Chapter 2

I slipped the knife back into my boot. Tilted my phone and snapped a picture of the biggest, meanest, ugliest human I’d ever seen. Not a mere man but a beast of a man bigger than Godzilla and stronger than King Kong. A Godzilla-Kong.

My heart beat out a warning signal against my ear drums. I didn’t risk making eye contact and hoped he couldn’t smell my fear. My breath raged in my chest, and I attempted to smooth out the sound and not attract his attention. I willed my fingers to stop shaking but they listened as well as The Woman.

“Hitting the john. Better have it ready when I’m done.” Godzilla-Kong’s voice vibrated the air.

“Yes, Boss.” Creepy Diner Guy rushed back to his spot. Pulled a plastic sack out from under the counter. The sack’s handles stretched to a near breaking point from the weight of what was inside. Drugs? Money? Both?

The Geezers depended on me to find out. Master Chief depended on me to stop him.

With each step of Godzilla-Kong’s neighborhood-smashing feet, I swore the diner shook and fear hollowed out my legs. The bathroom door closed behind him and the ghost disappeared before I could blink.

“Chicken.” I couldn’t see the ghost, but I was sure The Woman could hear.

“Shut your mouth, Red.” Creepy Diner Guy thought I was talking to him and it worked for me. I’d pump him for more intel.

He packed up the burgers and added fries to the bag.

Perfect setup. To the casual observer, Godzilla-Kong was picking up a midnight snack, not money or drugs. “He must eat a crap ton.”

“Shut up,” Diner Guy’s tone was sharp and rude.

I didn’t care. I needed intel. “Is he a regular? Must keep you in business.”

He scraped the metal spatula against the flattop and cleared off the grease. “Look, Red. If you’re smart, you’d leave.”

“I hate it when people call me that.”

“You’re going to find out what hate is if you don’t keep quiet when he comes back.”

An other-world light flickered in the mirror above Creepy Diner Guy and distracted me. A ghostly blue glow shimmered in the truck’s cab.

“What’s she doing?” I walked over to the windows for a better look. The Woman was up to something and that didn’t bode well. Any time The Woman tried to help ended with someone getting hurt and I got the blame.

“Who? Man, are you high or crazy?”

The light went super-nova-white and I shielded my eyes with my hand.

“Did you escape from the looney-bin? It’s pitch black out there.”

The light dimmed. Compacted. And became The Woman.

“Nonya,” I replied. My arm fell to my side. That’s when I spotted the kid sitting beside The Woman. His nose smashed against the passenger seat window. Closer to eight than nine.

Something about The Woman and the boy sent shock waves through my system. Something was wrong. I had to find out what and headed out the diner’s door.

“Smart. For a crazy girl.” Creepy Diner Guy yelled. “Run girl, run. I’d run too . . . if I could.”

The cold night air hit me first, then the noise from the highway. For spring, there was a frost in the air and the temperature had dipped. A northern wind blew through the parking lot. I approached the truck. Stood in the wind blocking gap between my jeep and the kid’s window. Something about the boy bothered me.

Boy, boy, boy.

“Cold as Hades out here.” I ignored the ghost and focused on the kid. Jeans. Short sleeve dinosaur shirt. No flippin’ coat. “Where’s your coat?”

He didn’t acknowledge me. There wasn’t any way that he didn’t see me. Only the thickness of the truck’s door stood between us. I knocked on the window.

The kid stared at me. A normal kid with bangs that needed a trim and ears too big for his face but it was his look.

A shiver shot down my spine that had nothing to do with The Woman and everything to do with a pair of brown eyes, puffy and red-rimmed.

I remembered that look. From the orphanage. The no-way-out look. The monsters-are-real look. The my-life-is-never-going-to-be-the-same look. The look we’d all had when I’m-your-friend Phil roamed at night, counted kids, and selected his special one.

