A Mother's Wrath by Little Bear

"Ma'am, you have to let us put her in the back of the ambulance," stated the calm, firm voice beside her.

The young, damaged child was pressed so tight against her mother, both of their heads bent that the EMS technician did not know which one was whimpering.

Upon entering the domicile, EMS tech Rebecca Sterling and her partner immediately confirmed police were two minutes out, due to the raised voices that were clear 300 feet from the home. And the neighborhood that was not always safe for them to do their job. There knock brought silence for mere seconds before the dull roar of agitated voices rose again. The door opened and Rebecca immediately took in the scene.

Caucasian woman of average height and build with dark red hair, age 30 to 35, swung the door wide open. She turned away from the emergency personnel, walking towards the other side of the room, towards another person hunched over against the wall.

Rebecca's partner, Rodney Fields, asked the usual questions to try to bring control to this spiraling situation.

Rebecca's dark eyes lighted on the hunching figure, also Caucasian, male teenager, lithe in build and the same dark red hair as the woman. A laceration to his head bled profusely and his t-shirt was stretched around the collar, hanging low on his chest. He continued to yell, "I'm sorry", while holding his head and weeping.

The woman, his mother, guessed Rebecca, stood near him, but did not offer comfort, only trying to out-shout another woman on the couch holding a child in her arms.

"Enough! Shut up!" And surprisingly there was silence. The commanding woman on the couch that made quiet reign in the small room turned haunted dark brown eyes to Rebecca.

Within five seconds, Rebecca took her in; African-American woman, tall, powerful build, early 30s, short black hair with no obvious medical problems.

"Please help my daughter," pleaded Dre' from the couch. Blocking out Devin and her son Demarcus, still crying against the wall. If she even looked at that boy again, she would have to kill him. If she heard Devin try to reason with her one more time on her boy's behalf, she would have to hurt her. Nothing was important but her baby, bleeding in her arms.

EMS tech Rodney went directly to the crying teenager, while Rebecca turned toward mother and child on the couch.

Young African-American female, in obvious distress due to pale skin tone, glassy eyes and shallow breathing. Bruising around the lower portion of her face, especially the mouth region. Wrapped in a blanket lying on her stomach in her mother's lap, Rebecca could not get a complete visual of the young girl.

She approached Dre' as if she was trying to calm a skittish colt. She got on her haunches near the pair and immediately began her initial assessment, while speaking quietly to the woman and child.

"What's the princess's name? And your name?" she asked, as she assessed the child's vital signs. A rapid, but weak pulse and low pressure with the other visual symptoms were hallmarks of shock, which was worrisome, but the blood on the blanket was demanding her attention as well.

"I'm Andrea and this is Tate. Tate Drummonds," came the low voice above Rebecca, the strain of this impossible situation making the honey voice fracture.

"Hi Tate. My name is Rebecca and I need to look at you. I'm going to unwrap this blanket so I can see where it hurts. Ok?" Affirmation came from the mother, but the child did blink and meet Rebecca's eyes. Meeting the tortured eyes of the light-skinned woman, she asked, "What happened?"

Pulling the character blanket from the slim walnut colored body, Rebecca was not surprised by the blood covering the seat of the child's pants because of the stain on the blanket. But gently pulling the pants and underwear down the child's thighs, Rebecca briefly questioned the existence of a higher power.

The arrival of the police brought a semblance of calm back from its earlier fever pitch, where the mother and son pair began screaming and crying again.

Dre' was determined to block out the noise, to only focus on the fragile bundle in her lap. But she did follow the officer talking to the boy in her periphery. The boy with the dead eyes, dared to look the officer in the eye and say, "She liked me. She wanted me to love her."

The beast inside came off its chain and propelled Dre' forward to slake the thirst for vengeance against this monster that touched, maimed, defiled her cub. As swift as a shadow, Dre' slid from underneath her baby and left her daughter in the capable hands of the tech to finish the assessment. She took eight measure steps towards her prey, jostling the two uniformed cops, and grabbed the lanky 18 year old boy.

Before the officers could even think about reacting, Dre' pushed the youth against the wall and brought her forearm to his neck. The beast growled, smelling blood in the air, wanting to erupt again and tear out her prey's throat.

Dre' leaned into the scared visage and purred, "Stop lying, you sick fuck. You hurt my baby, so I'm going to hurt you." She leaned harder on her forearm, making him gasp for breath.

