Her Name Is Knight (Nena Knight, #1)

by Yasmin Angoe

People thought slavery was long dead, but they only had to look at the recording of the Cuban’s master suite to see that slavery did indeed still exist, and right in this very home. It was something of which Nena knew all too well. That was, before she became Echo.

There is only your before and your after. How many times have my brothers and I heard this and not known what Papa had meant? It is what you do after that matters.

There was unbelievable pride in Black women’s hair. Their hair was their crown, their superpower, something women taught each other to care for, as Nena’s first mother had taught her.

She remained silent, a stinging behind her eyes. This couldn’t be happening again. She would die if she had to suffer another loss of that magnitude again. She would not survive it; of this she was sure.

She no longer knew herself. She felt forever changed by this moment, even if she never had it again.

Nena luxuriated in Cort’s arms, knowing he was the first man, aside from either of her fathers, with whom she’d ever felt safe. It was a feeling that Nena knew once she had, she never wanted to be without again.

The name is one we call Black Americans when we feel they are beneath us, a name I’ve never approved of and one I am disappointed the guards thought was okay to say. No one is beneath anyone, especially Keigel.

And it was those words that broke her. The wudini. The woman of stone. Her hand reached out to anchor her against a wall as she stumbled beneath the weight of what she’d just lost.

Because she was Nena Knight. She had shaped her after. She had made it her now. And most of all, she had learned to cherish every memory she had.