“You’re out late.” I slapped on my I’m-sweet smile. The one I’d used when potential parents had visited the orphanage and shopped for kids. “I’m JD. What’s your name?”

The boy pulled his knees up to his chest and ignored me.

He was barefoot.

No flippin’ shoes either.

My phone buzzed and a mug shot of Godzilla-Kong’s face flashed on the screen, followed up by a call.

“Declan Brown. Got a rap sheet that stretches from California to Connecticut. Drugs, armed robbery, assault, and the doozie of them all, attempted murder. Get out. Get out now.” Milt sounded more like a concerned father than ever before.

“The guy has a kid in his truck. Boy. Eight years. Brown hair and eyes.” My voice didn’t shake. It should’ve. But I was lost in memories and the boy’s eyes.

“That complicates things—Look out!” Milt’s voice spiked. Tires squealed. “Jeez Cliff, watch the red lights. You almost T-boned that van.”

The Woman brushed back the boy’s hair with gray fingers. Hummed a stanza of her lullaby.

A sick feeling coated my limbs, and settled into my stomach. “Feels wrong.”

“Sit and wait for us.” Cliff shouted in his smarty pants tone.

“Shush, drive. I can’t hear.” Milt told his brother. “What do you mean?”

“Something isn’t right.” Fear—the type I’d thought I’d escaped from and left in my childhood—quivered in my voice. “The boy shouldn’t be in the truck. It feels wrong. It is wrong.”

“Cliff, run the red light.” Milt’s words were muffled as if he’d placed his hand over the phone. “JD, let me check into it.” The change in his tone flooded my system and relief soaked into my knees making them sway like liquid beneath me. He didn’t understand why, but he believed in me.

“Roger.” I put the phone back into my boot.

Boy, boy, boy. The Woman’s words rattled in my head like nails in a tin cup.

My heartbeat ticked up. How long would it take Godzilla-Kong to pee? “The Geezers will never make it in time. No matter how many red lights they drive through.”

“I can take you home.” My words came out fast. Urgent. I tugged on the door handle. “Unlock the door.”

He hid his hands under his legs.

“Look.” My pulse raced faster than the seconds slipping by. There wasn’t time to make friends. I needed him to trust me and the fastest path to trust was truth. “You can’t be here when he comes back. He’ll hurt you.”

The truth made the boy cry. Not little kid tears but big fat adult tears. Tears that understood a dark future. Tears rained down his face, dripped onto his jeans and created dark circles of pain.

“Don’t cry. We don’t have time to cry. Open the door.” My tone ratcheted up with the panic climbing up the back of my neck. I glanced over my shoulder for Godzilla-Kong. “I can help you.”

“No one can help me.” His eyes spoke of sadness, despair, and—acceptance. Another tear slipped down his cheek and soaked my heart.

“Please.” I rattled the handle with enough force that the truck shook. “Open the door. Open it now.”

“I can’t.” He sniffled and rubbed snot from his nose with the back of his hand. “If I run . . . he’ll grab my sister.”

His words quaked my body so hard that it felt as if my heart had burst through my chest and landed in the past. In a place I kept locked away in the back of my mind. Where I was surrounded by other kids like me with no choices, no power, no hope.

“You’re protecting someone.” Even though my throat swelled with sorrow, my voice was strong with knowledge. “Someone you love. Someone who can’t protect themselves.”

How many times had I done the same? How many times had I failed because I was too small, too weak, too powerless? How many times had I ended up sacrificing myself for the sake of another?

He didn’t have to nod. I’d lived his truth. Life wasn’t fair. Not for the powerless.

But I was JD Wolfe. Not Diamond. Not some scared little girl with no last name and no one to protect her.

Wasn’t I?

“No.” Like a volcano, anger erupted in my soul and poured through my limbs. “You should be in your room and in bed, not sitting in the cold and the dark. Unlock the door.”

He shook his head and wouldn’t meet my eyes.