As if she was coming up from a deep sea dive, Dre' was barely able to take in the other surrounding stimuli. Not just her consuming rage and the fear from her prey, but now she could hear the voices compelling her to back down, to loosen Demarcus Miller, son of her girlfriend Devin Miller.

The only thing that made the beast go lay down in the corner was Rebecca's admonishment to come care for Tate. She let the boy drop like a bag of potatoes to the carpeted floor and she went back to the sagging couch and held her baby close.

While the paramedics loaded the still silent Tate into the wagon, Dre' had to bring someone else to hell with her. She dreaded making the necessary call, but pushed 2 on her cell phone and brought the ringing phone to her ear, watching Rebecca and Rodney tend to her only child.

"Hello?" questioned the light voice.

"Hey Nuru?I?"

"What's wrong?" The crispness of the voice brought Dre's verbal stumbling to an end.

"I'm so sorry. But Tate's hurt and we're on the way to the hospital."

"What?! What happened? Is she ok? Let me talk to her!"

Rebecca was motioning for her to get in the ambulance. The siren was already on and they were ready to shuttle Tate to the emergency room. "I can't talk. I need to get in the ambulance with Tate. Meet us at Texas Children's. "

"But Andrea, what's wrong?"

"Please just meet us in the ER. She needs her mommy. Bye." And I need you because I'm dying.

@@@

Dre' leaned against the back of the elevator going down to meet her frantic ex. She couldn't explain to her over the phone what was going on and had no idea how she was going to do it face-to-face. There was not enough strength in the world to look in the dark eyes of her ex-partner and tell her that their child was violated. By her girlfriend's son.

Growling under her breath, she thought about the son of a bitch that touched her little girl. She knew that boy was no good, but she never thought he would lay a finger on her baby. He just seemed like a kid that hung out with the wrong crowd, but never this. And she let that sick fuck near her precious little girl. Rolling her head against the back wall, she allowed only one tear to fall, refusing to give in to the sorrow that tried to envelope her, suffocate her.

The ding of the elevator reaching the ground floor brought the mask into place. The opening doors brought Nuru's storming figure, impacting Dre', surprising her.

Before she could open her mouth, Nuru grabbed her upper arms and begged, "What happened? Why is Tate here?"

For a brief moment, Dre' closed her eyes to the worried woman holding her arms. Knowing that even though Nuru was agitated right now, in seconds after her damning words, her ex would be delirious with anguish.

The smoothly dark-skinned woman, with the sweat glistened body shook Dre' again demanding an answer.

"Tate was raped."

And everything in Nuru's world would never be the same again. Her hands no longer gripped the muscular biceps; her thoughts no longer raced about the possible injuries that her baby could have suffered while at her other mother's house. She became numb to everything, unable to wrap her mind around her 8 year old daughter being raped. Oh god.

Dre' grabbed her before she fell to the floor of the elevator. She held the woman that still held her heart and knew she just tore a hole through her soul. Making sure Nuru was conscious, she shuffled them both out of the elevator and propped her against the wall.

Nuru looked at Dre' with her big dark eyes, pleading with her for it to be untrue, but she knew, knew that Dre' was telling the truth.

"What happened?" she wailed as she slid to the cold floor. Dre' followed her.

"I came back to the house from the corner store. Tater wanted ice cream and cookies, but didn't ride because she wanted to finish her game on the Wii. I left her playing with Demarcus. Devin was home too?

The house was quiet when she entered, except for the low hum of a TV in her and Devin's bedroom and the music from the video game that played by itself on the TV in the living room.

It was too quiet. She put the ice cream in the freezer and left the cookies in the bag on the table, while she called for the kids. Peeking into the first bedroom, she saw Devin laying down, napping and closed the door back to its original position.

Walking down the hallway to the next bedroom, she stopped calling out, unexplained fear twisting her guts. She pushed in Demarcus' bedroom door and saw the usual teenage boy disarray, but not the kids.

Her heart began to beat wildly as she approached her daughter's room. Knowing like she knew when Nuru was going to walk out on their relationship, knowing like she knew she would never love someone as much as she did Nuru, she knew that she wasn't going to like what was behind the third door.

It wasn't so quiet anymore. There were muffled cries and her pulse jumped. The door swung open when she placed the flat of her palm to her daughter's bedroom door. She could not enter the room.

