The Deadline

by Kiki Swinson

  “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” I cursed as I saw my time running out. I knew I had no wins. Although it was my apartment, there was no way I would be able to keep my brother’s ass out. I spun around and around some more, trying to get my thoughts together before I let him inside. I started formulating a story in my head about what I would tell him about what happened at the club, but I was officially out of time. Kyle was banging like a madman and he wasn’t going to go away easily. Finally I threw the door open and met a snarling, huffing-and-puffing Kyle. He stormed into my apartment like a figurative tornado.

  “Yo! Are you fucking crazy? Didn’t I tell you, you had to play the role and be fucking smart if we were going to do this story shit?” Kyle roared, his accusatory pointer-finger out in front of him. He was up on me and in my face within seconds. “Didn’t I warn you not to try to play fucking hero out here and just go with the fucking flow?”

  I stood defenseless as he advanced on me so fast, I didn’t even have time to react. I threw my hands up and backed up, inch by inch. “Kyle . . .”

  He lunged forward and grabbed for my robe collar, but I sidestepped him. I knew he was mad, but he wasn’t going to grab me up and treat me like I was his child this time, as he’d done many times before when he didn’t agree with something I’d done.

  “Kyle, wait,” I said in a commanding voice as he walked me down.

  “What, Khloé! What could you possibly want to explain to me! I told you, if you ever fucked with those dudes, we would be in big fucking trouble!” he snarled. “And so said, so fucking done! You are officially a wanted woman, so if that was the fucking goal you had in mind, you have fucking succeeded!”

  Tears immediately rushed to my eyes and cascaded down my face as I saw the sheer hurt and disappointment in my brother’s eyes.

  “Ain’t no use in crying now. You should’ve thought about that shit before you wanted to go and play fucking Big Hero 6,” Kyle said, finally standing still after I backed all the way up to the wall. I kept my back against the wall as he started pacing angrily in front of me. “Do you know what you have done? Huh? Can you fucking even start to get out of that fucking fake-news world you live in inside your head and get back to reality? They are fucking looking for you, Khloé! It will not be long before they find out you’re my sister and that I was the one who let you inside the club that night. They are looking for the girl too,” Kyle said, stopping for a second to look over at her. “You fucking took a whole human being? Who does this?” Kyle went on, shaking his head and grunting in sheer disgust.

  “Well, I couldn’t stand by and let that motherfucker rape and use and abuse this baby!” I finally piped up and defended myself. I was tired of Kyle being angry and carrying on like I didn’t have a reason for what I’d done. “You weren’t there! You didn’t see what I saw, Kyle! He actually had a girl put adult lingerie on this little girl, who barely has breasts! What the fuck you expected me to do? Just stand in the same room and listen to this child scream her head off while he fucked her?” I said in one big breath.

  I tried to continue my justification for what I’d done, but Kyle wasn’t hearing it. Every time I opened my mouth to go on with my reasoning and my plan going forward, he’d put up his hand and rant some more.

  “You know what the fuck I had to witness behind your shit? Huh? Do you? Do you know I was standing in the room when they were discussing finding my fucking sister and torturing and killing her over some dumb shit like this? I had to fear for my own life too because I had walked in there cold, not knowing what the fuck to expect because you wouldn’t answer your phone. I didn’t even know if you were fucking dead or alive! Do you know what I had to see? Do you have any fucking idea what I witnessed behind your shit?” he barked at me. All of the veins in his neck and face seemed to be pulsing. I had only seen my brother this mad a few times before.

  I stared at him, blinking rapidly as I waited for him to keep telling me how fucked-up of a person I was for saving a little girl from torture and further abuse.

  “Oh, now you have a dumb look on your face, right? Well, apparently, you made a friend while you were in the club, right? Well, your little friend—just from whatever you said or did with him—someone obviously fucking noticed,” Kyle gritted.

  “A friend?” I contemplated for a few seconds. Then it seemed to hit me like a lightning strike. “Oh, Dee?” I asked, barely above a whisper. My body got cold and I started to shiver.

