Ohana Legacy: Thin Love Series Bundle, page 33
part #1 of Thin Love Series
Everything happened in a blur; it was a slip of time that Keira thought went quickly and that was slowed into seconds of action all at the same time. Ricky’s gun pointed back at Kona, curses loud, morphed in the shock of fluid quickness, the blast of the gun cracking against the screech of sirens and Keira scream, deafening and surreal to her own ears, Luka twisting forward, Kona’s shout as he turned to her.
And then, she was falling, Kona on top of her, his wide, looming chest against her face, his arms curled around her head and then time sped up with the retreat of Ricky’s running feet and the high burn of the Mustang’s tires on the pavement.
The noise came back to her then, like the sharpness in sound given with the pop of eardrums and Keira registered Kona bowing up from the street, pulling her to her feet, his hands skimming over her body, his arms pulling her to his chest.
“You’re okay, Wildcat. He didn’t get you. He didn’t get you.” Kona’s words came with a breath of relief, resignation that she wasn’t hurt, but Keira pushed him back, lifted his hoodie to make sure he wasn’t hurt.
“You either. Thank God, baby.”
“Lu, what about you?” Kona shifted, gaze rapid and around the street until he found his twin, lying on his back.
The bad kept coming.
“Luka!! No, no, fuck no!” Kona fell to his knees at his brother’s side, pulling on his coat to slide the large body in his lap. Blood pooled in the center of Luka’s stomach and his breath came out in ragged, heavy pants, clotted behind the gurgle in his lungs. But Kona didn’t notice that; he didn’t seem to see anything but his brother’s hand reaching for him and those black eyes moving over Kona’s face. “Lu, come on man. We’ve got to go.”
“Kona?” Luka’s voice was weak and Keira heard the gurgle behind his words, how each syllable came out with effort. “It burns, brah. It burns so bad.”
The sirens grew louder, sharper and Keira came to Luka’s other side, tears falling from her eyes when Kona kissed his brother’s forehead, when he held his falling hand.
“We’ll get you help, kaikua’ana. I’ll get...help...” That gurgle in Luka’s throat stopped, went completely silent and then something happened to Kona. Luka barely managing to keep his eyes open and the linebacker groaned, cursed loud before he shook his head. “No, Luka. We have to get our rings first.” He shook his twin, chin working, trembling as Kona pulled Luka closer to his chest. “Lu, come on. Lu?” When Luka didn’t answer and Kona’s face was completely wet, nose clogged, Kona groaned, mumbled something under his breath before he shook his head. “Fuck this. No! We’ve got to get you to a doctor. Come on, brah.” Kona struggled with Luka’s weight as he staggered to his feet, grunting through his teeth before he caught Keira’s eyes. “Baby please help me! Help me get him to the hospital.”
But she knew, even as she pulled Luka’s arm over her shoulder, even as Kona dragged his brother toward her car, his feet sliding behind them, blood staining the cream leather of her backseat, Keira knew that Luka was already gone.
Kona flew down the street, his sobs fractured between prayers he said aloud and Keira flew across the backseat, holding Luka upright when Kona took a hard right. Her hands slipped in the blood as she tried to fasten Luka’s seatbelt. She stayed with him, right beside him, hoping she could see his chest moving, hoping that the still, fixed stare would shift, move. She prayed for a blink, for a cough, anything that would have Luka waking up, but nothing came.
“It’s okay, man. We’re almost there. University’s down the way. We’re good, Lu. We’ll be good.” Kona kept looking behind him, eyes on his brother, glimpses at Keira as he thundered down the street. He reached behind the driver’s seat, grabbing onto Luka’s hand and Keira saw him shudder, heard the sob trapped in his throat when he pulled back a bloody hand. “Fuck! FUCK!” He slammed his fist into her console, once, twice, shattering the radio until bits of silver plastic stuck into his knuckles.
“Kona, you have to slow down. Please, baby”
He caught her eyes in the rearview mirror and the look he gave her had her hands shaking, her legs twitching; the fear coiled deep, burned her stomach. “Why the fuck wouldn’t you listen? Why didn’t you stay home? Why did you call him?”