Demarcus was on top of her little girl, who was lying on her tummy on top of her captain's bed. His large hand spanned the bottom of Tate's face, trying to silence her screams. Like a Nikon camera, she zoomed in on the boy's jeans and boxers around his ankles and Dre' moved without conscious thought.

One moment she was standing at the entryway of the room and the next, she was pulling this monster off her baby. Pulling him by his t-shirt from the floor, she tried to throw him from the room, as far as possible from her Tater Tot. He did go through the door, but not before his head hit the door frame. A bloom of red appeared instantly on his head.

Devin came clamoring into the room. Her nap interrupted by Tate's hysterical crying and her son's screams.

But she paid no attention to the mother of the monster. She slowly approached her near-convulsive daughter. Then she saw red. Oh god, there was so much blood.

"The police took him away before we came here." Dre' was almost hoarse, trying to trap all her emotions, so they wouldn't overcome her.

She was met by silence. Dre's head was bowed, unable to meet Nuru's eyes as she told her horrific tale.

"Where is Tate?"

A sigh and then a deep breath for continued strength. "She's in surgery."

Wet cocoa eyes met her own dark ones and she had to swallow the bile that forced itself up. "There was vaginal and anal tearing."

"Oh god," bawled Nuru. She wrapped her thin arms around her middle and rocked herself back and forth.

Wanting to provide some comfort, Dre' reached to push the thin brunette natural locs back from Nuru's forehead, but she was pushed away.

"Don't touch me! This is your fault! You were supposed to be watching her. It was your weekend. And you let this happen!" She pushed up from the floor, standing enraged over her ex. Damning her for this all-encompassing pain that plagued her soul.

"But?but?"

"No! I told you I didn't like that kid around Tate and you promised me, you promised me that she would never be alone with him!"

"I know, but"

"No! You promised! And now my baby is hurt! Oh god, Dre', our baby is hurt," she folded in on herself.

Quickly coming out of her stunned stupor, Dre' caught the slowly descending woman. She held the woman like she held their daughter and rocked her until the tremors passed. All the comfort she was dispensing only made her hate herself more for not being able to protect their daughter.

@@@

Hours later found the fractured family in a private room with their slightly sedated daughter. The doctor tried to explain that Tate had a 4th degree tear with recto-vaginal fistula and they had to perform a lateral internal sphincterotomy to correct it. It was all Greek to the mothers. The only thing they heard was the surgery was successful and with time her physical wounds would heal.

They both sat vigil on either side of their daughter's bed, watching her sleep. The aching silence was broken by the opening of the door.

Dre' did not even lift her head, already used to the numerous nurses that paraded through the room to check on her baby. But the widened eyes and anger on the normally placid face of her ex had her turn in her seat. She shot out of her chair immediately, intent on getting this interloper from her family.

She grabbed Devin by her upper-arm and strong-armed her out of the room. Looking back at the broken bodies of the girls of her heart, she quietly apologized.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" whispered Dre' between clenched teeth as she propelled them both down the long hallway to the elevators, out of the scrambling eyes of the nurses.

"I wanted to check on Tate."

"Don't! Don't you even speak her name."

"I'm sorry Dre'. So sorry," she whispered as the tears streamed down her face.

"You are sorry?! Your crazy ass son raped my daughter!"Dre' seethed.

"But there has to be an explanation for what he did. He just wouldn't-"

At the elevators now, Dre' pushed the down button, needing to get this woman from in front of her before she lost control.

"Don't you dare make excuses for that asshole!" Dre' stepped into the other woman's space, spitting the next words at her. "I didn't listen to that shit at the house and I won't listen to it here."

"But you help raise him for the last 6 months, you know he's not evil," pleaded Devin.

The ding of the elevator didn't stop Dre's next words. "All I know is that my daughter had to have surgery for something that sick bastard did. I know that I can't look at you any longer because I'll have to hurt you."

She pushed the woman into the open elevator and said in a steel-laced voice, "Don't come back."

@@@

The moon hid behind clouds and there were no discernable twinkling stars in the sky. There was only darkness that met the dark eyes of Andrea Simmons. How apropos, darkness outside matches the darkness inside.

Turning her back on the darkness, the beleaguered mother reflected on her light, Nuru and Tate. She pulled the light blanket tighter over Nuru to ward off the hospital's chill. Placing a gentle kiss on her love's forehead, she moved to the young body in the sterile bed.

