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“Baby, wake up!” the voice said, large hands shaking her violently. “Lili…wake up, girl!”
Malika pried her eyes open to see the outline of a petite woman with grey coils made by a curling iron. The same one that Malika used in high school. The same one Malinda used before that. The moon had been exceptionally bright that night and the rain had eventually stopped.
“Mommy?” she said, her voice breaking between the two syllables.
“Come, come,” Brenda Hunter said with urgency in her voice, unwrapping the tarp Malika was tucked in. She grabbed her daughter by the armpits to the point of hurting and propped her up on her unsteady legs.
“What are you doing here? Outside at that?” she asked, gently pushing her daughter down the deck steps to the front of the house. “It’s after 2:00!”
“Can we just talk about it in the morning?” Malika asked in the little girl voice she sometimes used with her parents. “I’m so tired, Mommy.”
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