“I was scared. He was scared.” Dread. That was the only word for what worked in Keira’s chest; there was too much sensation—the cold drip of Luka’s blood drying on her hand, the scream of sirens behind them as they flew faster and faster down the street, Kona’s curses, his angry words shouted at Keira and she couldn’t take it, couldn’t sort all that noise, all that fear in her mind. She couldn’t stop her eyes from burning or the hot track of her tears down her face.
Keira covered her ears, tried to rub away the sound of Ricky’s gunshot and Kona’s poorly suppressed crying. “We wanted to help you.” She heard Kona sob, heard the low prayers he made and the sirens behind them, the cruisers speeding past them wailing their horns. “Kona, you have to pull over. They’re chasing us. Please!”
But Kona wasn’t listening, didn’t hear her, didn’t noticed the beams of red and blue light streaming through the windows. “You should have stayed!” he screamed, taking a curve too quickly, the tires crying against the pavement. “You should have fucking stayed, Keira!”
She slipped into her seatbelt, vision blurred with her tears, her head muddy with fear, with heartache. She settled next to Luka, her head on his shoulder and she reached up to brush her fingertips over his open lids. They should be closed.
“I’m sorry,” she told him, feeling the tight clench in her heart twisting, burning until she couldn’t breathe. “I’m so sorry, Luka.”
The squeal of tires started again, became louder than the sirens chasing behind him. Keira heard Kona’s scream, the angry rage that pierced her ears, then with the rip of a crash, Keira’s body jerked forward and the silence took them.
Keira’s mother never wore slippers. Even at home, when no one was expected, when she wouldn’t be entertaining her friends or pretending that the shine of their lives was tarnished, she always took care with her footwear. Wedges, sandals, pumps and heels, all designer, all obnoxiously expensive, but the woman did not own a single pair of slippers.
It was slippers, though, that Keira saw when she blinked awake. They were pink, thin, and very clean, as though they’d just been pulled from cardboard and plastic. Her eyes shifted up her mother’s legs, over the charcoal slacks she wore and onto the pink cardigan slung on her shoulders. The sweater was fastened with a broach, diamonds that were as bright, as clean as the perfect polish on her mother’s pink nails.
Keira stared at that broach, gaze blurring at the sparkle reflected against the overhead light and she did not put much thought into the pound drumming in her head or the burning ache of her shoulder. She pretended to feel nothing and Keira believed if she stared long enough at her mother’s polished appearance and that shining jewel below her throat, time would not press forward. She would not be in this hospital, sore and bruised.
Luka would not be dead.
“I’ve called the nurse, Keira. She’ll fetch you some pain meds.”
“I don’t want them.” She didn’t look at her mother when she spoke, didn’t move her eyes from that gaudy broach until the woman came to her bedside. And when she lifted her eyes, shot a quick glimpse at the scowl on her mother’s face, Keira returned to the distracting blur that dulled her attention.
“You’ve really done it now, haven’t you?”
“Mother, please don’t. Not yet.”
“When would you recommend we discuss this mess?”
The nurse came in and her mother stepped back, let the woman in the blue scrubs fiddle around with Keira’s I.V. and push a thermometer in her ear.
“How’s your pain?” the nurse asked, looking down at Keira; a soft grip on her hand. Keira tried to keep from frowning. The nurse had a kind face, wide mouth, teeth straight and clean and hazel eyes that shone against the cocoa cream of her skin. But Keira could not bring herself to do much more than stare at her, blinking once before she shrugged. “We’ll need to monitor you tonight and in the morning you’ll go down for your procedure.”
“What procedure?”
The nurse exchanged a glance with Keira’s mother before she patted Keira’s arm. “There’s nothing to be nervous about. Dr. Mitchell does terminations every week and she’s very gentle.” The nurse picked up Keira’s chart and scribbled along the form, attention away from Keira’s open-mouth expression.
“Wait. What are you talking about? I thought I just sprained my elbow. What termination?”
Those slippers again, tiny feet that approached the bed and the dull ache in Keira’s chest smarted. “It’s fine, I’ll explain everything to her,” Keira’s mother said, nodding toward the door, dismissing the nurse.
Her nametag read “Renée” with a little accent over the first “e” and that kind smile dropped from her face. “You let me know if you want anything for the pain, okay, sweetie?”