Her baby rested peacefully, the drugs and the ice packs working their magic. Dre' brushed the loose strands back from her little girl's face and studied the features that she loved so much. People always said she looked like Nuru, maybe because of the similar dark chocolate skin and sepia hued hair color. Dre' was lighter in skin and hair color, therefore most people assumed Nuru was the bio-mom, but Tate was adopted. They wanted to open their love and expand their family, so they adopted this beautiful creature as an infant.

"Hey, my little Tater Tot," she whispered to her girl and stroked her soft face.

"You remember why you're my little Tater? Hmm?" She smoothed out the thin blanket that covered her precious child. "Because when me and your Mama got you, you were small like a Tater Tot. Plus, your mom was determined to name you Tate, which I did try to veto. Sorry kid. But I chose your middle name, so you can always go by Catherine if you like. Would you like that baby?"

She pulled one of the child's lax hands into her own, needing the contact. "I'm sorry I wasn't there for you Tate." Dre's head touched their clasped hands on the white covered bed. "I am so sorry."

And the tears rained down, going from a light mist to a torrential shower in seconds. Her body racked with the sobs that finally overcame her legendary control. The gentle press of Nuru's soft body encapsulated her own, helping Dre' to weather this unforgivable storm.

As she wound down from the worst of her crying fit, she heard Nuru's words whispered in her ear, "It's not your fault." Again and again and again, as if, if she continued to say it, maybe both of them would believe it.

@@@

The sun tried to lighten every darkened corner in the house where tragedy touched down yesterday. Dre' stared balefully at the cheery sunlight, wishing it behind a dark cloud. She dried her body and hurried into a clean set of clothes. She didn't want to leave her daughter's side, but was told in no uncertain terms to go home, get some rest, and get cleaned up by her ex. She understood it because she did the same thing this morning to Nuru. She was willing to take a quick shower, but she couldn't rest or stay away any longer than necessary. The unease in her guts was overpowering when she was away from her baby now. She had to be with her, so she could always protect her.

Flopping down on the couch, she tried to collect herself before she sped to the hospital. Without any sleep the previous night, Dre' was spent. Between the bombarding emotions surrounding her she just wanted to breathe. Dre' covered her dark eyes, willing her body to calm and her emotions to stop swirling.

The ringing home phone brought her up quickly from her supine position. She was home alone; Devin had made herself scarce when she returned to their home. Deciding to answer it, in case Nuru called the house phone instead of her cell phone, she picked up the living room extension.

"Hello?" she answered disoriented.

A long pause and then a shaky voice. "Is my mom there? She's not answering her cell phone."

"Demarcus?" Dre' was incredulous. The little bastard shouldn't be using the phone in jail.

"Uh, yes, it's me. Is my mom there?"

"No, she's not. Why are you calling?"

"Um, well, Mom posted bond and I'm ready to be picked up, but I'll try to call her on her cell again."

The roaring in her ears was the rapid rise as her blood pressure spiked and went through the roof. Unfuckingbelievable. Her baby wasn't even free from the hospital, but this monster was already out of jail.

"Sit tight Demarcus, I'll pick you up."

"No, no, nnnno, I can wait for mom."

"I'll be there. You be out on the steps." And she hung up. Her only focus was getting to the boy before Devin.

@@@

The boy had dark circles under his eyes; apparently he had a sleepless night as well. His head lolled against the passenger side window, proclaiming his sleep. He looked so young in repose, not like he could tear a child apart.

Dre' glanced at him again as she drove down 45 N, taking him home. She took this juvenile into her home, she treated him like he was her own, even understanding some of his stupid teenage mistakes. But he took her kindness and basically shit on her and hers.

Tate did the same thing when she was in a moving vehicle. If she was in a car for more than 15 minutes, she was out like a light. The movement of a vehicle soothed her since she was a baby and even now a car ride was like slipping the girl a knockout drug.

And now this boy dared to be soothed by the same thing. He did not deserve comfort or the oblivion of sleep.

She took the next exit instead of the one that led to his father's house. She was going to take this monster to the four-four; he didn't deserve to go home. The West Mount Houston exit led her to the neighborhood she was looking for. The shot-gun houses were in a state of disrepair and when she found the perfect one, an abandoned residence, the car came to a stop.

As the car coasted to a stop, the boy drowsily blinked his eyes open, but Dre' was already out and making her way to the trunk. By the time he blearily came to, she jerked open the passenger door for him to stumble out.

"Where are we, Dre'?"

But she was not answering any questions. They had exchanged no words since she picked him up from the county jail downtown. He slipped into the car and closed his eyes from the glare she leveled at him from the beginning.

