Page 12 of The Coldest: Stay Dangerous Part 2

It’s too many of these niggas. After Fredo and my other cousin died within a month of each other, they decided to not let time zones and country borders keep us from knowing each other.

The older cousins work here at the hotel, or have settled down in the States. The young wild ones are having their way across the country, from Placencia to Belmopan to right next to us in Corozal.

Reno’s laughing at something NiNi posted when my office door bursts open.

Mars barrels in, mouth agape and frozen mid-cry. His hair is half combed as he runs to me, arms outstretched, rounding the desk to climb in my lap.

“It hurts!” he cries in Spanish. “Nan’s hurting me!”

He hiccups, still not breathing as he buries his head in my chest.

Mars is so tenderheaded. And Nan has never gave a fuck about a lil’ nigga being tenderheaded.

She shuffles into my office and points to Mars with a paddle brush.

“Stop all that crying! I need to comb your hair!” she thunders in Spanish.

“You’re hurting him,” I mutter.

She turns her heated glare to me. “You won’t let me help the girl. You won’t let me comb his hair. He cries enough! Now it’s two people in here crying, crying all the time. I give up!” She launches the brush at us before storming out.

It’s been like this for almost a month. She watches the cameras in Snow’s suite more than I do, but I’ve forbid her from interfering.

She needs to quit cold turkey.

Nan doesn’t think she’s strong enough. Before today, we only communicated through notes, with her petty ass. Messy scribbles in old cursive about how detoxing will kill her. Little snide remarks about how that must be what I want.

She’s not wrong.

Snow succumbing to her body craving that shit is way less messier than me just killing her. I can still shoot her rotting corpse with my bullet. Or maybe I can just put her out of her misery, when she finally begs for me to end it all.

So far, she just whimpers about how much she hates me and Auty.

“Mars. You know I have to finish combing your hair,” I say as softly as I can. “Or… I can just cut it off.”

He leans back, tears clinging to his lower lashes. “I don’t wanna cut it,” he murmurs low.

“Then you gotta get used to Nan, or learn to comb it yourself. If it gets matted, it will be cut.”

“Can you do it?”

It’s funny. Mars has the same medium brown eyes as everyone in our immediate family, but they do the exact opposite. They turn into molasses when he’s upset, his irises moving and erupting like lava instead of going flat like mine do.

Maybe he will break the curses that plague us. But I still think that’s too much pressure on a five year-old’s shoulders.

“Yeah,” I sigh. He clings to me as I stand, and I hoist him up when I go to grab the paddle brush.

Nan’s too old to bend over the tub like she used to, and too stubborn to use the handheld showerhead. I take Mars into his bathroom and have him lean over while I saturate his hair with water, then conditioner.

He hates getting his hair combed, and I know the only way he’ll manage is if it’s drenched.

He sniffles as he lays his head on my lap. I’m as gentle as I can be, but the conditioner helps considerably, and soon enough, his hair is detangled.

“You spoil him.”

I grunt, not acknowledging Nan at the doorway.

“Mars, go find Miele and tell her I said to give you plaits.”