Nikki told the guy where she lived as he pulled out of the parking lot, only giving him a general description by telling him the nearest busy intersection. He knew where it was and headed that way.
“That’s real fucked up that happened to you,” the guy said, making conversation after turning the radio down. “I mean, these hoes out here is real cold nowadays. It’s even worse with niggas.”
“Yeah,” Nikki said. She relaxed as she felt her body thaw from the heat. Nonetheless, she remained alert in case she would need to jump out of the car at a stoplight. “I can’t believe this shit happened to me. And it was all ‘cause this nigga I know was supposed to come get me. This don’t make no fuckin’ sense.”
“Shit,” the guy said, shaking his head.
“Thank you so much for helping me,” Nikki said. “I hope I ain’t mess your day up or nothin’ like that.”
“Aw naw,” he replied, shaking his head. “Shit, I was just getting off work and about to smoke. Stopped at that gas station to buy some blunts and shit and saw you, walking without no coat. And I was like she don’t look like no crack head or prostitute or nothin’. So, why she out here walkin’ with no coat? When I got up on you and stuff, I saw the bruises and shit and knew that somethin’ happened.”
Nikki smiled, happy that someone who was seemingly decent had taken notice. “Yeah,” she said. “I was outside for like twenty minutes or somethin’. I’m so damn cold. I swear I am. I’m so mad at that nigga I don’t know what to do.”
“Yeah,” the guy said. “I bet you is. I stay over there and stuff, who was you visitin’ with. Maybe I know’em.”
“Naw, I doubt you do,” Nikki said, not wanting to say any names. “I was stayin’ over there with a friend and she just moved in. The nigga that was supposed to get me ain’t even from around here and stuff. Don’t worry about it.”
“Oh, all right then,” the guy said.
The rest of the car ride, which lasted about fifteen minutes as the afternoon was gearing up to be an ugly rush hour, was rather quiet. Nikki felt relieved with the fact that this guy wasn’t trying to get with her, as so many other men might try to do. He actually seemed respectable, not that that was saying much. Breon had seemed respectable as well, only for Nikki to find out that he was probably the worst dog she’d ever encountered in her life.
When the guy had gotten close to the nearest intersection to Nikki’s apartment complex, Nikki felt she could trust him enough to drop her off at the entrance of her complex instead of the corner. Nicely, he agreed and drove the few blocks further until he pulled into the entrance and did a quick U-turn. Nikki grabbed the handle and looked over at him. “Thank you so much,” she said, pushing the car door open. She smiled. “I can’t lie, I was so scared at first and shit that maybe you was gon’ do something, but thank you.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “Naw,” he said. “You look like you been through somethin’. I thought you was gon’ ask to go to the hospital.”
Nikki thought about that for a moment, as she wondered how she looked in mirror. “Yeah, maybe I will,” she said. “But I need to get home first.”
Nikki stepped out of the car and waved goodbye to the guy. He pulled away and disappeared. “Who woulda fuckin’ thought?” Nikki asked herself as she looked toward her apartment building. “A nigga that actually ain’t want nothin’ more than to just help a chick out. Shit, maybe I shoulda tried to get with him.”
Nikki felt a little different now being in the parking lot of her apartment complex. As she made her way across the lot, it didn’t feel the way it normally would. The feeling of home had been stripped away from it. As she approached the walkway that led to her apartment, her eyes were drawn to the very parking spot where the green minivan had been parked – the ride that had changed her life. Nikki then looked around for Gracelyn’s car, seeing that it wasn’t there. She let out a deep sigh, feeling like her life could not get any worse.
With a change of direction, she headed over to the office. It was open until 6pm, meaning that time would truly have to be on her side at this late in the afternoon. She was in luck, however, as when she’d gotten to the small office building, 6 o’clock was just approaching. When Nikki walked into the building, Ms. Nelson, a nice older black woman, looked her up and down.
“Nikki,” she said, “the police were here, at your apartment. What happened?”
