Chapter 13
“Amari?” Tears well up in my mother’s eyes. “I…I…”
“Don’t cry mom, I’m okay.”
Don respected my wish and allowed me to come back home, although I wasn’t there to stay. I left the Viper’s warehouse at 4pm.
I was completely taken back when I saw that my mother wasn’t alone. Jamila was seated on her lap but there was someone else too.
“Cassie?” She looked down in embarrassment. Cassie’s tummy wasn’t big and could easily be hidden. But Cassie, being the bitter person she was, wore a tight top revealing her small bump. I still couldn’t believe my son or daughter was in there growing. I looked at the two of them sitting on the couch. They were having tea and the TV was on. The house was still in ruins, but I was glad to see Jamila was safe.
“I’m so glad you’re alive, son, but at the same time, I am so disappointed. When were you going to tell me?”
I look at Cassie who innocently shrugs. She knew I didn’t want her here today. We had agreed that she’d come after 6 days, but she betrayed me and told my mother before I could. She was sitting on my mother’s couch having a jolly time with her over a cup of tea, while I was out there with Summer fighting to survive.
“After dinner. I was going to tell you after dinner but that didn’t work out for obvious reasons,” I say.
My mother sighs and tells Jamila to go to her room.
“This is serious, Amari. The Vipers are still after you. Do you have any idea how difficult this poor baby’s life is going to be? They’re going to come after your baby and Cassie in order to get to you.”
“That won’t happen, mom. I’ll protect them.”
I sit on the table and stare right at Cassie. “She’s not supposed to be here. The plan was to tell you after 6 days mom. Cassie lied to me and came here without my permission. I can’t allow a liar to raise my child.”
“I was only trying to do the right thing, Amari,” Cassie defends.
“And how did that work out for you, Cas? What if the Vipers had decided to attack us today? Then, you would’ve been here, and they would have killed you and my baby.”
“Amari! That wouldn’t have happened,” my mother intervenes.
“How would you know, mom? You don’t know when the Vipers are going to attack? You can’t prepare for what they have in store for us.”
“Amari, calm down! If there’s anyone who should be angry, it’s me. I sent you to boarding-school to keep you safe, not to make babies!”
“Keep me safe from who, mom!?”
“The Vipers!” she responds. “You know this already!”
“Oh, do I? Because if you ask me, the only person I need protection from is you!”
My mother gasps and slaps me right across the face. First Summer did it, and now she’s slapping me. I swear, if one more person slaps me…
“How could you Amari?” My mother sobs and scurries off to the kitchen.
“Mom, I’m sorry,” I say following after her. She pours herself a glass of water.
“All I’m trying to do is protect you. Why don’t you understand that?”
“I do, believe me I do. It’s just the baby, not knowing where Summer is…everything is such a mess and it’s frustrating me.”
“Summer is missing?” she asks. I nod. “I’m so sorry Mari.” My mother hugs me tightly.
This will be the last time I allow her to hug me.
“Can I take a shower…in your bathroom? After that, I’ll come out and take responsibility for this mess I’ve created.”
“Sure son.” She starts walking towards the living room but stops and looks at me. “I love you, Mari. You mean so much to me, don’t ever forget that.”
She then disappears into the living room and I silently lock myself up in her bedroom.
“Be quick Mari! Cassie needs to head home soon,” my mother yells.
“I’ll be quick mom, don’t worry.” And when I’m done, you’ll wish you never let me in your room in the first place.
A lot of things were revealed to me early this morning when I was in that room in the Viper’s warehouse. Things that I could have figured out a long time ago if I had just paid more attention.
I had to open the shower tap, just to make it sound like I was really in there to take a shower. The sound of the water hitting the shower floor would also drown out the sounds of what I was really doing.
I searched everywhere in her room: underneath the bed, the mattress, her side tables and her pillows. I opened all her cupboards looking for our family albums, but I couldn’t find them anywhere. This was the first sign that proved to me that my theory was correct. Why else would she hide the family albums? She was clearly hiding something, and I should have known.
I threw myself on her bed and looked up at the ceiling.
Think, Amari. Think.
While looking at the ceiling, I noticed it was made of brown, square pieces of wood. They were a fine shade of brown, except for the one in the middle. It was a darker, much darker shade of brown.
I stood on the bed and reached for the piece of wood. I had to be careful. If the piece of wood scratched against the other pieces, it would cause my mother to come flying in here.
I took the piece down successfully. In the ceiling, there was brown box, big enough to fit a stack of A4 pages. I hadn’t opened it yet, but I knew it was what I was looking for.
“Amari, Cassie has to leave!” my mother yells again. Damn, I can’t wait to have enough proof to stop saying that.
“So soon? Give me 10 minutes. I need to shave.”
I hear her sigh and walk away from the door.
I’m going to need to do this quicker than I thought.
As soon as I open the box, I know I’m going to need more than just 10 minutes to go through everything.
