Luxe Read Online Free PDF Page A

sympathetically as she walked side by side with Noah toward an awaiting squad car. She felt Noah’s fingers intertwine with her own, but she was too distraught to squeeze back. Still, he never let go. Little did she know he never would.
    *   *   *
    Bleu said nothing, partly because she couldn’t answer the officers’ questions, but mostly because even at eight years old she understood that the police were not on her side. As she sat in seclusion in the small room, she stared off into space. She hadn’t spoken one word since the police had brought her and Noah in. The police had separated her and Noah, treating them as if they had committed the crime themselves. She was terrified. What had the police done to her father? Where was Noah? How long were they going to keep her here? She just wanted to go home. There was no clock in the small room. In fact, besides the table that she was sitting at, it was all white walls. She had no idea how long she had been there. Minutes felt like hours, and she grew increasingly anxious the longer they made her wait.
    She rested her head atop her folded arms as she stuck her butt out in the chair while scraping the crust off of the table with her fingernail. She had cried so much that her tears had left salty residue behind. Nobody seemed to care that she had just seen her father gunned down. Her hollow stomach was sick, partly from hunger, mostly from grief. The police were trying to reach her mother, but Sienna wasn’t the type of woman who could be tracked down. If she didn’t want to be found, she wouldn’t be. She was probably out on a crack binge, sucking dicks for a fix, and until the police located her, Bleu wasn’t going anywhere. Bleu didn’t even know if she wanted to go home. Everything would be different now that her father was gone. It would just be her and Sienna, an inevitable recipe for disaster. She was her mother’s greatest mistake. Wayne wouldn’t be around to take the brunt of Sienna’s bitterness over her failed life; Bleu undoubtedly would become the new victim. She dreaded it like the plague. She feared it because the extent of Sienna’s resentment would be revealed. Bleu was a motherless child. It didn’t always take death to create a maternal disconnect. Bleu lived right under the same roof as her mother and had never felt anything other than indifference from the woman who had birthed her. With her father dead she was doomed. The worst was yet to come.
    When the door opened, more men in black uniforms with shiny badges entered, but this time they were followed by a familiar face.
    â€œOh, baby,” Ms. Monica, Noah’s mother, whispered as she looked at Bleu with tears in her eyes. She was covered in dried blood; it was on her face, her hands, soaked into her clothes. She was a disaster and Ms. Monica’s heart broke at first sight.
    â€œYou all should be ashamed of yourselves,” she said as she walked over to Bleu, large leather Coach purse hanging from her shoulders. “Come on, Bleu. I’m gonna take you home, baby,” she said.
    Bleu took Ms. Monica’s hand and followed her out of the room. Noah was waiting in the hall and jumped to his feet, hustling to Bleu’s side as soon as he saw her.
    â€œYou all right?” he asked, concerned. They had both witnessed something that eyes that young should never see, but such is life in a city like Flint. Kids never truly got the chance to be young. There were too many uphill battles along the way to adulthood, which aged them before their time.
    She nodded, but he could tell that she was lying. They didn’t speak as Ms. Monica led them to the car. Bleu was traumatized into introversion, and Noah just didn’t know what to say to make it better, so he opted for saying nothing at all.
    *   *   *
    â€œBleu, why the hell you with Ms. Monica? Is that blood? Where the hell is your daddy?”