I’d do anything to convince him to trust me. Even tell him my truth. “I’ve been where you are. I’ve had someone stronger than me take me where I didn’t want to go. I’ve given myself to protect another. But you don’t have to. You don’t have to choose between yourself and someone else. Not even for your sister. I’ll protect you. I promise.”

I held my breath. Hoped a sucker’s hope that I’d said enough for him to unlock the door. Hope backed up into my chest and my lungs burned.

The Woman’s humming stuttered to a stop.

“You can’t.” The boy stared at me with those sad eyes. “No one can.”

Pain popped my lungs like an old bicycle tire and my breath escaped through my lips in hiss. My phone buzzed against my leg. “Yeah?”

“Declan’s not married. Doesn’t have kids. He’s on the sex offenders list.” Milt told me what my gut had already known.

“Police are on the way.” Uncle Cliff added.

“Don’t let him leave with the boy.” Milt’s voice was firm and flat and a direct order.

“Roger that.” I shoved the sorrow and pain and anger down so deep that it couldn’t weaken my resolve. I wouldn’t fail. Couldn’t fail. Not this time.

“This assignment was supposed to be watch and report. Not get dirty and bloody.” Talking to myself more than the boy or the ghost, I traded the phone for my three-inch blade.

The Woman materialized at my side. Wait, wait, wait.

“Wait? Hesitation and emotions help the enemy. Going and doing saves lives.” I tested the weight of the knife in my hand. “I should’ve brought my gun.” I looked at the boy. “I’ll be back.”

I entered the diner and couldn’t hold back a snarky comment on my way past Creepy Diner Guy, “I’ll take what the big guy’s having.”

Behind the counter, he wiped his hands on his shirt. “Crazy and stupid.”

“You know what they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.” I kept moving towards the bathroom and my mountain-sized target. “Some idiot must’ve thought that up.”

The Woman blocked the bathroom door, her arms splayed out and her body flickering like an old TV set on the fritz. No. No. No.

I wasn’t surprised that the ghost didn’t want me to confront Godzilla-Kong. She preferred safety over all other actions. She must’ve been a Hall Monitor in a past life. You would’ve thought a ghost could die twice.

“Move.” My glare was white hot. Nuclear.

The Woman should’ve melted or ran back to hell. B,b,b. B,b,ba, bad.

“Really? Do you want me to wait and watch while that monster climbs in his truck and drives away with the boy?” My tone dialed past snippy to snarky. “Go hide in a cell in hell. I’ll handle the living.”

A bolt of blue electricity sparked in The Woman’s eyes but she faded away.

“Crazy girl. Talking to nothing.” His tone tagged me as certifiable. “I saw you at the boss’s truck. That boy’s nonya business. Leave it alone.”

I wasn’t crazy. I knew pain waited beyond the door. Bone-crushing, organ-smashing pain. But pain wasn’t a stranger.

I stared at the only weapon I had. My knife. A knife wouldn’t dent or damage or destroy Godzilla-Kong. He’d happily pound me into diner dust and add my knife to his collection. “Nope. Can’t do that.”

“Why not? Breathing not important to you?” He gave me a stunned look as if I’d sniffed too much bacon grease and fried my brain.

“Why not?” I wasn’t shocked that he didn’t care. My life had been littered with adults that didn’t care. Didn’t care about children or innocence.

A never-forgotten shame soaked through me, tasted foul on my tongue and stained my heart. The loss of innocence buried your soul ten feet deep. No matter how hard you fight or how far you run, you couldn’t dig yourself out.

“Why not?” I repeated and pushed past the shame. “Because that kid—his life, his future, his dreams—are more important than mine.”

After all, I’d been that kid. Not stuck in a truck but locked in a closet.

And, no one had rescued me.

Not even The Woman.

I grabbed the doorknob. My heart revved, electricity raced under my skin. I looked at the boy, one last time. Things were about to get mean—Hiroshima mean.

I jerked open the door. “Hello Tokyo, you’re missing your monster.”