by Tiana Laveen
Xzion followed the man into his kitchen and watched him put on a pot of coffee.
“Normally, I would have tried to defend myself, like I was saying...but my sister told me all about you.” He started the coffee maker. “I know who you are, and know that, well, you have no problem offing someone, so I won’t tempt you.”
Xzion slumped down in a chair and crossed his arms. “It’s not like that. Look, your sister doesn’t even have the entire story either. I need to tell her.”
“Well, she damn sure knows something, but she wouldn’t tell me.” Jayson turned toward the coffee maker and moved about the tight, modern kitchen.
“What do you think she is hiding?”
“Well, she started acting really strange after she met with some older gentleman, some retired astronaut that was famous back in the 1960s and ’70s. His name escapes me right now. I could find out if you need it but,” he shrugged, “whatever he told her, Jayme’s behavior has been inconsistent. She is acting really strange.”
Xzion felt his heart drop to his feet. He felt like the wind had been knocked clear out of him.
She knows...
“May I have some ice please?”
Jayson looked at him strangely, hesitated, then turned toward the refrigerator, opened the freezer and removed the plastic blue ice tray. He set it before him.
“Take as many cubes as you want.” He then set a glass beside the tray. Xzion knew how the next maneuver would look, but he didn’t care—he needed fast relief. Picking up the tray, he pounded it from beneath and let the frozen blocks fall onto the black and white speckled faux-granite counter, clattering loudly, and some splintering. In one swoop, he gathered them up and ate them whole, crunching through the frozen bits until the relief he needed arrived.
“Okay.” He swallowed the last slither of ice and got his bearing. “When was this and what did they discuss?”
“Not too long ago, and what they talked about?” He shook his head. “Of that, I’m not sure.” Sitting across from him, Jayson gripping his coffee mug with both hands. He seemed to relax a bit as they continued to talk.
Xzion took notice of a cube that had gotten away. Grabbing it, he popped it into his mouth, crunching it harshly then swallowing it in a few seconds, leaving Jayson standing there with an expression of utter bafflement.
“The ice...um, never mind.” The man took a sip from his coffee cup and turned silent.
Jayson’s hand shook while he held the hot beverage. He hated that Jayson feared him. After all, they loved the same woman and he’d never do her harm. He supposed that if he were the guy, he’d be afraid as well...
I wonder what she told him about me. If it was bad, he won’t tell me shit, won’t tell me where she is, nothing. Is he lying to me? This is serious. No time for lies.
Xzion wiped his nose and made a face. He stared at the plastic, magnetic alphabet letters on the man’s refrigerator and drifted into a daydream. Suddenly, he could see as clear as day, in his own kitchen. He fed her fruit, kissed her nose, and they chased each other, naked...free. He would give his right arm to relive that one moment in time, and he hoped he wasn’t too late.
“I’ve got to find her, Jayson.” Xzion looked up at him as he traced a tiny puddle on the counter with his fingertip.
“I know.”
Xzion sat quietly and deliberated for several minutes...then it hit him. He recalled the story Jayme told him of her grandmother, and the one time she visited Jayme’s family for the holidays. Their grandmother took them to an abandoned building, said she used to work there as a police secretary before she moved back down to Georgia, where she’d grown up as a child. She told them they had been some of the best years of her life, and the only thing she’d miss about Baltimore. Jayme said she felt safe there, in all that filth and debris, because she knew her grandmother had loved the place—and felt like she’d always be there, at least, a piece of her.
I wonder if the building is still there. Has it been turned into something else? Is it demolished? But she said she still went there from time to time...
“That’s it...I think I know where she might be, Jayson.”
“Please do tell!” He slammed his coffee mug down, his expression serious.
“Tell me where your grandmother used to work, the old precinct she took you and your sister to when you were kids.”
Jayson’s lips curved upward in an all-knowing smile.
“With pleasure...”
A couple of minutes later, Xzion started to rush out the apartment.
