name.
“Aaron, huh?” Darren turned the gun on him again. “So that’s the name they’ll be writing on your tombstone.”
Aaron shielded his face-as if his arms could block a bullet-and backed off.
“Darren, get a grip on yourself! You’re not that kind of person. I’ve known you since high school. You’re no killer.”
Aaron peeked out from behind his arms and saw Darren facing Moni with the gun on her again.
“You’ve known me all these years, Moni, and now you’re kick’n me outta this house like a dog. Cause I made, what, one mistake? How many times have I covered for you when you screwed up? Huh? You still haven’t told off your father and he keeps com’n round. Without me, you think he would have left here without hurting you?”
“And now you’re telling my father all about my life. You’ve sure come full circle.”
“I’m just making sure you remember how good you had it. You think this little white boy is gonna save you from your ex-con daddy? Look at him.” He waved at Aaron with a hand and forearm nearly as wide as the kid’s calves.
By Aaron’s count, Moni had a thuggish ex-boyfriend, an abusive father and a cruel boss. With her horrible luck with men, Aaron figured he resembled a dashing prince in comparison. Of course, he didn’t feel all that heroic with Darren and his gun in the room.
When he saw Moni’s desperate eyes putting him on the spot to say something and stand up for his manliness, Aaron couldn’t catch his tongue. His bragging would have been like the town sandal shiner unleashing a battle cry in the face of a Spartan warrior.
“Get outta here, punk.” Darren said without even pointing his gun at him. The deep growl in his voice sounded deadly enough. “Leave me and my girl and don’t let me catch you even looking at her again. If I see you again, there’s gonna be a whooping headed your way.”
Aaron didn’t feel readying for a whooping that day, especially from the business end of a gun. He faced Moni, who still had the weapon trained on her. “It’s okay, Aaron. You don’t have to stay for this.” She couldn’t even look at him as her words drowned in disappointment.
Aaron took a couple of steps toward the door. Then he doubled back and glanced at Mariella, who cowered behind the couch where Darren couldn’t see her. One week before, the girl had seen her parents beheaded and gorged by a freakish killer. Today, she would see the only person left in the world who cared for her shot dead, Aaron thought. Who would love and protect her then?
As Aaron stared at Mariella’s remarkably serene brown eyes, he remembered the brown eyes and black skin of his childhood friend, Crystal Marshall. Only one of six black kids in his elementary school on the beachside, she had lived a few houses down from him since they were toddlers. They always played together, often pitting toy soldier against purse-wielding dolls. Yet, as they got into middle school, most of the kids weren’t so friendly with Crystal. They made fun of her “mini afro” and said she smelled like a monkey. When the girls shoved her, Crystal hit back. The teachers always saw the second blow and suspended her.
Aaron got picked on too, but not nearly as bad. Hanging out with Crystal would give them a whole new arsenal of names they could call him. Some of the boys said they’d beat the crap out of any white kid who dated one of the black students. The only guy who broke this rule was a football player, and he could fend for himself better than puny Aaron could.
So he blew Crystal off. They didn’t talk for the whole spring of eighth grade-not even at the bus stop they stood at every morning. That summer, a moving van rolled onto Crystal’s driveway and loaded up her house. Aaron went over and asked her mother whether he could see Crystal. Even at fourteen, he recognized the look of betrayal on a grown woman’s face. Crystal didn’t want any part of him.
A few days later, her family left. Aaron heard they moved to Atlanta, where Crystal might fit in better and find some friends-something Aaron had failed at being for her when she most needed him.
Now, Moni had a gun on her. He barely knew this woman, but she needed him. So did Mariella.
“I’m staying right here,” Aaron said. Darren pointed the gun between his eyes. He resisted the urge to flinch. “I’m not leaving them alone with you.”
“What do you mean them?” Darren asked. Moni gawked at Aaron. That wasn’t the reaction he had been hoping for. “So you were looking at someone back there. Whoever it is better get out here, and I mean now!”
Mariella didn’t move.
“You wanna see some blood? If not, you get your ass out here.” Darren turned his gun on Moni again. Her face went pale. Aaron knew she’d take a bullet for the girl, but that would only buy her a minute. He had a split second to stop Darren.
Too late. Mariella stepped out from behind the couch. The man had a fresh target. Seeing the look on Moni’s face, Aaron saw that this terrified her more than staring down a bullet herself.
“No. Don’t!” Moni pleaded.
Darren faced the child with the gun at waist level. He aimed it in her general direction, but not straight at her. Mariella wobbled on those meek little feet. Her lips shuddered as she eyed his instrument of death. Without a single word or even a scream, the girl’s angelic face contorted into a portrait of absolute dread, as if a million bodies had roasted in ovens before her eyes.
“Oh… I’m sorry,” Darren said as he tucked the gun into the waistband of his jeans. Moni’s mouth opened so wide that she nearly kneed herself in the jaw. “I didn’t mean to frighten you, kid.”
Mariella backed against the screen door in the rear of the house. Darren shuffled backwards toward the front door.
“I didn’t realize the girl was home,” he said. “I’m not like your daddy. I don’t hurt children.” Moni furrowed her brow and took a step toward her downed gun. “Yeah, I’m not done with you neither. I’ll see you again, Moni- real soon. And I better not see this punk making a play for your cooch or I’ll smash his little prick in my car door and drive ‘round town with him. Ya feel me?”
Aaron would have returned fire with a witty comeback, but concentrated on crossing his legs just in case. His chicken-legged stance didn’t exactly make him look macho for Moni, but at least he didn’t bail out of there crying.
When Darren slammed the door shut and headed for his car, Moni hustled over, scooped up her gun and pointed it at him through the window until he drove away. Aaron couldn’t understand why she didn’t do that in the first place if she thought he came there for a fight-as the broken mirror on Aaron’s car surely attested.
“Holy shit,” Aaron remarked.
“If you want to leave now, I’ll understand,” Moni said as she kept watch out the window. Aaron read the shameful expression on her face in the reflection off the glass as a sign that she couldn’t bear facing him.
“Naw, it’s cool. Everybody’s got some skeletons in their closet. It’s just that those skeletons don’t usually come packing heat.”
“And he might do it again. He doesn’t let things go. The safest place for you to be is as far away from me as possible.”
“What about Mariella? If it’s so dangerous around you, between him and all the craziness in the lagoon, then why is she here? I can help you both out.”
“Mariella…” Moni turned and looked for the girl. “Oh my God! Get away from that!”
Aaron whirled around and saw the night black water moccasin coiled on the other side of the screen door. Mariella was only a foot away on the other side of the flimsy netting. Snakes shouldn’t attack people unprovoked. They eat rats and frogs and stuff. But Aaron knew at once that wasn’t a normal snake. It sprung through the screen with such force that it tore it out of the door frame. The netting fell on top of it, but it wouldn’t keep it down for long. The snake started slithering out with its pointy, venom-filled head aiming for Mariella’s back.
Chapter 16
The snake poked its head out from underneath the downed screen and opened its jaws. Moni saw its white mouth and hooked fangs. One bite from the water moccasin, also known as the Florida cottonmouth because of the color of its most deadly weapon, could kill a grown person. The same amount of poison in Mariella’s small body