For Dre' she was back in the hospital room with her angel, curled around her on that small bed, physically comforting her, shielding her from any more pain.

Demarcus was propelled up the small cracked steps into the dark house. Paper and construction paraphernalia littered the concrete floors. His questions did not penetrate Dre's shell. He was freaking out now because her eyes were blank and he finally saw the baseball bat loosely gripped in her hand. He screamed for someone to help, anyone to save him from this woman, but his calls went unheeded.

Dre' was in Hermann Park with her best girl. Chasing her through the water spigots, her tinkling laughter a nice contrast to the yells and screams of the excited children surrounding them. She caught her little mermaid and threw her in the air; her baby begging to go higher, higher, higher to touch the sky.

Demarcus never knew pain like he did now. The baseball bat came down harder, harder, harder on his mid-section. One swing glanced off his head, opening his wound from the day before and causing more bleeding. He tried to scurry away from this stranger, to get away from this relentless beast that made pain bloom from his knee. His screams continued to go unanswered.

Dre' picked up her princess from her other mother's home, promising to be careful, to have fun, and to be good. Her girl actually snickered at the last promise, knowing that if they were to have fun, they couldn't possibly be good. She raised the young girl up until they were eye to eye and raised her brow.

"You think I can be careful with you Rugrat?"

A nod yes.

"You think I can have fun with you Tater?"

A nod yes.

"You think I can be good with you Princess?" she growled.

Shaking her head no and laughing at her mom's funny voice. Nuru shook her head at her ex's silliness and went back in her house with a smile on her face.

Demarcus no longer felt any blows, he pressed into a corner, trying to make himself as small as possible, wishing he could disappear. He no longer screamed; there was no energy in his body to sustain it. He heard the labored breaths coming closer to him and he whimpered. Turning his head slightly, he could only see out of one eye, the pipe he saw renewed his efforts to get free.

Dre' carried her sleepy girl to bed and tucked her in for the night. Thinking she was going straight o sleep, she tried to slip from the room, but the small drowsy voice reminded her that they didn't say their prayers tonight.

"Ok Tater, let's do it." They kneeled next to the small bed, brought their palms together and bowed their heads.

Tate recited, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take."

Demarcus saw the savagery in her face before she flipped him on his stomach and kneeled down on his lower back, pinning him to the cool concrete.

"God bless Mama and Mom."

Demarcus felt his boxers and jeans being shoved down his legs.

"God bless my best friend Sasha and Ms. Lewis, the bestest teacher in the whole wide world."

Demarcus squirmed, trying to break free from her inhuman grip. He wanted to get away from the pipe being dragged against his pale skin.

"Amen," she finished as she scampered in bed. But she stopped her Mom's hands before they smoothed out the covers on the bed. "Oh yeah, I forgot Mom. And God bless Devin and God bless Demarcus."

Demarcus whole existence was pain that shattered every nerve ending. The white hot pain radiated from his behind outward, reaching his fingertips and toes. His screams reverberated off the dingy walls of the abandoned house.

@@@

Dre' was on the couch, trying to collect herself before she sped to the hospital. Without any sleep the previous night, Dre' was spent. There were so many emotions she didn't want to excavate, so she focused on breathing. Dre' covered her dark eyes with her forearm, willing her body to calm and her guilt to stop choking her.

The ringing phone almost brought her to consciousness, but she couldn't swim through the thick choppy waters and surface. The ringing finally stopped, so she stopped trying to reach the top.

Her first conscious thought was that she was being watched. She felt the eyes searing her, wandering along her long frame. She felt stiff and dirty.

"I know you're awake. Why did you come here?"

Dre' opened her eyes and met the dark soulful ones of Nuru. She looked around her and saw the clean neat, put-together Mid-town loft where Nuru resided. She wasn't on her dingy couch on the Northside.

"Because I had no where else to go where I could feel close to her without actually being near her."

Nuru nodded her head, understanding Dre's need to connect with their child.

"They're looking for you, you know."

No answer. Dre' closed her eyes and felt the beast inside lick its indulged chops, savoring the feel of vengeance.

"He actually crawled to a pay phone to call the cops."

Still no answer.

"He passed out before the ambulance got there. They took him to Ben Taub because of all of the trauma done to his body."

Nothing, not a peep.

"You damn near killed that boy Andrea."