“Oh, you’re not using the fire escape to leave?” Jayson taunted as he grabbed his remote control and turned on the living room television, more than likely too spooked and worried to fall back asleep.
“Nah, I prefer the traditional steps actually.” Xzion laughed and gripped the doorknob.
“Oh, Xzion, before you leave...” Jayson sighed, a look of worry his face. “I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, because at this point, it’s like spreading unforeseen gossip, but...”
“No, please, tell me—any additional information helps.” Xzion spoke with desperation in his voice.
“I think she’s pregnant...are you ready to be called, ‘daddy’?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
Xzion couldn’t see himself, but he was certain he’d paled ten complexions lighter at that very moment. He rocked backwards on his heels and stumbled, as if intoxicated, and barely held himself from falling onto the floor, face forward.
“Easy now, cowboy! Do you need to sit down?” Jayson leapt out of his seat and grabbed Xzion’s shoulder. The two men stood, man to man, eye to eye.
This can’t be happening...
I didn’t think that was possible.Could I do that to her? How so? We aren’t the same. Her reproduction is... well, yes, it is similar...but, our birthing is different, the copulation and conception works the same, but the inner mechanisms are vastly dissimilar...but...I suppose it is still possible. Oh my God...Jayme...
“Okay, I’m fine.” Xzion quickly pulled himself together and exhaled through his nostrils, rubbed his forehead and stared at Jayson in disbelief. From his part, the man seemed to be trying to read his mind.
“Now, she didn’t tell me, okay? I might be wrong, but...I saw evidence in the bathroom. She was trying to take a pregnancy test but I came home early and I guess,” he shrugged, “she just bolted.”
“Has she looked okay? Is she sick or anything?” Xzion asked weakly.
“That was the first clue, for me anyway. She seemed to be in denial but she has been sick more than she has been well and that was soon after she left your house and came to me. Jayme doesn’t get sick, man. I think the woman only used one sick day her entire time on the police force, to my knowledge, and in school, forget about it!” He shook his head. “Her attendance records showed that her immune system must be hooked up to a generator. She was a trooper.”
Xzion made it to the door and gripped the knob, swallowing down his shock. Soon, the initial reaction was replaced with an odd sense of elation, and a dash of trepidation.
“Thank you, Jayson. Thanks for everything.”
The man smiled, a smile filled with unbelievable hurt and steeped worry that had been brewed in hot water and never allowed to cool. Xzion didn’t have time to delve deeper, but he could see the pain on her brother’s face. Life had not been easy for him, and the one person in the entire world that loved him—his best friend and sister—was in dire need and in trouble. He couldn’t protect the little girl inside of her—she was a grown woman, out in the world, trying to take down a huge Goliath with only a tiny pebble and rubber band slingshot. No, there was no saving Jayme, as he’d done in the past. This time, her big brother couldn’t make it right. He understood that Jayson was devastated, although he kept a brave face, so he offered him what he could, to make the hurt sting a bit less painful.
“Before I walk out this door,” Xzion pointed to the front door, “I want you to know – you have my word
that if I find her, and believe me, Jayson, I’m confident I will, I will bring her back safe and out of harm’s way. Do you understand me?” His tone was serious, and he needed the man to believe him.
Jayson stared down at his coffee table, slowly lit a cigarette then looked back up at Xzion through the thick fog of white swirls and glowing ember at the tip. The smoke moved over his dark, smooth skin, the contrast like cookies ’n cream...
“Oh, I understand you,” he said coolly as he flicked hot ashes into a brown and gold ashtray. His inky eyes narrowed and he smiled, showcasing sparkling white teeth. “I just need you to not only say it, I need you to do it.”
****
Jayme tossed the cheap cell phone down onto the rotted wooden floor. Parts of the laminate still showed through, and the walls, once showcasing gorgeous murals from a local artist, were now ashen and dismal. The building had been for sale several times, but the renovation expenditures were just too costly. After all these years, it just sat there, abandoned, taking up an entire block while buildings around it were going through their own home-made version of urban decay. Everything on the East Side, particularly on N. Gay Street, was dead, except for her will to live.
