Promises: The Next Generation (Bounty Hunters 5)

I guess I still haven’t had a date in two years.

He waited on his Lyft two blocks over, wanting nothing more but to get home and into his bed to sleep for at least eight solid hours. As he slid into the backseat of the white Jetta, he put his earbuds in as a clear indication he wasn’t up for idle chat. He didn’t play any music. He was frustrated, his mind already busy and whirring with a bunch of unanswered questions. Releasing a heavy sigh, he dropped his head back on the seat. Where is my soul’s half? He left the Allah off the front of that sentence. He didn’t pray and he wasn’t asking any entity in particular. He hated that he’d lost his faith, but he hadn’t lost his spirit. He was still a believer.

When he’d turned seventeen, he’d been suddenly fatherless, void of his wise lessons and trapped in a world of mayhem. Stranded in the hood with nonbelievers. This wasn’t the brotherhood his father had spoken of. His mind went back to his parents, to his childhood. To a time where life was damn near perfect. His father had loved his family more than anything. His wife, his son and his brothers in arms were his world… in that order. He was the strongest man Ty had known. He remembered how he’d marveled at anything his father did, any lesson he taught. He felt as if his dad was the I Ching because he had the answer to everything—or so it’d seemed when he was young.

His father was from a moderately populated town in Kenya, called Makuyu. It was about an hour’s drive from Nairobi. His father had been a scholar. His family prominent and wealthy, affording him the best education and an opportunity to study abroad for his Masters. It was during his final year at the University of Georgia when he’d met a shy, honest, half-white, half-black Christian woman and fell head over heels in love with her, recognizing his queen on the spot. Ty’s mom had been a nursing student at the time, there on a scholarship. She didn’t have much, and she’d come from even less. When he’d been taken to the health center for exhaustion, it was her warm brown eyes he woke up to. His father hadn’t cared about her status and he hadn’t cared about her religion. She was still a believer. She’d loved him and respected his culture and beliefs, gladly taking on many of his customs, all because she loved him that much. But marrying an American Christian was not what his father’s family had sent him to the states for, and the minute he’d chosen to marry her… he was no longer welcomed back home. Not with his bride. It was a hard journey for a twenty-six-year-old man, but his father had met every challenge head on. He was fearless. He may have been born privileged, but in Kenya he’d still been taught to be a man and how to survive on his strength, as well as his brilliant mind. After committing himself to Ty’s mother and finishing his degree, he obtained citizenship. He enlisted into the military when Ty was still in the womb. His IQ and ASVAB scores propelled him straight to Annapolis. There was nothing his father did and didn’t excel at, including being a military officer.

So why didn’t he come home?

Ty’s eyes were closed. He’d been so lost in the memories he realized he was almost home. He shook his head when his thoughts went dark. He liked to reflect on the good times with his family… before everything had gone to hell. Ty could still hear the doorbell, still see the men standing in crisp formal military blues with grim looks on their faces, telling them their world would never be the same.

Kell

Kell awoke the next morning, already connecting with his new attitude and direction. He sat on the side of his bed and quietly thanked the heavens for another day. He was always appreciative for another sunrise, another day to show himself and improve on yesterday’s failures.

He went to the bathroom to clean himself up. He washed his face first, brushed his teeth, then looked at his reflection in the tiny mirror mounted on the wall. Today’s going to be a good day. He spoke it into his subconscious, spoke it into existence, so therefore he believed it would happen. He pulled his hair back and tied it with a thick leather strap at the base of his neck, then went back into his bedroom. There wasn’t much in it except his halogen lamp and a stack of books climbing the corner. There was also a small dresser next to the closet door and his full-sized bed pushed against the wall, allowing him enough space to sit Indian-style on the floor at the foot of his bed.