by Love Belvin
“What phase?”
“The one you would do better in if you remembered He’s protecting you every step of the way.”
“I declare right now, Satan, you may tempt, but cannot destroy. You may come near, but cannot touch. You may plot, but you will not conquer. In case you did not know, this soul belongs to The God Who Sees. El Roi has already seen into her future, has already lain the trap of her faith…”
My belly fluttered.
Then I heard a strong, zipping sound causing my eyes to fly open. A body dropped. The kid holding the gas canister.
“Shit!” Someone yelped. “You see—”
Another zip and another. I could hear a groan behind me and another collapse.
Then the room went quiet. My pulse roared in my ears and my ankles began to vibrate. I felt someone moving behind me and yelped. A hand covered the tape around my mouth.
“Shhh, baby. It’s me, Nalib,” was at my ear.
A balm of relief coated my frame. My belly fluttered again, tears fell down my face. The heavy breathing returned when I realized I couldn’t talk to or see him. His hands worked around my wrists, untying the knot Jayshon had done. I learned that was the name of the guy who shoved a gun into my ribs.
“I need you to be quiet for me, honey,” that velvety alto commanded so gently. Too serene for the occasion. And my body responded to it. My breasts felt heavy, all of a sudden. There was a dead body a few yards in front of us. “I’m going to untie your hands, then your feet. Okay?” Those last two syllables almost melodic, causing my groin to throb.
He worked until my hands were free. Even in my traumatically panicked state, I could have faith in his ability to undo the ropes. Sadik had experience with them.
My hands were free and next, he kneeled by my feet. That’s when I learned he was giving commands to someone—people—behind me with the wave of his hand. His thick, bushy brows couldn’t hide the darkness in his honeyed irises. He may have carried a cool demeanor, but Sadik was bubbling beneath the surface. His full lips set into a firm line, and there were four wrinkles between those bushy brows. But his deft fingers made quick work at unraveling the rope.
“This is going to hurt. Okay?” he asked gently, moving on autopilot, it seemed. “Don’t scream, baby.”
My body in a fit of trembles, Sadik glanced behind him and that’s when I saw Rory with a gun drawn in her little hands, squatting as she approached a corner like a professional.
“Bilan,” Sadik whispered, calling my attention to him.
The moment my eyes hit him, he yanked the tape from my face. It was a horrible ripping, but I don’t think my mind could comprehend the pain in the moment.
Damien…
Damien!
I couldn’t speak as he stalked behind Sadik, toward us. My hands trembled as I tried pointing. We were going to die. Sadik and me because he came to save me.
And as though coordinated, Sadik turned in perfect sequence, taking me protectively at the hand while en route to Damien. As we drew closer, my body chilled and pulse banged. Sadik lifted and jerked his right arm down, bringing with it a rope. The manila rope I’d just been tied up with. He snapped the rope like a cowboy’s whip on cattle. Damien went for his waist. With another yank to bring it up in the air, using blinding speed, Sadik had the other end of the rope wrapped around Damien’s neck. On a firm tug, causing a grunt to leave Sadik’s gut, the rope violently wrenched Damien backward, audibly snapping his neck. His eyes bulged from their sockets and tongue protruded as his hand gripped the gun at his waist. His lifeless body dropped, bringing into vision a positioned Rory. She stood with her short legs spread apart and gun pointed our way.
My knees gave out on me. She’d been there in Damien’s approach. If Sadik didn’t kill him, Rory would have.
“It’s okay, baby,” Sadik assured so capably, and I almost believed him as he tried to help me to my feet.
I was like a giraffe seconds out of the womb, trying to find my legs. I couldn’t rip my eyes from Damien’s splayed body. Blood began to pool from his mouth and nose.
“That’s right, Bilan,” Sadik tried, his strong arms around my waist. “Is it clear?” he asked someone behind me.
“Clear.”
“Where’s Lamont?” Sadik asked.