Regardless, she had a sense of peace about her. She stood near a ribbed pillar and imagined where her grandmother used to sit in the room after she’d clock in and hang up her long, tan coat with the white fur around the collar and sleeve cuffs. She bet it was somewhere nearby; her desk would be covered in stacks of off-white papers, green hanging files with manila ones crammed inside and her typewriter. The keys would clack loudly under the tall knock-out’s honey brown fingers…
She imagined it being 1956 and the beautiful black woman, dressed in her red and white polka dot dress and freshly relaxed pin-curled hair, would have just served a round of coffee to the boys in blue. It was a time of racial upheaval, but in that small slice of the world, the woman was treated with respect. She was depended upon, despite her struggles as a widow with four children to tend to after her husband’s untimely death due to a heart attack one Sunday morning right before church. But, the police became her family, helping to soothe the pain, and they treated her well. She even made enough to give her children a small gift on their birthdays and the free Thanksgiving turkey never hurt.
Memaw, you were a firecracker.
Jayme smiled as she continued to drift in her daydream until she casually ran a hand over her stomach.
Will I be okay as a single mother?
She tried desperately not to think about whether the baby would be like her, if she or he was developing normally, and all that entailed. She’d resolved that she’d simply try the best she could. That was the most she could do, but to her, that was a lot. She didn’t need the pregnancy test for validation; in her heart, she already knew. She had lived in another world while in Xzion’s home, spending that precious time with him.
It was as if they had been on a deserted island, just the two of them, cocooned in each other’s love. It was so unlike her to be this irresponsible. She never guessed she’d make love to the man when the whole mess had started. She hadn’t taken birth control pills in months, and they were not a thought on her mind...until one day she woke up in her brother’s bed, experiencing mild cramps and suspecting that her period, unusually late, had finally arrived. She checked...nothing, and she could no longer ignore her urges, the unsettled stomach—and how the smell of cooked eggs made her suddenly nauseous. It was time to find out...but she knew, she’d known for some time. After the news from Mr. Berlin, well, that was a whole new brand of panic. She toyed briefly with the notion of terminating the pregnancy—but how could she terminate a pregnancy that she actually wanted?
She stood in that bathroom for over fifteen minutes, looking blankly at the box, asking herself why she was even going through the motions. She and Xzion had created a child, and there was no reversing it. This was all the more reason to get her life back.
After she realized she had a life growing inside of her, she pulled herself up even faster by the bootstraps, overcome by the need for a final resolution. Now. The focus was less on revenge at the present, and more on eradicating what stood in her way from an existence worth living, for her and her baby. She’d already gone to Xzion’s home before she arrived in that building full of protective ghosts, in a last ditch effort to make things right, turn the hands of time. But when she entered, she found the place trashed... and he was nowhere in sight. The pod was gone and for a few moments, she broke down. She didn’t know if he’d gone back home, been hurt, or worse yet, dead. All she felt was devastation at knowing she’d never see him again. She spent the next hour circling the streets, giving herself pep talks before calling her enemy to the forefront. And in all of the confusion, her thoughts would drift back to Xzion. She hated how he haunted her thoughts and now, a piece of him was growing inside of her. Regardless, she didn’t give herself any time to mourn, or smack him—she wanted to do both—or kiss him even—she wanted to do that, too...
A sudden noise pushed her thoughts out of the way. Taking a police stance, she held her gun out in front of her as she looked to and fro in the darkness sprinkled with falling dust that glimmered like Christmas tree tinsel. The wind whistled through the broken windows, and the cool night air touched her flesh and roared as it passed by bits of old, shattered glass and ancient debris. The wind could conjure strange noises, after all, it was a singer and every object was its microphone but she’d been a cop way too long. She knew the difference between the wind tickling her skin and humming a tune versus the sound of a foot, accidentally stepping on a piece of dry-rotted wood, cracking it to bits beneath the pressure of a grown ass man.