  Kyle chuckled, but not in the way that said he thought something was funny. That chuckle was a true contradiction to the angry grimace on his face. He shook his head afterward, as if to say, Really?

  “Yes, fucking Dee! Just from him talking to you, he got pulled into this bullshit. So while you were saving yourself and this little girl, let me show you what I walked in on happening to him. Just for fucking saying something to you, they thought he was down with your little escape plan. You want to see what you caused?” Kyle growled, jutting his cell phone toward my face so I could view the secret video he’d recorded. I sucked in my breath and my eyes widened as I watched . . .

  * * *

  “Help me! Oh, God, help me!” Dee had bawled, the veins in his face and neck had corded at the surface of his skin. Blood had mixed with his tears and made a mess all over his face, neck, and chest. His legs trembled and his teeth chattered.

  “Oh, Derek . . . Derek . . . Derek, not even God can help you right now, my friend,” Detective Keith had chortled as he circled Dee like a buzzard over a carcass. “Only you can help yourself right now Derek. Only you.”

  “Ah, I told you everything I know,” Dee had cried, his chin falling to his chest. He was exhausted. It had been hours since he’d been snatched from his post at the hotel. It had been five and half hours that he’d endured Detective Keith’s torture.

  “I’ma ask you one more time. Who is the girl you brought to the hotel? Where did she come from, and why did you let her in?” Detective Keith growled, his gun glinting at Dee every time he moved. Everyone in the room knew that Detective Keith had been Barker’s number one enforcer for years, and he had a 100 percent confession rate.

  “I . . . I swear . . . I don’t—” Dee had cried, but never got to finish. “Agh!” he howled. His words tumbled back down his throat like hard marbles as one of Keith’s goons cut a deep gash into the skin and muscles of his right thigh.

  “C’mon, I hate to do this to you, but I need the answer. Who is the girl? We fucking saw you give her a key! You gave her a key to the boss’s room!” Detective Keith had barked.

  Dee shook his head left to right. “No . . . no . . . I . . .” He was gasping. “Agh!” he squealed again, bucking his body violently.

  This time he screamed because Detective Keith twisted the knife in circles, digging farther into Dee’s thigh muscle. Detective Keith had let out an exasperated breath and stood up. He stepped back a few paces and examined the mess of a man in front of him. He turned his head to the side and spit on the floor next to Dee.

  “There is nothing worse in my eyes than a fucking weak traitor. Is she your woman? You fucking her?” he exploded.

  Dee couldn’t move or answer anymore. He looked to me like he was fading from shock.

  “You playing tough, huh?” Detective Keith grumbled. “You must’ve brought her inside to fucking set us up. Is that what you did, Derek? Huh? Who paid you off? What did you gain from giving her that fucking room key? Who fucking paid you?!”

  Again Dee didn’t answer; he just had his head hanging like he was on his last leg of life.

  Detective Keith had turned around and grabbed a box of iodized salt from the small metal table behind him. He smiled evilly. A collective gasp rose and fell around the room from the other workers forced to watch Detective Keith’s maniacal behavior unfold right in front of them.

  “Now, Derek, I’m a reasonable guy, wouldn’t you say?” Detective Keith taunted. Dee didn’t respond. “I want to help you, help yourself here. All you got to do is be smart about thi
s. Be a good little boy and tell me if it was a setup. Did someone pay you off to bring that girl inside?” Detective Keith said evenly. But that quickly changed. “Tell me!” he exploded, causing Dee to jerk his head up and jump fiercely. Detective Keith circled Dee, shaking the box of salt menacingly. “That’s what you did, isn’t it? You brought her inside so you could let her set us up.”

  “No. I. Swear,” Dee had panted out each word; it was a mixture of dribble and blood leaking from his lips. “Pl-pl-please. I swear, I . . . didn’t,” Dee had pleaded.