“Outside, on foot, circling the building,” a man I’d never seen replied.
With me hooked in his arm, Sadik began to move. “Rory, call Lamont and tell him to head to the truck. I need him to take Bilan home.” We were closer to the back door of the restaurant where Damien brought me into when Sadik advised. “Baby, I’m going to send you back to the apartment. Lamont is not going to leave your side until I get home. Don’t call the police, or anyone for that matter. I’ll take care of all of it. Okay?”
That’s when I heard a flame. I turned over my shoulder and saw a man light the gasoline Jayshon poured earlier aflame on an adjacent wall. They were going to burn the place up. Still stunned from seeing a man killed by my fiancé, I couldn’t speak to react.
Sadik assisted me into the truck outside. He took me at the sides of my face and kissed me long and passionately. Then he leaned his forehead into mine. “I’ve never been so scared, Nalib,” he whispered.
With gingerly care, he pulled the seatbelt over my trembling frame, kissed me again, then closed the door. I watched him go back inside. For a while, I saw no one. No one.
Not a soul.
My brain finally kicked into gear. I unbuckled the seatbelt and jumped into the front seat, despite the aches from my wrists, ankles, and side. My hands scrambled at the crossbody at my hip for my set of keys to the truck.
Oh, God, help me…
“Please,” I cried in a whisper before the engine cranked.
Without a moment of hesitation, I peeled out of the abandoned lot hidden by overgrown trees and weeds. The thought wasn’t lost upon me that I had nowhere to go. Sadik’s apartment was not an option. I needed to get away from him. At this point, I couldn’t identify him from his father. He killed Damien.
Yes. Damien was going to kill me—
“Oh, God!” I croaked.
I was supposed to be dead, left in that abandoned restaurant.
Inside my purse, my phone vibrated. Quickly, I dug it out, and my eyes went between the road and the device when I saw it was Sadik. I ignored it, sending him straight to voicemail. The sun had set, darkness providing a sense of covering, but I didn’t have a destination.
Killers!
Murderers!
Thieves! Every one of them complicit in a crime.
“But in the event you need me, here’s all of my information. We have a safe house where women in need can come and…disappear.”
My hands tightened at the steering wheel.
Disappear!
That’s what I needed. But before I did, there was one thing I needed. Something I left at my parents’ home.
The yard was dark as usual, and I could tell someone was home. I didn’t need to fight with Abshir tonight and told myself on the way I’d ignore everything he threw my way to get in and out in no time. As I approached the back door, I realized the key to the house was missing from my ring. Panic rang out in my chest. At the top step, I took a deep breath, eyes closing in frustration. I didn’t have the key. A key I didn’t recall tossing away. My regard slid to the knob. I turned it and felt all the air leave my lungs when it turned enough to open.
I crept inside, finding the lights on in the kitchen and hall. The basement door next to the back door was open and the lights were on. I could hear Abshir down there, though I couldn’t make out what he was saying. The volume of his voice increasing by the second, causing me to realize he was on his way upstairs.
Quickly, I darted into the hall for my bedroom. I closed the door behind me and used the light from the face of my cell phone to direct me to the closet. The room felt eerily different being emptied. I opened the door and fell to my knees to reach the back of the closet. I pulled back the car
pet, my hand tapping to feel the box. The moment I gripped the box at the side to pull it up, I heard what sounded like a door being kicked in. My body leaped in the air on all fours, then froze when I landed. I heard booms against the floor, shouting in the distance. When I heard what I couldn’t deny was a gun shot, I opened the box for the gun. Several more rang out before my limbs went rigid.
Not again…
Abshir! Abshir was shot. I could feel the numbness in my belly. That familiar flurry of loss when you’ve been told by the doctors your father is gone, or your mother had finally succumbed to the cancer. It was there. Someone killed my brother.
My heart couldn’t endure anymore fight or flight trauma. I tried quieting my breathing. Above me was a window I reached up to, to peer between the blinds. There were no movements to call for help, just the usual quiet block.
