Page 1 of Her Unflinching Warrior (Omega Sky)
PROLOGUE
“What doyou think you’re doing?” his father gasped from his wheelchair. This was not the man who’d raised him, through his dad’s worn gray t-shirt, only shoulder bones stuck out where muscles used to bulge.
Gideon looked down at this shell of a man and swallowed hard. He couldn’t show any emotion, not when the powerful Kendall Douglas was blackmailing him.
No weakness. I can’t show any weakness.
Gideon turned away and started prowling around the small kitchen of the house he’d grown up in. His parents were sitting at the tiny kitchen table where their little family had eaten most of their meals, and he was doing everything in his power to avoid looking at them again.
Out of the corner of his eye, he could see his mother holding his father’s hand. How often had he seen that unity?
Every day.
He’d seen his parents’ solidarity almost every single day of his life, until his father’s accident. Then Pops was plugged into too many machines, and there wasn’t a way for Sela Smith to hold onto Henry Smith’s hand. Now that his father was home, and not plugged into the machines, they could finally show their solidarity again. But Gideon knew it killed his father to not have the strength to squeeze the hand of the woman he loved.
“I’m packing,” he quietly answered his father’s question. “I’ve got a bus to catch.”
“Well, stop,” his mother said. “I’ll report you as a runaway, and you’ll be back by dinnertime.” She was using her calm Sunday school teacher voice.
Gideon continued to roll up his phone charger he’d just unplugged from the wall and pushed it into his backpack. He pulled out a sheaf of papers and walked over to his parents. Two sets of brown eyes, so like his own, stared up at him. He set the papers on the table in front of them.
“What’s this?” his father asked. He picked up the papers with a shaking hand. He tried to unfold them, but his wife had to help. They both started reading, and Gideon’s mother finished first. It killed Gideon. Since his Pop’s accident, even his mental acuity had gone downhill.
“This isn’t legal,” she burst out. “You’re only fourteen, you can’t be an emancipated minor. That’s not possible.”
“It’s legal. Pops signed the paperwork, and it was notarized in front of him. Remember?” he asked as he turned to his dad.
He watched his father’s typically mahogany skin tone turn to ash. “I was signing papers about my doctor bills and disability claims,” his dad protested weakly. “It was when your mom was at work. You were helping me, Son.”
Bile rose in his gorge and Gideon swallowed twice, forcing himself not to vomit on the kitchen floor.
“Is that true, Gideon? Did you trick your father into signing papers to make you an emancipated minor?” His mom gasped out the question. She was holding the side of her face as if she’d been slapped.
Gideon couldn’t verbally respond, knowing he might bawl. He nodded his head instead.
“Why? Why would you do this to us?” Gideon had never seen his father look so bewildered, not even when he’d first woken up in the hospital. “Why would you want to leave us? Your brother?” His father shook his head. It was like he was trying to get the idea of Gideon wanting to abandon his family to roll around in his brain until it would finally click into place.
“I gotta go. It’s time.” All of his planned speeches had disappeared under the weight of his dad’s pain.
“Son, you know things are tough right now, but these are the times when families need to cleave together the most.” His father gripped the arm of his wheelchair. “Gideon, we raised you better than this, in my heart I know this. Talk to me. Explain this to me, because I know this isn’t you.” His father was right. That was exactly how Gideon felt.
“You’re wrong. It is me.” Gideon kept his answer short, he needed them to believe him. He had to sell this story because lives depended on it, namely theirs. He couldn’t let them guess how he really felt—if they got suspicious, it would be the end.
He knew his Ma and Pops, they’d keep at him until they found out the truth, and they’d try to take on Mr. Douglas themselves. They’d try to fight for Gideon, but it’d be no use. Gideon would end up in jail and his family would end up homeless.
His mother released her husband’s hands and stood up. She had the bearing of the choir director that she was. She lifted one hand and pointed at him. “I will go to court and make this right. You’re only fourteen, this can’t be legal, there is no way that any judge would allow this to stand. You deceived a sick man, and I will make sure the notary who did this will lose their license.”
Yeah, like that’s going to happen.Mr. Douglas’ lawyers at Streetgamezzz were too slick for that. His mother would never find that notary.
“Ma, it’s legal. What’s more, you missed the court date. It’s done.”
She sucked down a deep breath until her ample bosom threatened to burst through the buttons of her housecoat. “What do you mean, it’s done? What court date?” she demanded to know.
“There was a registered letter. It was sent to the house with the date and time of the hearing to protest my emancipation. You guys didn’t show, so it went through. It’s finished.”
She wilted before his eyes. “The boy I raised would never scheme like that. He would not sign for a registered letter to his parents and keep it from us.”
His father struggled to sit straighter in his chair, but it was no use. He ended up slumped forward against the strap around his chest. “Gideon, Son, tell me you didn’t do this.” Henry Smith lifted his head so his rheumy gaze could catch Gideon’s.