  “Wow, I must give it to you, my man, you’re just so fucking tough to crack. Your loyalty to whoever you’re working with is more important than your own life, I guess!” Detective Keith barked. His eyes were hooded over with malice. With that, he emptied the entire box of salt into the open wounds covering Dee’s body, taking time to crush some of the salt down into the huge gaping holes on Dee’s thigh.

  “Agh!” Dee squealed, his body bucking so fiercely against the chair and restraints that the chains binding him cut farther into his skin. More gasps filtered around the room, including from Kyle.

  Unfazed, Detective Keith moved close to Dee’s downturned head so that he could whisper in his ear. “Whoever sent you is going to die. The only reason you live today is because I need you to find that girl and bring her to us. I want you both to die together, since you’re working together to be fucking traitors,” Detective Keith hissed like a venomous snake.

  Dee continued to hang his head. He looked like he was in so much pain, he wished for death.

  “Take him out of my fucking sight,” Detective Keith instructed some of the guys standing around.

  * * *

  When the video was finished, I slid down to the floor and held my head. I tugged at my hair on both sides. I felt sick to my stomach, which caused me to dry heave a couple of times. I felt awful about what happened to that guy, knowing that he was completely innocent of what they were accusing him of. With the key card I had taken earlier behind his back, I had also slipped out of the room and into Barker’s without Dee actually knowing. It was so unfair that he’d suffered behind my actions. I felt awful.

  “I didn’t mean for all of this to happen, Kyle. I swear I didn’t. Dee didn’t do anything wrong. He is really innocent. All he did was be nice to me throughout the night. He was the one who told me Barker had requested me in VIP. He approached me—I didn’t approach him. But I could tell he had liked me,” I confessed.

  “And that’s not all, Khloé. That’s not the end of all the casualties you left behind when you decided not to play along with the game until we could actually do something about it without getting killed. Oh no, that is not all the damage you’ve caused,” Kyle said, sounding almost like he was getting satisfaction out of dropping these bombs on me to make me upset. I guess he wanted me to feel as upset as he was at that moment.

  I moved my hands from my eyes and looked up at my brother as he stood over me, still brooding and still trying to drive home the point that I had royally fucked up.

  “What do you mean, ‘that is not all’?” I asked as softly as I could without sending Kyle into another furious rant. My soft baby-voice trick didn’t work.

  “Barker was there, that’s what I fucking mean by ‘that is not all’!” Kyle boomed, bending down into my face again. “Do you know how significant that is? Huh?” he asked, standing back up so he could circle around me. “Do you have any fucking foggy idea what that means?” he asked.

  I shrugged a little bit, as if to say, No, I don’t, so tell me. I looked at Kyle, feeling like a child caught red-handed being bad. I felt like any moment Kyle would be banishing me to my room or a corner.

  “Barker is never fucking present when these things go down. He usually stays away and lets Redds handle his dirty work. But not this time. For some reason he wanted to be in the room. He needed to see and make sure that Dee got taken care of—just like he is going to want to see and make sure you and then I get taken care of,” Kyle explained.

  “I didn’t see him on your video. How do you know he was there?” I replied.

  “Oh, because I fucking know he was there. He didn’t show up on the video because Barker stood behind a two-way mirror watching Redds inflict that torture on Dee. I heard from a source that was inside the room with him that Barker hadn’t taken his eyes off of Dee the whole time. That’s how bad they want to know who you are and where you are and how you infiltrated their shit so easily,” Kyle said, starting his pacing again. “And where do all roads lead? Back to me, that’s where.”

  I was quiet. My mind was racing like cars on the NASCAR track. Kyle looked at me seriously. But Kyle wouldn’t stop. No matter what, he was determined to drive home his point about everything I’d done. I wanted to put my hands up over my ears and block him out, but I knew that would just stoke the flames of the fire raging inside my brother. So I kept on listening.