Why?
Why?
Why?
Why me? Why again? Hadn’t I stomached enough in this lifetime?
The crackling sound from the hardwood floors beneath the carpet seized my breath. I tried counting footsteps. I could only sense a cautious one. They were right there. In that small space between the carpet and the bottom of the door my father replaced when I was in high school, but never measured before installation, I was able to see shoes. The moment I heard the knob twist, I cocked the little gun and let off shot after shot. I could hear and feel bullets hitting the walls around in the dark. Someone was shooting at me. Dear Allah, I was about to die in my childhood bedroom. Abruptly, as I continued to fire successively, I heard a man groan before taking off down the hall. It didn’t matter: I fired until the gun was empty. Then through the window, I heard fast-paced steps in the front of the house.
“I got shot,” a man choked out, not at too high a volume, but alarmed. “I’m coming down the block. Call for clean up now!”
In seconds, I heard a vehicle braking hard over my head as I leaned against the wall, next to the window frame. A door slammed and the vehicle sped off. Whether I was accurate to guess that was the man who tried to shoot me or not, with trembling arms, I gathered the box and rose to my feet. I jetted out of my old bedroom and down the hall. My feet stopped before my body at the sight of my brother’s slain body stretched out on our mother’s carpet. Just like Damien’s body earlier, a pool of blood gathered at his mouth.
My lungs wouldn’t move. What had he done? What trouble could he have found this soon after being released? After the story Damien told me earlier, I didn’t want to stick around and see. I wanted no parts of the darkness I felt all around me at this point. I needed an escape. Shuffling backward first, I bolted to the front door, and out of the house to the truck I was sure to park a block away. In the dark of the night, I ran like my life depended on it, because it did.
When I made it to the Range Rover, my body shook so violently, I dropped the box at the door. I made quick work of picking it up, along with its contents, including the keys to my destination. Once inside, I pulled out my wallet. In a rarely used compartment in the back was a business card I never thought I’d used and honestly had forgotten I had, until less than an hour ago.
I started the truck and pulled off. As I turned down a new street, I dialed the first number listed on the card, using the light from my phone to see it in the darkness of the truck. The line rang out over the Bluetooth in the truck.
“Hello?”
My lashes fluttered at the sound of a woman’s voice on the other end. I was expecting a professional greeting from a hotline, maybe.
“Hello?” a thick New York accent similar to Tasche’s demanded.
“Lex?”
“Who’s asking?” She hadn’t lightened in greeting a bit.
I swallowed hard. “Bilan. Ummmmm…” I stopped at a light and dropped my head in my hands. What was I doing? I was not in a movie. I wasn’t up for the dramatics of a desperate call to assist with the fact that I needed to get away, and had no money to go far…and I had to be discreet. “I know you don’t remember me, but—” My eyes blurred against the red traffic light from tears. “—I saw you when your husband preached at a church in Paterson—”
“I can have a warm, safe bed for you in ten minutes,” she didn’t skip a beat. “Are you in danger?” her voice was calm. “Do you need transportation.”
I shook my head before my brain could think to speak. “No!” I breathed. My salivating mouth stretched wide before I could get words through. “I don’t need a bed, either. I just need a few dollars for a bus or train ticket to get out of town discreetly.”
“Are you sure that’s all you need? I can come to you…”
I needed to disappear, which meant separating from this truck. I could dump it and meet her somewhere.
The light turned green, and I lifted off the brake.
“Okay…”
“And your dumb ass shot him?” I yelled.
“You wouldn’t!” Iban shouted just as loud from the table while his arm was being worked on. “You ain’t got the heart for this shit no more, yo.”
The doctor stitching him gave warning of staying still.
“Don’t seem like your arcade game-shooting ass does either, getting hit in the arm, and not knowing by who or if you killed them.” I careened around the doctor, “And you don’t know what the fuck I was going to do!”