Keira inched herself up, brushing off her mother’s attempts to help her and she moved her leg away from the edge of the bed when the woman sat down. She wouldn’t look directly in Keira’s face; didn’t seem interested in anything other than her long nails.
“You want to explain what the hell is going on, Mother?”
Finally, she rested her hands on her lap and when she looked at Keira, her eyebrows arched as much as the Botox would allow, Keira’s mother frowned.
“You’re pregnant. About five weeks.”
That revelation hit Keira like an anvil to the chest. She turned away from her mother’s frown and dates, weeks, flitted through her mind. When was her last period? When could this have happened? She took her pill religiously, every night, eight p.m. like clockwork and she and Kona were always careful.
The shower, she thought. The damn shower.
“Are they sure? How...wait, I don’t understand...”
“They’re sure. It’s one of the tests they ran when you came in. They had to know before they did the X-rays. You were down with the flu last month, remember? All those antibiotics.” Her mother rolled her eyes as though she thought Keira was the simplest, stupidest idiot she’d ever seen. “Antibiotics counteract the pill.” Keira could only stare at her mother, ignoring how deep her frown had pulled wrinkles on the side of her face. She didn’t care about the scowl the woman gave her or how her lip twitched with a curl. She was carrying Kona’s baby.
A baby?
It didn’t seem real; felt somehow like she was outside of herself; like this was a dream, a nightmare that was vividly, achingly detailed. She didn’t know how she felt. The news was raw, a gaping wound that bled as hard as Luka’s loss. Would this baby heal Kona’s broken heart? Would it be a small replacement for the brother that had been stolen from him?
Wait. Termination. The word felt dirty, bitter and when Keira realized what her mother wanted, what she’d already planned, that small glimmer of hope in her chest dulled.
“I’ve spoken with Kona’s mother.”
“You did what?” Keira had never wanted to hit her mother more than she did now. What the hell had she done while Keira lay unconscious in the hospital? It was clear that she was rerouting Keira's life, making attempts to change the course of how it would go. It didn’t surprise her in the least, but to reach out to Kona’s mother? Especially when their family was dealing with Luka’s loss?
“Steven saw her yesterday morning. She’d come to claim the body and arrange the burial.” Her mother waved her hand as though Luka’s death was a footnote to the point of her story. “I introduced myself and explained to her about your tests. We both agreed that terminating this pregnancy would be in both your and Kona’s best interest.”
“You both agreed?”
“Of course. You are too young to be a mother and that poor woman is dealing with far too much to be saddled with the role of grandmother. Trust me, you’ll thank me one day.”
Keira felt like a puppet. Her mother pulled the strings, twisted her this way and that until she danced, until she moved toward a long stage, one that her mother had set with checkpoints of expectations. She wanted to clip those strings. She wanted to clip them and wrap them around her mother's neck.
She knew the open mouth, then the closed, hooded look she gave her mother was full of anger, but Keira didn’t care. Kona’s mother, her own, were thinking about this child’s impact on their lives; they wanted to snatch the decision, the responsibility from both of them and Keira wouldn’t have it. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
“Watch your mouth, Keira.”
The laughter, when it came, moved up her belly. It was loud, rude and highly unamused and it hurt with the dull ache that tasted like bitterness. “You tell me you’ve decided that you want me to kill my baby and all you can think to say is ‘watch your mouth’?”
That laughter turned cold, stripped into the smart burn of tears Keira let fall over her face. She took to holding herself around her middle, trying to comfort the small person growing inside her, the one she hoped would be a salve over the anguish of the past week. She wanted Kona. She needed his arms, his strength, his protection from the world, from her mother’s cruelty, that she’d come to depend on so desperately. Brushing off her mother’s useless touches, Keira rubbed her face dry with the back of her hand. “Where’s Kona?”
“You don’t need to worry about him right now. He’s got enough trouble.”
Keira knew her mother meant to disregard her question. She didn’t want Keira asking about Kona or caring what happened to him and when the woman moved away from her, sitting back in her chair as though she wouldn’t give Keira any news on what happened to her boyfriend, she grabbed her mother’s wrist and jerked her forward. “Where is he?”