Dre raised herself to a seated position, refusing to meet the eyes of her ex, not wanting to see the condemnation. For as violent as Dre' was capable of, Nuru was the polar opposite, she saw the good in everyone.

"What are you going to do?"

"Turn myself in," she stated clearly as she rose from the couch.

Nuru pushed her back down heavily on the couch, her anger getting the best of her. "How dare you?! How dare you hurt her even more? She needs you. Damnit Dre', we need you!"

Dre' let Nuru sob in her arms for the injustice of it all. Nuru's world no longer spun in the correct direction. It was like some parallel universe, where her child was in the most physical and emotional pain and she did not know how to reach her and her ex-lover, the woman who had the ability to hold them all together was going to disappear from their lives for doing what Nuru was too afraid to admit to herself that she wished she was present to watch, to see that boy in as much pain as their little girl was.

Nuru tilted the strong woman's head until their eyes met. The self-recrimination, guilt, and disgust warred for dominance in Dre's gaze. Nuru brought her ebony hand to the woman's face, wishing to share some of that overwhelming baggage. She wanted to provide absolution.

She pressed her lips to Dre's forehead and rose from her lap. "Go take a shower. We'll go visit Tate and then we'll go to the police."

"But Nuru," began Dre', but was cut-off by Nuru's fierce look.

"You are too bloodied to go see our child. Go clean up and then we can go."

"But I should just go turn myself in. I don't deserve to see little Tate."

In one motion, Nuru found herself in front of the towering figure. She grabbed Dre's face and looked at her intently. "You listen to me and listen good. Our child didn't deserve to be hurt and used. She doesn't deserve all the pain she's in. We don't deserve for this to be our new reality. Now you go get cleaned up, so you can see our baby."

Dre' left the room quickly; afraid the tears would overcome the emotional dam inside.

@@@

"Hurry up Andrea. I left Tate with Jackie, but I want to get back there soon," called Nuru from the bathroom door. She heard the shower running, but no other sound.

She pushed her head though the door, peeking inside. "Andrea?"

Shoving the curtain inside, she was shocked by Dre's display. She was rubbing her hands raw with the wash cloth, while tears flowed freely from her red eyes.

Nuru turned the shower off and tried to lead the tall woman from the tub.

"Wait, Nunu! I can't get it off. It won't come off," lamented Dre'.

"What won't come off?"

She showed her reddened palms to Nuru and said, "The blood."

Taking the clean, wet hands within her own, she looked into those shattered eyes and then kissed both palms. "They're clean honey. They're clean."

"No they're not," she keened, as her body sunk into the tub.

Nuru followed her in. Pressing kisses to her head and holding her around her quaking shoulders. Dre' wailed, giving into the guilt of not protecting her daughter, the disgust of witnessing her defilement, the rage that consumed her, and the shame of expressing that rage on an 18 year old kid.

"I'm so sorry," Dre' repeated continuously.

Nuru shushed her and petted her, trying to bring calm to this broken woman.

"They let him free Nunu," she reverted to the endearment as she did earlier. "They actually let him out and our baby is still confined to that bed. They let that bastard that took everything that was innocent and good about our angel and let him go."

She pulled Nuru closer, breathing in her goodness, wanting it to coat her black soul.

"I was going to take him home to his father. Maybe scare the shit out of him, but I wasn't going to hurt him that bad. But baby all I could think of was our baby's screams as he took her. And I looked at him actually sleeping next to me in the car. Our princess had to be sedated to sleep, but this motherfucker was comfortable enough to fall asleep. Our child knows no comfort."

More kisses and stroking of her arm brought Dre's heart rate down to the normal range. She took a deep breath and finished, "So I took him to my old hood and took my softball bat out of the car and beat the shit out of him in an empty house. I start thinking about all the good times with Tater Tot and I couldn't stop."

"There was so much blood on the pipe. So much blood." She held Nuru as tight as she could, trying to meld with her, wanting to banish the ugliness she inflicted.

After several minutes of silence and drying of tears, Nuru broke the calm. "I understand why you did it. You are not a monster. He's a monster and I hate him with everything I am." She rose off of the woman beneath her and pulled her into a standing position.

She handed her a towel to finish drying off and said, "But Tate and I need you, so let's do what we have to do to get you back with our little girl."

Dre' tied the towel around her body and brought Nuru within her embrace and declared, "I promise to do anything to protect what's mine." She sealed it with a kiss to Nuru's bowed head.

The End