Thank God for my neighbor. If not for her, I wouldn’t be able to work these hours in order to pay the bills and keep food in Carson’s stomach.
“Hey, Mom,” Carson calls out as he comes into the kitchen. “Can we go to the park?”
Smiling at Carson, I can’t get over how much he looks like his father. The dark hair and the eyes alone are a dead giveaway. Then there was the height he’s already growing into. My kid is already taller than me at this point. Soon he’ll be even taller than he is now, he’ll probably end up being the same height as his father making him the ultimate spitting image of the man who has gifted him with his genes.
A pang of guilt and anguish flows through me whenever his father comes to my mind. Why I thought it was a good idea to come back here is beyond me. I should have known better, but for Carson, I wanted him to be around his family, just in case.
Shuddering I try not to think of all the reasons that brought me back here besides my missing home. Nor the fact, of who all is here that personally hate me and would like to never see me again. I can deal with their hatred as long as Carson doesn’t feel it.
“Mom,” Carson calls my name once again.
“Yeah, Car, we’ll go to the park. Eat some breakfast while I take a shower,” I tell him, pushing myself away from the counter.
“Did you eat, Mom?” I inwardly cringe, my kid would ask me.
“Yep, I actually ate a couple of slices of toast,” I tell him, being truthful, however it was at the hospital that I’d gotten these slices of toast.
Carson tilts his head as if he were trying to decipher whether I was telling the truth or not. “Okay, Mom,” he says, moving past me.
Ashamed as he knows I’m not completely truthful with him, but he’s smart and doesn’t want to push the subject right now. How I ended up with such an amazing kid I will never know but I’m thankful for it.
Heading to the shower, I quickly get cleaned up to take my kid to do something fun.
“Mom, check this out,” Carson calls out from the top of the ramp, holding his skateboard off the edge waiting for me.
“I’m watching, Car, go for it,” I yell back from where I’m sitting on top of a picnic table keeping my eyes glued to my kid.
When I’m not at work and I’m out with my kid my focus stays glued to him the entire time.
Carson does his thing going down the ramp up the other side grinding across doing an axel stall then going back to the other side, repeating this move. As he comes down, I clap my hands cheering him on, he’d been learning to skate since he first saw someone doing it.
“Way to go, buddy,” I say as Carson comes over to me.
“What did you think?” he asks, his voice filled with such excitement.
“You’ve really been practicing.” As I tell him this, a chill comes over me as if we were being watched. “Go skate for another ten minutes or so then we’ll head home, and binge watch the Batman movies.”
“What about we watch all of the Iron Man movies?” he suggests.
“It’s whatever you wanna do, bud.” I smile lifting a hand up to ruffle his hair he was now growing out.
“Mom,” he says, jumping out of reach and fixing his hair.
“Sorry, kiddo, go ahead and have some more fun,” I say, nodding in the direction he’d come from.
“Okay, Mom.” Turning on his heel, Carson goes back to skating.
The sense of being watched doesn’t go away and I quickly turn around to see if I can find the culprit of the sensation. Not finding anything, I turn back to my kid to watch him as he has fun. I love when he and I have days like this.
I wish we had more, and I was able to give him more than I do.
Ten minutes later, Carson comes back over claiming he’s ready to go. We head to the car, him riding his skateboard slowly next to me as I walk.
Just as we make it to the car my back stiffens at the sound of motorcycles coming down the road.
Oh no.
Please. Please. Please, don’t let them be coming in our direction.
“Mom, you okay?” Carson asks, his brows furrowed.
“Yeah, Car, how about I order a pizza tonight to go along with our Iron Man binge?” I suggest hoping to distract him.
“Cool deal.” He grins and my heart flutters as the roaring of the motorcycles grows louder.
Heart thumping in my chest, I open my door, glancing in the direction of the sound as it turns toward us.
“I wanna ride a motorcycle one day,” at Carson’s statement, I inwardly groan. Like father, like son. If only they truly knew. I mean Carson knows a little bit about his dad, has a picture of him I’d given him, but I think he doesn’t talk about him with me because he knows the truth.
“One day, kiddo,” I murmur, just as I spot him in the group going passed, my chest tightens at the mere sight of him. Climbing into the car, I put the key in the ignition. It takes a moment for the car to start but when it does, I pull out of the park’s parking lot and turn us in the direction of home. The entire way there the sense of trepidation filling me.
Something’s coming our way and I’m not sure which way it will be coming from. More than one person wants me dead and one of them just rode past on his motorcycle.
Chapter Three
Pitch Black
“Pitch Black, you good, brother?” Chains asks, coming in my direction. Lifting my gaze to his from
