The Devil's Daughter (Devil's Right Hand MC #4)

Chapter 2

"Morning," I say as I walk into the kitchen. Stella is frying an egg on the stove, but upon closer inspection, I notice that the white part is now a dark brown and smoke is rising from the frying pan. She doesn't move, though. It doesn't even look like she's on this planet. It looks like she's in the same place Mama is.

"Stella!" I yell as I try to snap her out of this trance but it doesn't work. I rush to the stove and I turn the gas off, take the pan out of her hand, and throw it in the sink. Smoke billows out of the pan and it hisses in protest as I drown the fire hazard in water.

"Shit," Stella finally mutters as she snaps back into reality. "Oh my God."

"It's okay," I say as I turn to face her. Her once blank face is now covered in shock as her wide eyes stare at the blackened egg in the sink. "You good?"

"Yeah," she sighs, but I know she's lying. Neither of us are good right now.

"You wanna go out for breakfast?" I ask with a laugh. I guess something else we have in common is that we can't cook for shit. We never needed to because Mama was one step below a master chief. Cooking was the one thing that she enjoyed doing. Which worked out perfectly because our favorite hobby was eating her creations.

"Yeah," she answers as her laughter fills the air as well.

Though she has no blood relation to Mama, I still see our mother in her. I see Mama in the way Stella laughs at inappropriate times. I see her in the dimple on Stella's cheek that only appears when she smiles. Isn't that crazy? Maybe biology doesn't mean a damn thing. We're her girls, of course, we are going to keep a part of her alive.

"Larry's?" I finally ask after a few seconds of silence. It was Mama's favorite diner. It's where we would go to celebrate any special occasion. It feels weird going through when we're sad, but it's something to do. It's something to make us feel closer to her.

"Yeah," she responds with a nod as I grab Mama's car keys. "Then maybe-uh" Stella stutters as I turn to face her.

"Hmm?" I question as I gently push her.

"Maybe then we can go through Mama's room? I'm only here a few more days and I don't want you to have to do it alone." Just the suggestion drains all of the color out of her face, but it's something we have to do. It'll make it a lot easier when I move out in a couple of weeks.

"Yeah," I agree with a curt nod. "But first, pancakes."

Breakfast passed by in a blur as neither of us ate much, but we tried to hold it together. That is until the owner walked up to us and gave us our meal for free. We both lost it after that, especially when he hugged us and told us how much he'd miss his favorite customer.

It's crazy to me how one person can be so many things. To Larry, she was his favorite customer. To her boss, she was his star employee. To her customers, she was the manager with a smiling face and great customer service. And to Stella and I, she was just Mama.

Now, she's nothing. Now, she's just rotting flesh in a cheap wooden box.

"Let's keep this one too," Stella says as she hands me another one of Mama's old plaid shirts. I throw it on the keep pile and roll my eyes as the mountain of clothes begins to topple over. She is going to have to bring a separate suitcase on the plane just for all of Mama's clothes. She's always been the more sentimental one, but this is a little extreme.

"Stell, are you sure you want all of these?" I ask cautiously. There are exactly three shirts and two pairs of jeans in the giveaway pile and we have gone through almost all of the clothes in Mama's closet.

"Don't you want to keep anything?" She asks as she grips another plaid shirt and tears well in her eyes.

"Yeah, I want those two hoodies I put to the side," I say as I point to my small pile in the corner. Those were the last two things she wore and I took them from the dirty laundry basket so they still smell like her. Maybe I'm crazy, but I don't need a ton of old shirts with weird stains and holes in them, I just want to be able to smell her sometimes. And those hoodies will be huge on me so they'll be cozy, like she's hugging me. Man, she gave the best hugs.