  “What you don’t understand is Anton Barker took mad pleasure in watching the pain and suffering in that man’s eyes and hearing his screams. He would do anything to protect his own interest, even have a man killed, when he has no real proof he did anything to him. You dragged that man into the middle of something that had nothing to do with him. He is innocent and now he is fucked-up. You think they’re going to stop there? Dee don’t know shit about you, but they will keep on thinking so, until he is dead,” Kyle continued, slamming his right fist into his left palm for emphasis.

  “I’m sorry, Kyle. I was just t-trying t-to . . .”

  “Trying to what? Get yourself killed for a fucking news story?” Kyle boomed again. He stopped moving and exhaled loudly. I could tell he was willing himself to calm down. He moved closer to me, and his face and tone were a bit calmer now.

  “Listen to me. You know this shit is serious. I heard that another contact at the Norfolk Police Department gave Barker pictures from the hotel surveillance videos, and they already reviewed some of the tapes from the club that night. They have many more to look at, including the ones of the back and back doors. I heard Detective Keith watched the videos from the hotel and now he’s waiting for the rest of the club videos. This is going to show me letting you into the club through the back. It’s going to show you all throughout the club, walking around, if you took pictures. It’s going to show that and everything. Your face will be plastered in their minds as someone to be hunted and captured,” Kyle relayed, his jaw going stiff and his eyebrows dipping on his face.

  I shook my head and started crying again. “I didn’t mean for all of this to happen.”

  “There are security cameras everywhere. We are fucked. They have people working for them at every agency, business, hospital—you name it—in Norfolk. I’d be surprised if someone at the TV station isn’t on their dirty payroll. That’s what I was trying to explain to you. I told you from the gate we would have to be very careful,” Kyle went on.

  I sniffled back my tears and closed my eyes tightly. I was growing weary of his lecturing now. It was done already. I couldn’t go back and change it. Now it was time for us to come up with a plan to get out of it. To blow the lid off Barker before he could catch us.

  “Before I left, I heard them discussing you. They talked about your hair color and eye color, which are both memorable. You’re going to have to cut and dye your hair and wear contacts,” Kyle said.

  “Okay,” I agreed, getting up from the floor. “But I have to leave here and meet up with the girl Shara, the one that was in the room with Barker when I took the girl and escaped. I need the video she has before I go to the studio to get the story across to Christian. The faster I can get it, the better and faster we can get this over with,” I said, rushing my words out in a huff.

  “So you didn’t hear a word I just said? You’re in danger!” Kyle boomed again. “I don’t know what the fuck kind of cement your head is made out of, but I’m not with the shits. You’re not going to die on my watch and have Mama blaming me for the rest of my life. That is, if I e
ven make it out of it alive myself,” Kyle went on.

  He stood brooding, his chest rising and falling rapidly. He turned toward me. “There is no way you can go meet up with anyone. You cannot trust that girl not to have you set up,” he said evenly. “You will have to let that part of the story go.”

  “No, I need it. It’s how we are going to save ourselves,” I demanded.

  “I told you everything would’ve come out in due time. Now you’re wanted and I am probably next . . . and all for what?” Kyle said with feeling. He put his hands on his head and paced some more.

  The little girl walked over; her eyes were filled with tears. “I can leave. I can make it better if I just go,” she whimpered. “I don’t want you to be in trouble.”

  I rushed over to her. “No, you’re staying here until I can figure something out,” I told her. Despite what my brother was talking about, this was a baby. There were many more to save on top of that. I wasn’t giving up, no matter how angry Kyle got.

  “You’re going to keep going and going until all the casualties are too many to count,” Kyle grumbled.

  “I promise, this one last thing is all I need to do and then I will break the story, and this will all be behind us. You have to trust me,” I said.

  “Trusting you is how we got here. Now, where the fuck do you have to go to get this video?” Kyle asked, finally relenting.

  I didn’t dare smile outwardly, but I was smiling inside. Soon I was going to have the satisfaction of knowing I’d brought down the biggest fucking crime syndicate in the entire state of Virginia. A day that would make history—and my name would be all over it.

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