Nikki shook her head. “You wouldn’t believe what happened to me, Miss Nelson,” she said. “Can you please let me into my apartment? And no, I don’t want to call the police right now. I just want to go home. Please. I don’t have my keys and my roommate ain’t home. Can you please just let me into my apartment?”
The older black woman went into the desk drawer with the spare apartment keys and dug out the key to Nikki’s apartment. “All right, baby,” she said. She then walked Nikki out of the building and across the parking lot. She insisted on Nikki calling the police, but she refused. Such a response told Ms. Nelson that this young lady was involved in something she’d probably had no business being a part of – something that didn’t surprise her the least bit in Chicago.
Once Nikki was inside of her apartment, she thanked Ms. Nelson and closed the door swiftly. With her back against the door, she breathed heavily and closed her eyes. Everything she’d been through had taken a real toll on her. “I’mma get that nigga, Breon,” she said, her words full of hatred; her lips tights as her words were crisp. “Won’t no nigga just do that to me and get away with it. Fuck that.”
CHAPTER 2
Edric watched as Nikki rushed out of the room and disappeared. Moments passed and he heard her footsteps, although light, on the floor above, in the store. He’d tried to reach after her ankles, not realizing just how far away he was from the doorway. His efforts were in vain, however, as the pain in his stomach overcame him. He’d always considered himself to be somewhat lucky, considering that he was from one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago and had never been shot, let alone stabbed. He could fight with the best of them, helping him to come out without any major scars on his body.
“Damn, she got me,” Edric said, trying to look down at his stomach as he gripped it. He could feel the blood spilling out and running through the crevices of his fingers. “Fuck,” he groaned.
His body felt cold. The room was getting blurry. The knowledge of having fallen for a woman’s trap only made him feel ten times worse about the situation. He knew that he should have known better. With all of the chicks he’d dealt with in his day, he truly believed that he should have seen something like this coming. At the back of all these thoughts, there was confusion as he wondered where she’d gotten the sharp object from. He glanced over toward the couch, where she’d thrown the object, and realized that it was a letter opener. He, too, remembered seeing them from when he was younger, realizing that he and Dante had never thought to look through the drawers in this basement office to see what, if anything, was in them.
With his body getting numb, Edric gripped his wound as hard as he could with his right hand. Using his left arm, he reached for his pockets. After some fidgeting around, his arm feeling heavier than it had ever felt, he managed to dig his phone out. The pain riveted through his body as he hoped and wished in his mind that God wouldn’t let this take him out. He had so much to live for.
Knowing that he couldn’t call the police or an ambulance, because Charles’ dead body was still lying on the floor upstairs, Edric held the phone up to the side of his face and called Dante. He groaned as he listened to the phone ring. If Dante didn’t answer the phone, he’d call Trell. If he didn’t answer either, this would go from a life-or-death situation to just a death situation.
“Wassup?” Dante answered, sounding relaxed.
“Man, come get me,” Edric said. “She stabbed me, nigga. Come get me. She stabbed me.”
“What?” Dante asked. “Nigga, what the fuck you talkin’ about she stabbed you? If you ain’t let her leave the room
then how the fuck could she even stab you?”
“Man, I don’t know,” Edric said, “she stabbed me in my stomach and shit, right in the front. Man, just come get me. All this blood. Come get me and shit.”
“Fuck,” Dante said. “Okay, okay. I’m on my way. Fuck, how you let this shit happen?!”
Dante hung up the phone before Edric could say another word. He glanced down at his stomach once more. There was even more blood on the floor and it showed no signs of slowing down anytime soon. To him, this was so crazy as it truly did look like something in a movie or on a television show. The difference was that he could feel the pain. His insides felt as if a piece of them had been ripped out and stolen. It wasn’t long before he began to shiver, knowing that was a sign that the hands of time were speeding up for him.
With a couple of tears rolling down the sides of his face, Edric then realized that he was lying on the floor with his pants down. “This nigga gon’ kill me,” he said, knowing how Dante would feel when he discovered he’d been stabbed while his pants were down – something that would do far more explaining than he ever could.