Pictures, I need pictures.
There were more files than there were albums in there. I knew whatever I was going to find in those albums would change my life.
I paged through the first album quickly but made sure I didn’t miss anything important. It mainly had pictures of Jamila and I as babies. As we grew older, our pictures became less. My father was in a few of the pictures. In all the pictures that my father and I were in together, I was dressed like him. My favourite was the one where he had on his suit, and I had on my mini suit. But this wasn’t the time to be looking at pictures that made me happy. I had a case to crack and pondering over my past life wasn’t going to help.
The second album was as useless as the first. It was all just pictures of Jamila and I, but I could’ve sworn we had taken more pictures as a family. My mother loved pictures. When I was around ten, she promised to create a collage with pictures of me from when I was born to when I turn eighteen. Now, she had forgotten all about it, and she hated pictures.
I had no choice but to go through the files. That’s clearly where everything was hidden.
“Amari!” She bangs on the door violently. “I just went outside and looked into my bathroom window. You aren’t in there and you left the shower water running! What are you doing in there!?”
Damn!
I thought of closing that window, but I didn’t think she’d take it that far.
I dialled Don’s number and told him to come over, but park where he wouldn’t easily be seen.
I then continued to dig through the files, ignoring the woman who was now violently banging on the door. I was getting close, and she knew this, that’s why she was so determined to get into the room.
“Jamila, go back to your room!” I hear her yell. How dare she yell at my little sister like that? Once I figure this out, she’ll never yell at her again.
Records of old transactions, our birth certificates and even my father’s death certificate were in there, I just couldn’t seem to find my mother’s birth certificate.
I opened all the files looking for it, until I was down to one file. As I pulled the file out, the door handle to my mother’s room fell off.
Hurry up Amari!
This last file was my last chance to the truth. If I didn’t find what I was looking for, then my theory was wrong, and I allowed the Vipers to lie to me.
The moment was tense, and I had to do this quickly, but I didn’t. I took my time looking through the documents in the file. There had to be something, something that would make sense of all of this.
And there was…
The picture that was once framed in the living room was now in the file, packed away with other documents. I remember breaking the frame it was in, and then questioning my mother about the uniform she was wearing in the picture.
This is it.
I pulled the picture out and analysed it again. I may not remember much from when I was a kid, but I know very well that my mother never worked at McDonalds. In the picture, she was wearing the McDonalds uniform and she told me that was because she had worked at McDonalds and the supermarket during the same year. But, let’s be realistic for a moment: Jamila was born in the same year that this picture was taken. Meaning, for nine months of that year, my mother was on maternity leave. Meaning she only worked for three months that year. Why would she decide to get another job right after getting out of maternity leave?
I hadn’t noticed before, but behind the picture in the file there were two birth certificates…two completely different certificates, belonging to two different people.
Now, I had already found my birth certificate, as well as Jamila’s and my father’s. There was only one birth certificate left to be found, yet there were two in front of me.
I pulled them out and placed them in front of me.
The moment I read through them, I realized that one of the certificates wasn’t a birth certificate.
It was a death certificate.
And it belonged to Amanda Williams…my real mother.
I didn’t know what it meant to feel your heart break until that moment.
The second certificate was indeed a birth certificate, belonging to Samantha Hall.
I knew what all of this meant, I just couldn’t accept it. It was what I was looking for, but now that I had found it, I wished I never knew.
The name Samantha was so familiar. I remember Julia using her name in one of her sentences, saying she had taken it too far.
The surname Hall also belonged to someone I knew, someone who was carrying my seed. Cassandra Hall.
I continued paging through this file until I found another picture at the very back. The picture looked exactly like the one I had found before, there was just one difference.
The women in the picture were two completely different people. They may have looked alike, but they were definitely not one person. One was my mother, Amanda Williams, and the other was the women who I grew up thinking was my mother, Samantha Hall.
The picture with my real mother was much clearer because it wasn’t edited and photo-shopped like the one with Samantha. My mother had on her supermarket uniform, and I noticed something that I should have noticed a long time ago. My mother had a large black spot on her neck, a birth mark. Samantha never had one, and I felt like I had betrayed my mother for not noticing this.
There was an ‘S’ on the top of the photoshopped picture, and an ‘A’ on top of the picture with my real mother. S for Samantha, and A for Amanda.
I checked the death certificate again, making sure that it indeed was a death certificate.
And it was.
I felt my chest clench as I struggled to breath.
My mother…was dead?
There was a loud thud and the door came falling down.
“What the hell are you…oh my…”
Before Samantha could complete her statement, I grabbed the gun that was hidden underneath her pillow and pointed it right at her.
“Don’t move,” I threaten.
“Amari, what is going on?” she asks. Her lips tremble as she scans the pictures and papers on the bed.
“What did you do to my mother?” I ask.
“Wh…what do you mean, Mari? I’m your mother, your only mo...”
