Reaper Unleashed (2 page)

Toweling off, he stepped into his room, moving to the bed. He felt his blood rushing in his ears. Fuck, this shit was getting old. He lay down on his bed, feeling the pain lessening as he closed his eyes. He really hated these episodes.

Sarah Banner stared at her ex-lover’s mother in abject horror. She had just gotten off the night shift at Hal’s Diner. She’d come home early to find the woman passed out on the couch. That wouldn’t have been a big deal if Josh, her two-year-old son, hadn’t been in his playpen screaming his head off. She’d walked in to find Josh nearly exhausted from crying with his little elfin face contorted in rage. He’d told her in his tiny baby voice when she’d finally calmed him down that he was hungry.

After changing his soiled clothing and feeding him, she’d begun the process of waking Marta Harris, Josh’s grandmother. Apparently the woman was not fit to care for Josh while Sarah worked. She’d known that the other woman wasn’t someone she’d have chosen to keep Josh, but she hadn’t realized until she’d walked in tonight how unfit the woman was to care for him.

In the past she had seemed at least halfway intelligent. At least Sarah had thought so until she’d heard the last words out of Marta’s mouth, which had Sarah questioning her own intelligence for leaving Josh with the woman.

She had looked at Sarah through hazy eyes and said, “I pushed his playpen near the cabinet of snacks. Can’t that little brat get his own food? He’s two after all. Jeez, you’re babying that boy.” Then she’d lifted the half empty whiskey bottle to her lips taking a long swig.

What the hell had she been thinking letting this woman keep her son? Sarah felt rage building inside her over the woman’s callused disregard for her grandson. Standing beside the couch with an utterly exhausted Josh now passed out in the playpen, she felt almost blinded by her anger. Her hands were fisted in the apron she wore as part of her work uniform to keep from strangling the woman.

“He’s still a baby, Marta.”

“Shish, Cody was getting his own food by that point,” she said, waving the whiskey bottle in the direction of the sleeping child.

“Marta, I think that you and I will have to disagree on that point,” Sarah growled, anger boiling inside her as she jerkily stood to her feet. She had to get away from Marta before she killed her.

Sarah could not believe that Marta was so clueless. No wonder her son Cody had turned out to be a loser. She suddenly felt a tiny bit of sympathy for Cody. Until she remembered him shoving credits into her hand and telling her to go have an abortion in the city a week after she’d told him she was pregnant. He’d disappeared after that and she’d never heard from him again, which was likely for the best since he’d been a alcoholic just like his mother.

He’d started two bar fights when he was drunk and Sarah knew that she’d have left him sooner or later. The first time that cruelty had been directed at her or Josh, she would have left him so fast his head would spin. She didn’t allow anyone to hit her and she certainly wasn’t going to allow anyone to hurt Josh.

Of course, leaving him with an incompetent babysitter wasn’t very good parenting. She should have known this wasn’t going to work. Marta had seemed so perfect when she’d offered a few weeks ago to take care of Josh while she worked. Marta had convinced her to move in and allow her to keep her grandson while she was at work. In exchange Sarah could help with the bills, she’d said. Ha, more like pay them so that she could drink more of the whiskey she swilled like it was water.

Sarah’s hands tightened around the apron as she moved around the apartment gathering Josh’s toys. Marta rolled over on the couch with a loud belch and was likely asleep before Sarah had even collected half the toys into the small bin they were usually in. She and Josh couldn’t stay here. They’d have to stay at the motel they’d been at five weeks ago. The place wasn’t very safe; many women had been raped and a few were kidnapped from the parking lot, which was why she’d agreed to move in here in the first place.

Sarah went into the bedroom she slept in with Josh and began to fill her pathetically small duffle with her clothes and Josh’s. Sarah felt tears stinging her eyes as she sat on the edge of the bed. She indulged herself for a few moments with a pity party. She didn’t know what she was going to do with Josh on the days that she worked at the diner. Maybe Hal, the owner, would let her keep Josh in the office while she was working. She snorted at that ridiculous thought; Hal was an asshole. There was no way he’d allow it even if she were the best waitress in the world. He was a dick to everyone; even his wife, who was the fry cook, got the brunt end of Hal’s temper.

She’d have to pay for a sitter from the credit’s she’d saved. Then she was going to have to look for a job that included daycare or paid her enough that she’d be able to find a competent babysitter. She didn’t know where she was going to find a job that paid that well. Sarah felt the tears sliding down her checks. She didn’t regret having Josh, not even for a second, but sometimes it was hard.

She’d been alone so long that when Marta had reached out a few months ago she’d been taken in by the woman’s charm. She had convinced Sarah that she wanted a relationship with her grandson when what she’d really wanted was to use Sarah for her credits. Not that she had much, Sarah let out a hiccupping sigh before lying back on the bed to stare at the ceiling.

She needed to do better. Her son was counting on her to take care of him and she’d let him down. He was such a sweet boy, always smiling and happy. The sight of him tonight when she had walked in had almost broken her. He had soiled himself because Marta hadn’t taken him to the potty and she’d left him hungry for hours. She knew by the ravenous way he’d eaten the applesauce and chicken she had given him.

It horrified her that she’d left him with Marta for the past five weeks and she wondered how many times the woman had let him go hungry or not allowed him to use the bathroom. She’d bet this wasn’t the first time the woman had done this to her baby. Marta had likely fed him and changed his clothes just before she’d gotten home. Tonight, however, Marta had been particularly drunk and Sarah had arrived home early. It horrified her to think that Josh may have been treated this way for weeks.

