Page 2 of Shadow's Surrender
Chapter One
Sixteen years ago
If his fatherwould’ve been locked up for a long time or had gone away, it would’ve been the perfect ending to an existence of fear, anger, and hurt, but life didn’t work that way. At least it didn’t seem to for Steve Basson. His father spent a few weeks in jail, then wooed his way back into his mother’s heart. All was good for a while until his dad’s old ways crept back in: chasing every skirt in town, getting drunk, and hitting on his wife and son.
At fourteen years old,Stevehad grown much taller and had begun to fill out, and he’d also adopted the nickname his mother had given him a few years back—“Shadow.” Now when his father hit on his mother, Shadow put up a battle, transferring his dad’s wrath to him over his mother’s protestations.
It was a cold winter night when the front doorbell rang at one in the morning. The chimes sounded odd at that hour in the quiet of the house. Shadow had reached the door first and grasped the knob. His mother shuffled toward him, her long fingers tying the sash around her robe.
“Who could it be?” she whispered.
Shadow looked through the peephole and saw two police officers. “Cops. Dad’s probably gotten himself in troubleagain.” He pulled the door open.
“Mrs. Basson?” one of the cops asked, looking over Shadow’s shoulder.
“Yes.” She gripped her son’s arm.
“May we come in?”
“Just say what you need to right where you’re at,” Shadow grumbled.
The older officer threw a hard look at the teenager. “Who are you?”
“Sha—Steve Basson. Why’re you here?”
The younger cop fidgeted in place, glancing at Shadow then at his mom. “Is Russell Basson your husband?”
“Yes.” Her fingers dug deeper into Shadow’s skin.
The older uniform cleared his throat. “We’re sorry to inform you, but your husband was killed this evening in an alley behind the Old Miner’s Bar.”
His mother sagged against Shadow, and he wrapped his arm around her. The only thing Shadow felt was relief upon learning of his father’s death. It turned out that some guy had slit his father’s throat—ear to ear—in a fight that had spilled out of the dive bar his dad had frequented every weekend for as long as Shadow could remember. The only thought that kept flitting through his brain was:We’re finally free of the sonofabitch.
Losing his tyrannical father that day threw him and his mother into a financial tailspin, but for Shadow, the peace in the household was worth losing their family home and moving into a rusted trailer in the seedier part of Pinewood Springs. There was a five-year waitlist for government housing, so a friend of a friend of his mother’s had hooked her up with a landlord who only cared about the rent, and they had moved in just before Shadow’s fifteenth birthday.
It was hotter than hell in the trailer that night, and the three fans blowing the stagnant air around the tiny living room weren’t doing shit to cool anything off. Beads of sweat rolled down Shadow’s back as he walked over to the fridge and grabbed a Coke. He ran the cold can over his face and around his neck before popping it open and guzzling it down. He crushed the can and tossed it into the trashcan.
“Remember to stay inside,” his mother said as she adjusted her stockings. “These damn things are clinging to my legs, it’s so hot.”
Shadow looked away. He hated that his mother had to work at a strip bar to pay the damn bills. Every time he brought up quitting school to work at Crossroad’s Ranch in the valley, he and his mother would get into a fight, and it always ended the same—Shadow promising to stay in school until he graduated. The measly part-time job he had at Hanson’s Barber Shop in town barely covered the electric bill.
“I’m gonna hang out for about an hour with Eli,” he said, avoiding his mother’s eyes.
“No, you’re not. I don’t want you running around at night when I’m not here or getting into any trouble. I couldn’t stand it if anything happened to you.”
Fuck!“It’s just for an hour and we’re gonna hang around here.”
“I don’t like the people who live here.”
Shadow felt his mom’s arms wrap around his waist; she was standing behind him, and he could smell the coconut perfume she always wore. She told him that it made her feel like she was on vacation at a beach resort. How he wished he could take her to one of those islands she was always talking about.
“Ma,” he wriggled out of her grasp, “I’m almost sixteen. I can go to Eli’s house—he lives in a nice neighborhood and you’ve met his parents before. I hate sitting around here all the time.”
His mother blinked rapidly.Fuck—she’s gonna cry. Why the fuck don’t I keep my big mouth shut?“Okay, Ma, I’ll stay here. You know, I worry aboutyouwhen you’re at work. There’re a lot of creeps at Satin Dolls.”
“I watch myself. Anyway, if all goes the way I think it will, I won’t have to work there too much longer.”
“What does that mean?”