“Obviously, I fuckin’ did when I showed to the nigga’s crib and found him still breathing!”
“Muthafucka, I will—” My father, standing in the small room in his warehouse, leaped in front of me, pushing me toward the door.
“I gotta agree with him, Sadik. You’re too close to the situation.”
That’s when it dawned on me. “You two planned this behind my back.” When my father didn’t deny, I knew. “When I left here, the meeting continued, and you two planned to hit Damien and Ab.”
“Duh, muthafucka’,” Iban mumbled.
“You and that bullshit with his sister got you blinded, man,” my father tried to reason with me. “I know you got your own path in life and don’t want no parts of this game shit. So, I told Iban to wait a few hours before confirming you did it.”
“Like we knew!” Iban interjected before groaning at the pain of his stitching.
Pain I wanted to intensify.
“Because I was busy thinking ahead of your main target, Damien. How was I able to handle that if I ain’t got no heart?”
“Nigga, the only heart you had in that Damien shit was that African girl!” Iban groaned.
My father’s eyes told me he agreed. It was ironic, the turn of events. We left here hours ago with marching orders, only our targets got switched due to circumstances. I was mentally strained after cleaning the abandoned building of our presence.
A knock at the door before it opened had us turning.
Rory peeked in. My eyes desperate for an answer from her.
She shook her head. “Found the truck downtown Paterson. Just the truck.”
My eyes closed in frustration. The last thing I needed was Bilan missing, running because she was afraid of what she saw today. Of me. I couldn’t lose her now. I sacrificed too much to finally have her attention mentally, and in my home physically. I fought too fucking hard with my father and brother, all to lose her to the truth of who I was. What I would forever be, whether I liked or not.
An Ellis man.
Three days later…
The seagulls crowed, flying in the salted air, and the wind breezed through my damp hair. The plot of sea oats danced left to right from the night gust. The sun was down and the moon assumed its shift, illuminating the water. The view at night was striking from the master balcony.
My phone chirped on the canopy bed behind me. I wouldn’t answer it; I hadn’t in days. Nothing would disturb this tranquility. None of the chaos from New Jersey would be brought here. I didn’t know how long I’d stay. My next move needed to be settled on soon. But that was hard to do, gazing out at the mesmerizing water.
I was here. T
he place I felt peace. Mental quieting. Safety.
My belly fluttered and I peered down at it, covered in a cotton slip. My face melted into a contented smile.
“I don’t know what our next move is, but let’s hope it’s near a place with the same vista. You’re going to love the beach.” My gaze reached the water again. “It may not be this secluded stretch of Macen Beach, but I’ll make sure it’s just as cool,” I whispered, a smile in my heart. “Just me and you, far away from them all.”
Standing in the swaying sea oats, I browse up to the balcony of the master suite holding some of my most cherished memories in life. I see my world. My future. My Nalib. She’s safe. She’s happy. Even if it’s temporarily without me, I’m thrilled she’s found her way to this place. Our place.
It took a couple of days, but she turned up, thanks to the security company notifying me of someone accessing our property for the first time in months. Of course, I told them I was aware. Only one person could accurately use the code needed to get inside the beach house: the woman who created it.
“You’re not alone, baby girl,” I murmur against the salted night winds to her heart I’d one day conquer. “I’ll be back for you.”
### TBC ###
Coming Winter 2019
~Love Acknowledges
Researcher: Shumethia S. — I know you want to give me the boot. Too bad you can’t. With this role, you can’t quit no matter how far away you move! Thanks so much for always going the extra mile for me, even when it’s inconvenient.
Beta Readers: Sabrina (Triple S.) & Rocita, thanks so much for the time you took to test this baby out and for providing strong feedback. I truly appreciate you! Yorubia, I can’t say enough how grateful I am for the way you invest your heart into my career. Thanks for taking the journey with me from conception to publish. Oh, and uggggg yoooooooooou!
