Don't Burn Out (Currently Editing)

Fifty-Eight

Tiffany's Point Of View

Shock entered the core of my body and my mouth. My body went numb while my brain raced on. For a moment I swore my heart froze. It is time. It is honestly time for all my suffering to mean something.

He begins walking again, dragging my limp body. We get a couple feet from the tree when he turns around.

"Do we have cold feet now? After you talked a lot of shit-"

"No. Not at all. I'd love to mount their heads over our fireplace. It's my mother. I need to see her before we kill them. I need her."

His beautiful eyes return to their original color. My most favorite color that gorgeous milky caramel brown.

He cups my jaw. "Of course. What was I thinking? Let's go get my mother-in-law. Zander and Preston will deal with them until we can."

He takes my hand again. We move through the trees heading deeper into his pack. Pack members follow after hearing our thoughts. I feel Jackie's presences behind me. She runs through the warriors to get to me. She hands me my back pack and bow.

"Thanks." I give her a small smile.

"Hey, it's cool. I wanted to meet your mom too."

"You'll like her. That's is if she's still alive." Zayn squeezes my hand.

"She's alive, baby."

"The doctor told her she had two months left in September. She has leukemia." I say the last part for Jacqueline.

"Oh. Zayn's probably right. Think about your mother alive and happy."

So I do.

-:-:-

I remember one time when I was about twelve. Mother sat me down at her vanity. She said, "I think it's about time you learn to use makeup the right way."

She went over to her prized record player and sat the arm down. A bassy sounding saxophone thumps through the record along with a drum's cymbal crashing down and the light flicker of fingers dance on ivory keys.

Mother flickered her delicate hips to the husky, velvety sound of Dianne Reeves.

She hummed and flicked her hips gathering her makeup supplies.

"Make it one for my baby, and one more for the road." She sung.

Mother could have made it big as a jazz singer. Her speaking voices was high church bells, but her singing voice was freshly made molasses: dark, smooth, slow.

Mother said she didn't want me to be one of those girls with the caked faces. She started with just a bit of liquid foundation. She rubbed it in like lotion. Then applied a little powder to my noes and cheeks. The brush tickled, and caused us both a fit of laughter.

When we calmed down Mother said, "You really don't need too much of this. God blessed you with this naturally perfect skin."

She brung a glass of red liquid to her nose. Slowly, she swirled the glass just under her nose. The liquid sloshed around causing a mini tornado to form.

The bitter aroma of Californian grapes locked under a key in my mind since that day. She tilts the glass with such an elegant grace she looked more like a London bred socialite than a southern women. She took short dainty sips from the glass.

A light clink sounded as the glass was reunited with the wooden vanity.

A print of fire hydrant red lipstick stained the lip of the glass.