“Shut up Samantha! You’re not mine or Jamila’s mother. Now answer me before I pull this trigger!”
She glares at me for a solid minute and then does the unexpected. She breaks into laughter. She laughs and laughs until tears escape her eyes.
“You crazy woman! You killed my mother!”
The gun clicks before I pull the trigger, but she reacts quickly and pounces on me. I fall to the ground and the gun slides away. I get up to run for it, but she beats me to it and points the gun at me.
“Sit,” she commands.
The look on her face has completely changed. She’s no longer the loving and sweet mother I once believed her to be. She is now herself. “If you don’t sit down right now, I will kill everybody in this house, including Summer!”
Summer? She took Summer? Who is this woman, and can she get any crazier than this?
“You are a disgrace, Amari Williams. You are just like your father. I trapped you, and you fell right for it.” She laughs and I confirm that this woman isn’t well. She’s clearly mentally ill, and she could decide to kill me at any moment. I had to tread carefully.
My phone rings in my pocket, and I know Don is calling.
“Don’t answer it,” Samantha says.
I oblige and sit still, hoping that Don will sense that something is wrong.
“Cassandra! Cassandra darling come in here,” Samantha calls.
Cassie walks in beaming and kisses Samantha’s cheek. “Meet my daughter, Cassandra Hall,” Samantha says. I want to get up and stab Samantha, but she has the upper hand right now, and I can’t take the risk. I just have to hope she won’t do anything to harm Jamila or Summer.
“Have you told him yet?” Cassie asks.
“I was about to. Get comfortable boy, I’m about to blow your mind away.”
The two of them laugh like the psychopaths they are.
“I must admit, in the beginning, I loved you Amari. I had accepted you as my son, and I wanted to give you the best life possible. But, as soon as I realized that you are just like your father, I began to hate you. After Cassie told me that you kissed her, I realized that you were a cheater just like him. I was angry at Cassie and I roughed her up a bit, which I totally regret because later I realized it wasn’t her fault. It was yours! You reminded me of your father, Brandon in so many ways. I loved him, but despised him even more, just like I did you. I told Cassie to be there for you when you found out about your dead uncle and aunt, and she was. She slept with you because I told her to. And now, she’s carrying your blood, which is basically your father’s blood. I’ve always wanted to have kids with your father, but the time never came. At least now, I will be able to say that my grandchild carries the blood of Brandon Williams, the man who I will always love and cherish. Now that I have what I want, I don’t need you anymore, Amari.” She lifts up the gun once again and points it at me. “The people who came into our house last night were meant to kill you, but that stupid Julia got in the way and you escaped with your little girlfriend. There is so much that you don’t know Amari. So much…” She lifts her gun.
“Wait!” I yell. Samantha rolls her eyes and moans. “Di…did you kill Aunt Rashida and Uncle Jon?” I ask.
“Of course, I did. I killed everyone who tried to stop me, and now, you’re next.”
I couldn't believe it. My whole life had been a lie, and now that I knew the truth, my life was coming to an end. My mother, the kind and loving woman who I once knew wasn't the woman in front of me right now. How did I not notice?
She got ready to pull the trigger but stopped when a loud voice interrupted her.
“Put the gun down.” The voice was full of authority and caught all of our attention. I looked to the door and saw Don pointing a gun at Samantha.
Samantha was focused on Don, so I got up and ran for the door.
“Amari!” I hear Samantha yell. I was almost out of the room when everyone’s guns went off. There was chaos and I felt dizzy when I felt something hit my stomach. More Vipers came running into the room and I fell to the ground and held my stomach while letting out a loud groan.
Samantha had a good aim. She shot me right in the stomach. I opened my eyes and saw her lying on the floor across me. Her eyes were wide open, but she wasn’t breathing. Cassie fell on her knees and cried for her dead mother.
I looked at my hand which was now full of blood. I was losing blood, a lot of it. A man with a snake tattooed on his arms picked me up and ran with me out of the room. I couldn’t believe the turn my life had taken. These men were once what I thought were my greatest enemies, and now they’re saving me from someone I never thought would be my real enemy.
“Get him to the doctor, now! We can’t afford to lose him too!” Don yells.
As the man ran out of the house with me, a few neighbours were out on their porches, and they gasped when they saw the condition I was in. The Vipers must have warned them to not call the police. I saw Summer and Jamila seated on the porch with the Vipers surrounding them.
“Amari!” Summer cried. She tried to run to me, but the Vipers didn’t let her. They didn’t want her to see the condition I was in. I noticed a few bruises on her face and hoped that they weren’t from Samantha. If they were, I’d never forgive myself.
I held out my hand towards Summer as I felt myself getting weaker and weaker. I was placed on a bed in the back of a van which drove off immediately.
“Come on lil Shaun! Stay with us!”
Every part of me grew weak, and my eyes slowly gave in to a deep sleep. There were still so many unanswered questions, so much that I didn’t understand, but at least now I knew it was all over.
The monster was dead.