With numb arms, Edric made useless efforts at pulling his pants up to his waist. They were simply too far down for him to reach in such a volatile state. Once he’d given up, the word fuck slipped over his lips. The room was very quiet as he lay on the floor and waited. The light hanging from the middle of the ceiling seemed to get brighter and brighter. Edric’s breathing slowed to a steady pace, almost as if he were falling to sleep. His body temperature had dipped so low that if he didn’t know any better, he would think that he was lying on the sidewalk just outside of the store. With his head on the concrete floor, he waited and waited, hoping that Dante would get to him soon.
Edric had nodded off when he heard heavy footsteps upstairs. At first, he was a bit alarmed, feeling like the footsteps could be anyone – the police, Charles’ family, or just local neighborhood people who had walked by and come into the store. However, as he heard the footsteps move quickly away from the front of the building and head toward the back of the store, it was clear that it was Dante.
“Hurry up,” Edric said, trying to speak loudly. “Hurry up, Dante. Shit!”
Seconds passed before Dante came rushing into the room. He paused as he looked at the scene. He noticed the bloody letter opener, as it was lying on the floor between Edric and the couch. Of course, he noticed that Edric’s pants were down. Right away, he shook his head as he realized what could have possibly been going on.
“Nigga, what the fuck happened?” Dante asked. He lifted Edric’s body up and slumped him over the couch, then helping him to pull his pants up.
Edric gripped his wound. “Man, get me to a hospital,” he said. “That bitch stabbed me. What the fuck it look like?”
“Nigga, what the fuck was you doin’ with your pants down?” Dante asked. “She got away? You gotta fuckin’ be kiddin’ me. How could you let this happen, nigga?”
Dante noticed how Edric’s blinks were getting longer. He was so furious that he partly considered leaving Edric to die in the store since he had messed up his plan. Dante then thought about Edric’s nephew, Trell, with whom he’d started to think of as family. He knew he’d never be able to look into his eyes again if Edric were to die and he did nothing about it.
“Come on,” Dante said, lifting Edric up. “Can you walk?”
“Nigga, I don’t know,” Edric answered. “If I could walk, I woulda been upstairs already. Just hurry up and get me to the hospital… Mercy Hospital… She stabbed me with that letter opener.”
Dante used all of his strength, as Edric was significantly bigger than him, to lift Edric’s somewhat limp body. The two men headed upstairs, with the journey up the staircase being the hardest. They made their way across the store floor and paused at the door, giving Dante a moment to look out at the street. After a few cars passed, and the sidewalks were empty of people, Dante helped Edric out into the green minivan. With Edric’s body lying across the backseat, slowly dying the seat’s fabric a brown-red with his blood, Dante jumped in behind the wheel and sped off.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” Dante yelled, slamming his fists into the steering wheel. “How the fuck you let this shit happened? That bitch was gon’ be our ticket to gettin’ that nigga and you let her get away! Fuck! I don’t fuckin’ believe this shit. What the fuck happened? She was throwin’ that pussy at you and you couldn’t resist or somethin’. That’s the same shit we was gettin’ on Trell’s ass for, nigga. The very same shit. I can’t believe you fell for that shit.”
“Man,” Edric said, his thoughts a little blurry and his speech slowing down, “I was just try’na let her suck on my dick a little bit. I ain’t know she was gonna stab me. I don’t even know where she got that thing from.”
“You was just gonna let her suck on your dick a little bit?” Dante asked, chuckling and shaking his head. “Nigga, is you fuckin’ stupid? Huh? Is you fuckin’ stupid? Why the fuck would you think that she would just be try’na get on her knees and suck on your dick like you ain’t been holding her hostage and shit? What kinda fuckin’ world do you think we live in where bitches like that just wanna suck on some ugly nigga’s dick for free? Nigga, you stupid! You stupid as fuck!”
“Man, just get me to Mercy,” Edric said. “Fuck, all this blood. Hurry up.”
