Page 22 of Rattler's Revelation
“My dad had a heart attack and died when I was five. He left my mom and me behind. We lost the house, so Mom moved us into an apartment. We did alright. She worked as a blackjack dealer and earned enough to keep us comfortable. One night, after her shift, two men and a woman mugged her for her tips. They hurt her. She reported the attack, but refused to go to the hospital. I found her dead the next morning. She suffered from internal bleeding and passed peacefully during the night. That’s how I ended up in the system. I was twelve.”
I squeeze her hand and see Rattler has done the same. We’re both looking at Bianca with the same thought. There is nothing either of us would be unwilling to do to make her happy.
“Bianca…” we both say, but she shakes her head.
“I’m not looking for pity. I need you to understand how I ended up in the system. My parents left me, but they didn’t abandon me; they didn’t leave me because they wanted to be rid of me. Losing them both made me angry. Being in the system as an older child is hard; it’s harder when you’re pissed off at the world. Not many families wish to adopt an angry and standoffish twelve-year-old girl. I know things could have gottenmuch worse. Maybe the universe felt it had punished me enough because I managed to avoid the worst of the foster homes. I ended up in a few that weren’t all that bad. The last one was the best, which makes what I did so much worse. The night before my eighteenth birthday, my foster parents took me out for pizza and ice cream as a treat. Everything was great until they explained that once I turned eighteen, I would no longer be their foster child. I think they tried to explain that they would still help me, but all I heard was that they didn’t want me. I was hurt and angry. I couldn’t sleep that night, so around two in the morning, I ran away to avoid facing them. But I didn’t just leave. I stole from them. They had money they’d been saving for a trip, and I took it. I took other things that I could carry and pawn off. They had given me a home, and I repaid them by stealing from them.”
Rattler squeezes her hand while I comfort her. “You were a kid and had lost your home. It’s understandable.”
She gives me a sad smile before shaking her head. “That’s no excuse. I paid them back, with interest. However, I could never face them. I betrayed two people who had opened their home to me and treated me with kindness. You’re right, I was only eighteen, about the same age you were back then. I understand how emotions can lead you to do things that you later regret. I would never make that same mistake today. I imagine you feel the same?”
I nod, understanding what she’s trying to tell me. She isn’t going to judge me today for a bad decision I made years ago. I suck in a breath and hope she feels the same after she hears the rest of my story.
“As I told you, I started hanging around with Tommy and his friends. These friends were several years older, so they bought us beer, which I happily drank. One night, we went to my high school’s football game, where I saw Hanna with her friends. Shewas cheering on her boyfriend. Seeing her pissed me off. Tommy suggested we have some fun, and since I was bitter and drunk, I agreed.”
Bianca’s hand quivers in mine. I squeeze it. “We didn’t hurt Hannah or her friends. Although what we did wasn’t much better.”
I try to retract my hand from hers, but she refuses to relinquish it.
“Tommy explained that they had been given a job to teach someone manners. I didn’t know what they meant. They had baseball bats and spray paint, so I assumed they were going to bust up a car or a building. I figured it was juvenile shit. Fuck, was I wrong. I started to worry when they knocked on the door of a nice house in a nice neighborhood. Before I could voice my concerns, the owner of the house opened the door, and all hell broke loose. By the time I entered the house, the owner was on the floor with his head covered in blood. When I heard a woman scream, I yelled at them to stop. They dragged the wife from the kitchen and ripped her clothes. When I tried to stop them, one guy decked me and said they were going to have some fun with the bitch. A little girl came running into the room. She was screaming at the guys to stop. Tommy lunged at her, but I knocked him out of the way and grabbed the girl before racing outside. I lowered her over the neighbor’s fence and told her to run to the neighbor for help. Then I called Rafe. I went back into the house to see if I could help the parents, but I was too late. Tommy and others were gone. The parents were dead on the floor. That’s where Rafe found me.”
At the end of my story, I can’t bring my eyes up to meet Rattler’s or Bianca’s. Bianca squeezes my left hand while Rattler grabs my right. I finally lift my eyes to see the two people who have come to mean so much to me, staring back with concern. Idon’t see the hate or disgust that I expect to see, so I’m able to let out the breath I’ve been holding.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: RATTLER
“We know you didn’t go to jail, or you wouldn’t be a cop. Did Rafe protect you?” I ask.
“Yes, and no. The little girl I rescued backed my story. She told the cops that I saved her life and told her I was going back to help her parents. The prosecutor didn’t press charges after I agreed to tell them everything I knew about the men. The cops were able to arrest everyone, except Tommy. I don’t know what happened to him. My guess is he left town that night. He probably knew I’d turn on them.”
“What happened to the little girl?” Bianca asks.
“She went to live with her aunt and uncle. I tried to see her, but she doesn’t want anything to do with me. I can’t say I blame her. After all, who wants a visit from the man who reminds her of the worst night of her life?”
“I’m sorry,” Bianca says, but Randy shakes his head.
“Nothing to be sorry about. She’s living her life and doing well. I keep track of her. She just got her driver’s license, so I see her driving around town. She works at a Starbucks near the police station. My partner goes there to get us coffee. He’s developed a semi-friendship with her so he can keep me updated. He asks her how she’s doing in a casual way, and she gives him some basic updates. I know she’s happy and doing wellin school. She has plans to attend UNLV, so I’m putting money away to help her when the time comes.”
“That’s sweet of you,” Bianca says.
“Sweet?” Randy says with a grimace. “No. It’s just plain guilt.”
“Doesn’t sound like you have anything to feel guilty about,” I say. “You didn’t hurt her or her parents. If you had known what they had planned, you would have stopped them. You need to stop blaming yourself for a mistake you made at a difficult time in your life.”
Bianca looks at me with gratitude. While I don’t want to cause Randy additional pain, his story isn’t complete. He knows more, I can feel it. “You said you hung out with them. Did you ever meet any other members besides the ones you mentioned?” I ask.
Randy nods. “Tommy took me out to their compound once. It wasn’t much back then, just an old farmhouse, a barn, and a couple of sheds. He said they had big plans to develop the place into a stronghold.”
Now we’re getting somewhere. “Do you know where it is?”
He shakes his head. “Tommy made me ride with a hood over my head. I didn’t get a good look at my surroundings when he pulled it off. They’re in a gully of sorts. There are outcroppings surrounding it and hiding it from view.”
“They’re in a gully? That doesn’t seem too bright. They’ve boxed themselves in.”
“That’s what I thought. There is only one road in, or at least that I could see. They might have an escape route out the back, though. Tommy hustled me into the farmhouse before I could get a good look around.”
“What did you see inside?”
“Guns. Hundreds of them. They had Nazi and Confederate War crap all over their walls. I met their leader. Tommy called him Wade.”