Dashing the tears from her cheeks, she got off the bed and lifted the edge of the mattress, looking for the little tin she’d been stashing a bit of credits in. She felt around and found the tin. Pulling it free, she sat on the edge of the bed opening it. Sarah gasped. Inside where she had stashed three hundred credits, she found only a hundred and fifty. Frantically, she counted them again. It couldn’t be! Where were the rest of the credits? But she already knew.

Getting up, she stormed to the door, walking out to where Marta lay on the couch. Sarah shook the woman awake again.

“What?” Marta asked in a slurred voice.

“Where the hell are the rest of my credits? And how dare you take them!”

“How dare I? How dare I? You’re a fine one to talk, little miss. You are living here by my good graces and you don’t even pay half the rent. So what? I took a bit of your credits. You owe me. I let you stay here and I keep that brat for you while you work. The least you can do is shut your mouth and be grateful.”

“Grateful!” Sarah said her voice rising. “You stole from me!”

“Not more than you owed me,” Marta said sitting there glaring at her. Sarah couldn’t believe the woman’s audacity.

She’d been giving the woman nearly her whole three hundred credit paycheck for the past five weeks. After keeping fifty credits for groceries, she then stored twenty credits in her stash. She’d already had two hundred credits tucked away before she started living with Marta.

“I give you two hundred and thirty credits a week and I buy all the food. How can you say that I owe you?” Sarah demanded, glaring at the woman who was swaying on the couch.

“I have to pay eleven hundred credits to live here between the power and the water. You owe me because your nine hundred don’t cover the whole cost of that, now does it?” Marta asked glaring at her.

Sarah wanted to scream. She hadn’t signed on to pay Marta’s whole rent and couldn’t believe that the woman thought she was supposed to. That was the point of living together. Marta had told her that she paid two thousand a month and now she was finding out that it was only eleven hundred. She was livid. Marta had been ripping Sarah off for over a month, damn it.

“Where are the credits, Marta?” she demanded.

“I spent them. I bought a nice new outfit for going out and I got that brat of yours a toy. Then I got some whiskey.” Marta glared at her as if this shouldn’t upset her.

Sarah didn’t know what she’d do now. She’d had enough credits for five weeks at the little motel, along with daycare and groceries for that long while she worked and looked for a better paying job. Now, she only had enough for two weeks if she was really careful.

She wanted to rage at Marta, to hit her with something, but it wouldn’t fix the fact that she’d have to figure this all out. She glared at the woman, who glared back.

“I can’t believe you. I thought you wanted to get to know your grandson, but all you ever wanted was more credits so that you don’t have to work.”

“Why should I have to work? As for the brat, why did you even have him? My son gave you the credits to get rid of the damned kid. I know because I gave him two thousand of the credits to do it! So let’s not talk about how much I took. You’ve already spent my credits taking care of that brat,” Marta bellowed.

Sarah couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Not only had Marta known that Cody had intended for Sarah to get rid of her grandson, she’d paid for more than half of it. Sarah felt sick; bile rose into her throat and she felt dizzy. God, what was wrong with these people? She shook her head, unable to speak. She couldn’t believe that this was the same woman who’d convinced her a few weeks ago that she wanted to create a relationship with her grandson.

Sarah was so upset over Marta’s utter gall that she couldn’t even speak. She turned on her heel and left the room without another word. She wasn’t going to bother speaking to a woman who’d tried to prevent Josh from ever being born. Entering her room again, she gathered the bag of toys and the duffle of clothes. She couldn’t stay here. If she did, she’d likely kill Marta for her stupidity. She was glad it was only seven-thirty instead of nine when she usually got off work.

Things had been slow at the diner tonight and Sammy, her best friend, had told her to go home when Hal had said they didn’t need two of them. Sammy had been working a double but she knew that Sarah didn’t get to spend much time with Josh and told her to go. She was glad that she’d allowed Sammy to convince her to leave. Otherwise she might not have known about how Marta was treating him. Shoving the tin of credits into the bag, she carried their possessions out into the living room, then out to her car.

Marta didn’t ask what she was doing and Sarah was glad because she didn’t want to argue with her. She’d likely beat her over the head with something and end up killing her. Not that it wouldn’t make the world a better place without the woman taking up space, but Sarah didn’t go around murdering people.

She opened the car door of her old station wagon, wincing when it creaked loudly in protest, and set the bags in the back on the floor next to Josh’s booster seat. She knew that she’d have to wake him in order to load him into the car and although she hated to do that to him after what he’d been through tonight, they were not staying here.

Sarah headed back inside after shutting the doors and locking them. Once back inside the house, she walked to the playpen and looked down at Josh. His tiny face was relaxed in sleep and he seemed to be having a good dream because a small smile was on his lips. She looked around and realized that Marta must have gone into her room to pass out again. Sarah really didn’t care what she was doing as long as she didn’t have to speak to her again.

Sarah lifted Josh out of the playpen, laying him down on a blanket she normally used for his playtime. She didn’t want to wake him until the last minute. She folded the playpen and slipped it into the case that allowed her to carry it by a strap on her shoulder. She set it down and turned, lifting Josh into her arms, blanket and all, before she juggled him carefully and slung the playpen over her shoulder.

Damn, she’d forgotten how heavy it was. She struggled out of the house towards the car. She was panting and her shoulder felt like it was going to fall off if she didn’t set the playpen down. She left it a few feet from the car and walked the rest of the way, unlocking the doors. She set Josh, who was still sleeping, on the back seat and went back for the playpen. Loading it into the back a few moments later, she moved around the car and sat down beside Josh rubbing his head. She was tired and panting. Finally, after she’d watched her sweet boy for several moments while silently apologizing to him, she walked back and locked the door to Marta’s home.