Dante looked back at Edric, seeing that life was slowly dripping from his body. He sped up as he headed up Halsted Street to 26th Street and turned right. “Okay, okay,” Dante said, in a panic. “We almost there, okay? We almost there. Don’t you die on me, nigga! Don’t you die on me, nigga, okay?”
Dante heard Edric mumble something, causing him to speed up even more. Driving almost as fast as an ambulance, he rushed up to the entrance of the Mercy Hospital & Medical Center’s E.R. He slammed on the breaks out front and got the attention of staff inside. They rushed out, trying to figure out what was going on. Quickly, Dante took them around to the other side of the van and pulled the door open. The nurses looked at Edric and the amount of blood that had spilled out of his body and onto the seat. Within a matter of seconds, a male nurse had brought out a stretcher.
Dante followed as the group of staff rushed Edric inside and to the elevator. “What happened?” A woman – white, in her mid-fifties with a short blond pixy cut – asked, “What happened to this man? The doctors need a little background.”
Dante hesitated for a moment, knowing instantly that he needed to keep his distance from the situation. Last thing he needed was to not only accidentally say something that would give his part away but also to say his name or connect him to it.
“I don’t know,” Dante answered. “I was going to this store and he was in there and he said something about being stabbed in the stomach. That’s all I know, I swear. I just hurried up and drove him here and stuff. That’s all, Miss.”
“Okay, thanks,” the nurse said.
They all crowded into an elevator, including Dante. They rolled up to the third floor then out into a bright, white hallway. All the while, Dante looked at Edric and feared the worst. He hated, for just a moment, the things he’d said to his boy out in the van. However, he still couldn’t help but think about Nikki and how she was the cause of this.
As the hospital staff rolled Edric toward the white, swinging doors that led into the Intensive Care Unit, the nurse stopped Dante just before entering. “Please, wait out here, okay?” she asked, politely. “When the doctors have something to tell you, they’ll come out, okay? Please, just wait out here.”
Dante did not resist. When Edric disappeared into an operating room, Dante went down to the ground floor and moved his car to a parking space. He returned to the third floor and tried to say seated, but he couldn’t help but stand up and pace around. So many thoughts were rushing through his mind, as catching up with Breon would be twice as difficult without Edric’s help. He pulled out his phone and texted Trell, telling him what happened. As he was waiting on a reply, he heard fo
otsteps behind him. He turned around and looked into the eyes of a doctor – black man, in his early sixties, dressed in a white coat. Instantly, he was alert.
“Are you a relative or this man or what?” the Dr. Adair asked.
“Yeah,” Dante answered, “something like that. Is he gonna be okay or what?”
The doctor hesitated. “Yes,” he said. “We suspect everything will be okay. We’ve begun operating on him and he’s very lucky that with the angle he was stabbed, the important organs were just barely missed. His stomach requires some repair, and he’s lost a lot of blood, but that will be manageable. Whatever he was stabbed with seemed to have been covered in various forms of bacteria, so we’re doing what we can to make sure that there isn’t an infection. But, rest assured, he will be fine. May I ask, what happened?”
Dante went over the story again about how he’d “found” him at a store. He then added that Edric was a friend of his and he’d just so happened to run into him at the store. Dr. Adair looked at Dante with suspicious eyes, as not only was the story not adding up but also there was something about Dante’s demeanor that told him his role was a bit more invested than he was admitting.
“Okay,” Dr. Adair said, patting Dante’s shoulder. “Well, I’ve got to get back in there to see how things are going. This will be a routine surgery that, unfortunately, we’re used to doing and all considering where we are. I’ve already called the police and they are on their way to take your statement and try to identify this man and alert his family, okay? So, if you could, just wait right here, okay, until the officers arrive?”
Dante instantly felt his heartbeat speed up. His eyes looked around the room as he nervously anticipated a police officer turning any of the number of corners around him. “Okay,” he said, not really realizing what he was saying.
Wrath of a Side Chick 4 (Side Chick's Wrath) Page 2