“Jayme,” came the cool, deep voice, throaty and singed with a dab of arrogance. She recalled it all too well. Agent Stephenson...
He came out of the shadows, his hands in the air and a lopsided smile across his insipid face.
“You have no idea how happy I was to hear your voice when you called! We’ve been worried sick about you,” he said, his gaze glimmering in the blackness. If eyes were the windows to the soul, his baby blues had a picture-perfect view of Hell.
Jayme smiled and lowered her gun, only slightly, playing the part of trusting and loyal cop. “Great and I’m glad you could come.”
He stepped closer toward her, the floor creaking under his gait. He studied her with a frown, no doubt wishing he could read her mind and beat her to her orchestrated punch.
“I have no idea why you appear so skittish.” He looked around.
He is lying. How do I know? Because his mouth is moving...
“Jayme, relax.” He smiled wider, his hands still high. “I know you’ve been through a harrowing ordeal. But you’re a hero!”
“Where are Agents Bryant and Brown?” she questioned as she looked in her peripheral vision and over her shoulder. In a flash, her gaze settled back on Peterson before he had a chance to crawl one more inch in her general direction.
“They are waiting outside to take you to the precinct. I already called your captain. Everyone is waiting, Officer Knight.” His smile was entirely too wide, too gleaming, too perfect...too good to be true. “We are going to celebrate! You have single handedly saved the city of Baltimore. All we need now,” he stepped a bit closer to her, his hands still up and the phony smile pasted to his face, tempting her to shoot him right there, “is the address where you said his body is. I thought you said it was here, in this building, but,” he shrugged, “We’ve looked everywhere, and didn’t find it.” His smile faded like mist.
“This wouldn’t be some sort of trap now, would it?” he said grimly.
Suddenly, Officer Bryant and Brown emerged like ghastly apparitions out of the walls, vapors that swarmed and materialized from one of the many fractures in the cracked, dirty windows.
“Grab her!” Stephenson exclaimed, his teeth gritted and his knuckles clenched around the barrel of an M-4, 223. She caught the sight of the weapon, and her throat
tangled with a swallow.
In an instant, Jayme’s adrenaline kicked in high gear. As soon as Bryant’s arm grazed hers, she quickly turned, facing him, and shot point blank range at the damn man’s forehead, blowing him several feet away. She ducked down as several rounds rang out from Stephenson’s gun, gravelling on the brittle ground, crawling like a snake in the dank darkness. A nail in the floorboard scraped across the skin of her palm and her hand started to bleed. She gripped the gun tighter, feeling no pain. Quickly turning over on her back, she shot in the air, blindly, at the creak of the floor right beside her. Someone screamed—a guttural sound—and stumbled out of the dark. Agent Brown’s lifeless body soon fell like a heap of trash upon her.
Curse words bounced across the empty room, echoing into the night—hers. Fragmented bits from the grimy ceiling fell upon her while she struggled to roll the heavy man off of her body. Then, the ever so slight creaking of the floor came again, and without hesitation, she shot in that direction, but was only left with a heart pounding hard in her chest and the taste of sheer panic in her mouth. She refused to gulp down the grit and accumulating saliva. Instead, she struggled...
Fuck!
The damn gun had jammed and someone was coming for her, swooping down like a winged demon. Someone with foul intentions. She screamed when the man yanked her hair and pulled her roughly across the splintered floor. Agent Stephenson grabbed her weapon and tossed it aside, ignoring her protests, his hold on her tight. That brute force contained immeasurable rage. No doubt, he planned to snuff her out like a cigarette butt.
“You killed my men, you bitch! Tell me where he is or I’ll shoot your goddamn brains out!”
Just then, Brown’s moans wafted through the room as he choked, gasping for air, struggling to stay afloat in the land of the living. She couldn’t see him, but she heard the man jerking around, gurgling on his own blood, feasting upon the iron-rich, warm liquid meal as he thrashed about like a fish out of water.