Keira was past caring about the shock on her mother’s face or the way the threatening scowl she wore blared a warning that she’d soon lash out, strike. “Orleans Parish prison,” her mother finally said, extracting her wrist from Keira’s tight hold. “He’s been arrested for accessory to murder. He was there when those boys were killed and won’t be getting out anytime soon.” The tears came so hard now that Keira could feel a knot working in the back of her throat and still her mother continued, voice impassive, uncaring. “His mother agreed that telling Kona anything about the baby would be a bad idea right now. He’s just lost his twin because of his own irresponsibility and by the time he’s out, the procedure will be complete. No need to rub salt in wounds.”
A pleased, contented expression came over her face, telling Keira this baby, the loss and the irrevocably broken lives could be pushed under the rug, brushed aside as though none of it really mattered. Taking a breath, steeling herself for the argument she knew would come, Keira lifted the sheet from her lap and dried her face. Then, mimicking her mother’s unaffected tone, she stared at her, no expression on her features. “There isn’t going to be any procedure.”
“What?”
“I’m not having an abortion. How in God’s name did you ever get my consent?” She narrowed her eyes at her mother, knowing instantly that there had been more under-the-rug brushing. “You waited until I was out of it, didn’t you? You had Steven hush things over and then what? Told Dr. Mitchell that I’d consent? My God, mother, how low would you go to get your way?”
“I’d do whatever it takes, Keira. I’d do anything to make sure you don’t throw your life away like I did.” Keira’s mother sound weak, pathetic, but behind the low whisper of her words, lay the ever-present threat, the grasp of reason, purpose that only made sense to her mother. “Why do you think I’m so hard on you? I push you because I want you to make smart choices.”
The sad thing was, the woman honestly believed that. Keira’s body hurt. Her tears had clogged up her sinuses, had her breathing through her mouth and she wanted her mother to leave. She wanted her to know that the only thing that mattered to her was this child, its safety and the hope she believed it would bring to their lives.
“No, Mother, you push me so I do what you want me to do. And when I don’t, when I show the smallest bit of free will, you smack me around until I fall in line.”
Her mother shook her head, frown heavy. “If I’ve been harsh, it’s because I want you to realize your potential. I want you to use your limited attributes.”
And there was the crux of so many of the issues Keira ever had with her mother. She blinked at the woman, measured the set of her impassive expression, the cold shift of her eyes and Keira was left helpless, struck dumb by the cruelty her mother held in every blink of her eye and unrestrained expression. Keira would always be nothing more to this woman than a visual shell, nothing of substance, no women were to her save as a pretty picture fashioned through instance and urging.
“My limited attributes? You mean my face? My body?”
Her mother touched her chin, fingers soft and surprisingly kind against Keira bruised skin. “We’ve worked hard to make sure you grew into that face. How many times have I told you...”
The slap came sharp, loud; Keira’s palm against her mother’s hand and the woman stepped back, shocked, surprised that her daughter had lashed out. “Limited attributes?” Keira said again, rising her voice. “My face, my body, what I look like? Not what’s in my heart? Not if I’m kind or good or generous? Not my mind, God, no you don’t care if I’m smart. You just want me to smile and agree with whatever asshole you find suitable enough for me, right?” Her mother took another step back, glaring at Keira as though she didn’t recognize her. “You don’t care that I live and breathe and exist for music. You don’t care if I’m the Valedictorian a hundred times over or if I know Chaucer or Shakespeare or the stories a thousand years old that have changed what I feel, what I believe in. Those aren’t attributes to you, Mother.
“You only care that I’m pretty and all I’ve ever, ever wanted for you to say to me is that I was pretty smart, pretty talented, pretty kind, anything, Mother, anything than just plain pretty. But you can’t do that. You don’t know how. You live inside your little box where everything is white and traditional and frozen in a time that died a long time ago.” Tears streaming over her cheeks, Keira wiped them away, annoyed, worked up. “You don’t struggle, you don’t need, you don’t want and all you care about is that I become a carbon copy of you. But I won’t be. I can’t be. There is too much of my father in me and he taught me something you could never beat out of me; he taught me to love blindly. He taught me that there is magic in music, that every single important purpose in life is about finding that magic and holding it inside you. And I took that magic and embraced it and it led me to a boy who is nothing like you; who is loud and large and beautiful. I love him. I love him more than breath and I will not walk away from him and there is no way in hell I will kill his baby.”
