Her Name Is Knight(Nena Knight #1)(24)

He raises his machete.

I tear away from the hands, finding a voice, ragged and coarse, sounding not like me, and I scream Papa’s name.

In one fluid motion, Attah Walrus whips his damnable blade through the air, the one already crusted with sticky blood and gore, and—

“Papa. Papa. PLEASE! ” I am in a frenzy, and the hands—the hands will not let me go. The murmurings of the girls will not cease. They will not let me pass.

—slices the blade through one side of my father’s outstretched neck as Papa’s eyes still lock onto mine—

“I beg,” I say, weeping, unable to comprehend what I am witnessing. “I beg.”

—and through the other side, below my father’s chin.

As if in slow motion, Papa’s head pitches forward and tumbles down the front of his body. His head drops with a thud to ground muddied with sweat, blood, and piss.

He rolls, gathering dirt, coming to rest on his left ear. Papa rocks until finally he stills, his mouth agape, eyes half-closed. He is like a mannequin head.

He cannot be Papa.

And yet he is.

At the same time, his body topples unceremoniously to its side, his hands still bound in front of him.

My mind plummets into unreality. What is real? What is false? Why am I still here?

Papa is gone. My brothers are gone. Auntie, my uncle, my village, all gone. There is only me left alone in this world, the last Asym of N’nkakuwe, the last of my people. Never again to feel safe, loved, protected, or settled. All fight leaves me. The hands manage to pull me back inside the truck.

But they do not prevent me from watching Paul squat down, scrutinizing Papa’s head as if he were a scientific specimen. “At least the blade was sharp, eh?” he jokes, looking up at the Walrus with a smile that could light up the sky. “Clean right through, Attah. Well done.”

Raucous laughter thunders in my ears, forever changing the course of my life. If there is a life left to have.

Paul pokes and prods Papa’s head, defiling him as I look on through eyes blurred by hot tears. His audacity has no bounds.

He lets out a satisfied breath, seeking me out, finding me through his men. He tilts his head to the side, holding me in his viselike stare. He appraises me and says, “You still live, Aninyeh, while your family lays scattered about and dead. They died for you. They died because of you.” His face becomes stone. “Do you understand what I am saying, girl? Your family’s, your people’s, blood is on your hands.”

I hang my head in shame. He is right. Papa and my brothers, their deaths are because they tried to protect me.

Blame is a cold, viscous thing that consumes every inch of me. I should have died with my family. I should have fought like them, succumbed for them as they did for me.

I collapse into the truck, all will to live draining from me like the blood from Papa’s neck. It is the night my first life, my before, ends. And because I cannot imagine life devoid of the people I loved, I reject any after with every fiber of my being.





19


AFTER


Nena was already seated on the couch in her sister’s elegant two-story flat when Elin arrived. She heard the keys jingling and the heavy steel reinforced door closing behind the clicking of Elin’s heels. Nena counted the number of locks engaging. Three. She heard the alarm activated. Good. Her sister did, in fact, heed her warnings and locked up when she was alone. Only this time, she wasn’t.

Elin dropped her keys and mail in the crystal dish on the mirror-and-chrome side table. Nena made a mental note to remind her sister to keep her keys nearby.

“What the hell for?” Elin had asked once, scoffing at her overly careful sister. It was easy for her to be flippant about security when she wasn’t the one directly engaging in the risky behavior.

Nena had replied, “For quick escapes.”

Elin let out a yelp when she noticed Nena sitting on her couch. It took her a second to regain her businesslike demeanor. She narrowed her liquid brown eyes, the color of chocolate. Her expression switched to mild irritation with the crook of a freshly arched eyebrow. Her regal frame and mahogany complexion thrummed with electricity.

She really does look just like Mum, Nena observed, waiting for her sister’s first words. Or wrath. One could never be too sure, but from Elin’s rigid stance, Nena thought the latter.

“Nena, what the hell? Say something simple and easy, like, Elin, don’t be scared; I’m sitting like a freak on your couch. Something like that.”

Elin took the one step leading down into the sunken living room, her heeled sandals clicking on the white flooring, then silencing when she reached the plush rug. She sank into the oversize mauve chaise.

“Wasn’t my intent,” Nena said flatly.

Elin waved her off, her rings catching the rays of sunlight in the brightly lit room. She gave Nena a stare down of gargantuan proportions while her finger subconsciously tapped against one of her front teeth.

“What,” she said, launching into the meat of what they had to discuss. “The. Actual. Fuck, Nena?”

News traveled fast. “Was a change of plans.”

“An unsanctioned change of plans. And Dad’s pissed, you know. And you know what that means, right?”

Nena inclined her head.

“Yeah, he and Mum will pop up in town. And you know how much I hate their pop-ups.”