Rooted In The Backwoods 2: Hot Foot Powder: African American Urban Paranormal Romance With A Black Southern Gothic Fantasy Twist

I was used to women like her. Prominence and affluence was the language she spoke. It was embedded into her DNA. Passed down from the wealthy parents she had, that paid half the cost of the high rise condo she lived in. The silence between us felt heavier than, the out of the blue rain, beating on the windshield. She hadn’t said another word, but I could feel her thinking. Every breath loaded with things she didn’t say. Every glance way too careful and calculated.

That’s the thing about guilt, though. It doesn’t always have a spoken language.

Now here we were. Riding in silence. And she was choking on the regret she didn’t have the courage to put a name to. She wanted to pick a fight. Growling like the creatures that roamed the airport just moments before we boarded the plane. Trying to make me the bad guy because that’s easier than admitting, she played herself. She needed somebody to bleed for her mistake.

But it wasn’t gonna be me. And the man she really hated right now? He’s the one who made this deal. With something darker than her pride or pain. Willing to put her and the rest of us in danger. She ain’t ready to face that truth yet. It’s easier for her to sit over there stressed out in the passenger seat. Annoyed in her silence. And me? I’mma keep my eyes on the road ahead of me.

Steady. Calm…. Cold, if need be. Because if there’s one thing I refuse to do again, it’s to get locked up in somebody else’s prison for something I didn’t do. I ain’t him. And I ain’t gonna let her turn me into him.

See, the streets got a code. No snitching. No talking. Keep your head down. But after what I saw in those woods? I know the spiritual streets don’t play by them same rules. Ain’t no silence there. Every single lie. Every Deal. And every betrayal gets heard and dealt with. No matter the amount of time that pass.

Everyone had to answer to their own demons. Even her. And even me.

Emory and Shawn have always moved fast. Through money, through relationships, through life, rarely stopping long enough to question what they’re running from. But when a deceitful friend pulls them into a world they were raised to half-believe and half-fear, the old folktales reveal themselves as truth. That the reality that was once only seen as an urban legend, is real and the Ancestors listen.