Vengeance

“The Devil is a liar,” Nigel added. “You can blow.”

“Amazing chops!” Shayne chimed in. “You need to go to some Broadway auditions.”

“Yessir-ree! It’s worth a shot!” Crispin confirmed Shayne’s thought.

“Stop kidding with me!” I lashed out, hurt from them teasing me. “I’m not talented!”

“Says who? You?” Hannah walked over and rubbed me across the cheek. “Baby girl, a lot of people don’t recognize their own gifts. You can sing great and . . .” She paused and looked around the room. “My buddies and I might be a lot of things, but liars we are not. We don’t sugarcoat shit.”

“Never have, never will,” Shayne cosigned. “Now me, I sound like a sick frog when I sing, but I own it. You need to own up to the fact that you have a natural talent. Embrace that bitch.”

“Have you ever had any voice lessons?” Nigel asked. “You sound like a pro.”

I smirked. “I was barely allowed to go out the house. Besides, Grandma couldn’t afford anything like that for me.”

Sebastian had been fairly quiet up to that point, but that brought him back into the fold. “Grandma? Is that who raised you? Is she still alive?”

I looked at him in horror, and didn’t say a word. I had no idea what Hannah had told her friends about me, but I knew that she was a master of mixing fact with fiction and making it sound plausible.

He looked at Hannah. “I thought you said this child didn’t have any living relatives. Are you sure you need to be involved in all of this, Hannah?”

Crispin started in then. “What’s really going on here?” She looked at me. “How exactly did you and Hannah meet, Caprice? And how old are you again?”

I still didn’t say a word.

“It’s Thanksgiving,” Hannah finally said. “My name’s not Babe or Dustin Hoffman, none of you are dentists, and this is not going to turn into the interrogation scene from Marathon Man.”

I cringed when Hannah said that. We had watched that 1976 flick on VHS a few nights earlier and that scene where a dentist tortured the main character by digging into his cavity had unnerved me to my core.

“Let’s just chill and listen to some more music,” Hannah continued.

All the rest of them looked at one another. I could tell it would not be the end of it but hoped it would end for that night.

Sebastian couldn’t drop the subject. “All I’m saying is you don’t need no more felony charges and if, for some reason, Caprice isn’t legally in your care, anything can happen.”

“Why are you all up in my business?” Hannah asked, getting angry. “Have I asked you for shit, to do shit, or for any shitty-ass advice?” She paused and waited for Sebastian to answer. He seemed offended. “That’s what I thought. We’re cool and all but that’s only because you hang with Nigel. He’s my fam. But don’t get it twisted. I don’t need your validation or cosignature on a damn thing I do with my life.”

“Damn, Hannah, chill,” Nigel sta

ted with disdain. “Sebastian didn’t mean any harm.”

Hannah glared at Nigel. “I don’t know if you two are fucking or what, but he needs to leave me alone. And he damn sure better leave Caprice alone.”

Nigel gathered up his coat and scarf off the armchair. “Maybe we should go.”

“Maybe you should,” Shayne said. “This is getting out of hand.”

Hannah and Sebastian stared at each other as Nigel got Sebastian’s things as well. Then Sebastian said one word that set me off: “Bitch!”

Now the word “bitch” was acceptable in some instances, and I had grown to understand that, even at my age. Sometimes it was used as a term of endearment or an acknowledgment of being fierce. But when Sebastian straight up called Hannah a bitch and then followed it up with a sneer on his face, something within me snapped in two.

I had had “outbursts” before but this time was different. I leaped over the coffee table and landed on Sebastian’s chest as I knocked him backward onto the floor. I started scratching at his face and was determined to rip one of his eyeballs out if I could.

I heard Hannah scream and Nigel and Crispin pulled me off Sebastian, who was flailing around on the floor like a fish out of water. I tried to kick him in the privates—I was not sure what stage of transition he was in, but I was kicking at whatever was there—and the adrenaline in my body upticked a notch as I screamed, “I’ve got your bitch! Don’t you talk to Hannah like that, you fucking wildebeest!”

Sebastian still seemed shocked as he stood with some help from Shayne, and was noticeably shaken. Even though he was now a man, he was scared like the female he used to be. I didn’t give a fuck what he was or was not; no one was going to talk to Hannah like that.

“Something is seriously wrong with you,” Sebastian said to me as Nigel and Crispin let me go. “I can’t believe you attacked me.”