Page 15 of Exile & Lula
Nova got her way, as she was prone to do when dealing with me. I just couldn’t tell my little sister no whenever she stared at me with her big, blue eyes.
That was also why I never moved out of the three-bedroom house, even after Nova and the girls got settled. I sensed my sister didn’t feel safe living alone. Whenever I mentioned finding an apartment, Nova leveled her gaze on me and stared until I backed down. The woman really knew how to push my buttons.
I always figured her power came from being my baby sister. As I sat on my silent hog in the garage, I realized someone else owned the ability to make me submit.
Lula Reed.
I could still feel her gaze on me. My mind replayed every word she said. The woman’s beauty burned a need into my core. I couldn’t shake how I felt when we shared a room.
After returning to Baton Rouge, my club held a meeting at our clubhouse, DTF Roadhouse. Zodiac talked about the Void turning its attention to the Black Rainbow.
“We fucked up their plans. Now, they might want a little payback,” he explained while the men yawned and tried to focus after a long night on the road. “Keep your people safe. Lockdown your homes. Message all your snitches around town to be on the lookout. If the Void comes for us, we want to stick their revenge plans straight up their asses. Get me?”
Back when Wrecker ran things, life seemed simpler. We ignored problems, choosing to clean up messes rather than avoid them. Zodiac believed we were at war with the Void. When Wrecker refused to see that truth, he got shoved aside.
Our club was different now. The older guys were gone, except for Stamp, who understood what Zodiac wanted to build. Most of our current members were in their thirties and early forties. We had a few babies in the mix, like Stamp’s two sons. Otherwise, everyone had been recruited into the club by Zodiac.
After our meeting, I crashed on Zodiac’s couch in his apartment above the clubhouse. I dreamed of gunfire and moving vans. Lula was always out of reach. I could hear her voice. I smelled her expensive perfume. I knew she was close enough to touch, but I couldn’t find her.
Waking up after ten, I slipped out of the apartment and grabbed a quick breakfast sandwich on my way home. A little part of me feared facing Nova, as if she’d see through my calm exterior to the man on fire inside.
I was reluctant to enter the house, despite nothing good coming from me moping in the garage. Lula was with her people. I was home with mine. The only thing to do was let go of this need for a stranger and get to living my life.
Inside the three-bedroom house, I dropped my keys in the ceramic bowl at the front door. Below several key fobs, a paper cutout of actor Eddie Murphy’s face stared up at me. I smiled at my sister’s habit of leaving small paper faces of the actor around the house for me to find. Sometimes, they’d be tucked away in my bagged lunch. Last week, I found one waiting for me in my back pocket.
I followed Nova’s voice to the backyard, where she often spent time with the girls. Four-year-old Skylar was a little rabblerouser and perpetually grumpy. Her favorite things were wearing sunglasses, avoiding a hairbrush, and watching “Barney & Friends.”
“I like purple. I like dinos. I like singing,” she muttered at Zodiac when he asked why she watched garbage TV. “Get it? They made this show for me.”
Skylar didn’t hide her dislike of my president. He pissed her off with the Barney complaints, and she wasn’t the forgiving type.
Three-year-old Lyric thought Zodiac was great. She liked all the guys—the louder, the better. She had the entire club wrapped around her little finger. When she had invited them to her third birthday party, my niece warned that she would cry if they didn’t show up. Not one guy dared blow off her invitation.
The girls were different in a lot of ways, but they remained inseparable. I thought about those sisters injured in Lula’s abduction. I’d studied the bios of every Crimson Guard member. Cher and Stevie were goofballs, just like my nieces.
Why couldn’t I put yesterday behind me?Rather than focus on my life, I fought the incredible urge to see Lula’s eyes again.
“What’s wrong?” Nova asked as she painted the trellis a different shade of white.
“Why are you painting again?”
“I’ve run out of things to fix. I’ll probably paint the girls’ room a different color soon.”
I glanced at my nieces playing in their pink plastic house. They found my gaze and shook their little heads dismissively.
I scratched at my chest, agitated over the distance between Lula and me. Was she safe with her people? They hadn’t protected her yesterday. I felt like I was the only one capable of ensuring Lula’s safety.
“You ran out of here fast,” Nova said and set aside the paint. Her thick brown hair was tied back with a pink-and-blue bandana. Studying me, she frowned. “Why do you look like your best friend died when we can both see I’m alive and well?”
Exhaling gruffly, I didn’t know how to explain my state of mind. Nova studied me and then looked around as if adjusting to a strange world where I was the one at a loss for the answers.
“Did one of the guys get hurt?” she asked, circling me. When I shook my head, Nova stopped in front of me. “Where did you go in such a hurry?”
“The Crimson Guard’s lawyer was taken by the assholes we’re worried about. We decided to help find her.”
“Did she die? Is that why you’re on edge?”
“No, she was only banged up. She's back home in Little Memphis now.”
