

With those last words, not only was my body still, but my whole ever-loving world stood still. This little girl was like me. Mama-less.

I must have made a noise because she abruptly gasped, looking over her shoulder from her knees. Then she scampered to hide in front of the first pew.

“No,” I tried, then heard her moving, attempting to get away from me. “Wait—” But she speedily darted past me and out the door I had just entered, leaving nothing but itty-bitty bare footprints in dust and dirt.

Running down the front stairs, I tried to keep up, but I was a child who hadn’t grown up running in the woods daily. She was quick, her little dress blowing in the wind, in and out of brush that was taller than her.

I had only one way to get her attention. “My mama is dead, too.”

Not facing me, she stopped about forty feet away.