"I want my lawyer," was all I could say before they walked/dragged me out the room, through the depressing grey halls, and down to the lower level where rows of cells waited for me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE SOLID METAL door closed behind me, and I found myself staring into a square room with grey walls, no larger than the size of one of my walk-in closets back at home. The metal toilet disgusting, with what looked like months of dry crusted urine covering it, and additional splatter half across the cell floor. The bed was even worse, a stained mat resting atop a rectangular metal slab. But in truth, it was more comfort than I deserved.
I walked across the cell, taking particular care to avoid looking at my reflection in the highly polished metal sheet bolted to the wall that served as the mirror and laid back on the filthy mattress, looking up at the speckled ceiling and trying hard to keep the tears away. But as soon as the first streaked down my cheek I said fuck it, and openly sobbed, harder than I had since the day I lost my mother as a kid.
Somehow, I managed to fall asleep in my misery, but my dreams were torturous. I saw myself positioned behind the figure of a woman as I was holding her in place on hands and knees with one hand at her waist, and with my other hand, I was forcing her head down flat against the ground covered with two inches of blood. As I thrust into her, she kept asking me why I wanted to hurt her, why I wouldn't just stop, that she thought I was a good man. And all I could do was sob and reply to each of her pleas with the fact that I was trying to stop, that I was so sorry, that I was a good man.
I woke up screaming, unsure of exactly how long I’d been asleep. There was no frame of reference in the cell—no windows, no clock. There was a single light always on at the center of the ceiling. I climbed out of the bed and began pacing the room.
I felt myself slipping, mentally. I needed something, something that could stop me from spiraling out of control because I knew I was close to permanently losing myself. I stopped short as the implications of that thought sink in. Would that be such a bad thing? That man, not the one I always thought myself to be, but the lowlife that I was, deserved to die. What good did it do anyone to have that man live?
Then I thought of DJ and Fati, and my wits came back to me in a rush. The guilt was there, like a tidal wave of force, but an equally strong force—my family—came to mind and gave me a reason to continue. I needed to find a way out of this situation, not for my own sake, but for my wife, my son.
But how? I needed to think. I needed my fucking lawyer, and I needed him right now. No, I needed a team of lawyers. This was about to be a fight for my life. The police couldn't leave me here forever, so the most important thing at this point was to keep my head on my shoulders. Accept whatever shit they threw my way and bided my time. I've heard stories of far too many people getting lost in the system, spending even years rotting away with no trial. But that can't be me; I'm too rich and too known for that to be me.
I forced myself to walk over to the mirror and stare at my reflection. I didn’t recognize myself, but that was a good thing. I was no longer the Darien I knew anymore. This Darien, the guy with the fuzz of new hair growth atop his head and the shadow of new eyebrows growing back in, perfectly depicted how alien I felt to myself.
I stared into my own eyes until I no longer had the urge to look away, and then I peeled off my shirt, tossing it into the far corner of the room, and then got down to the ground in the middle of the pissy floor and held myself in the pushup position.
I'd diligently done pushups every day since as far back as I could remember, but as I held myself up, body straight and legs locked together up on my toes, I felt pain. Not in my muscles, but in the palms of my hands as a reminder of the pale man's work. As I lowered myself to the floor the pain in my hands burned like fire, but I clenched my jaw and gutted through a full set of one hundred slow reps, making sure to maintain perfect form.
There was something about working out, about pushing your body to full exhaustion and pain, which always found a way to make me feel better. It didn't make me forget what I had done, but it helped redirect my focus. I stood up feeling more energized and more alive than I had since I walked into Ms. Bezi's house for the first time.
I tried to ball my hands into a fist for the first time since my encounter with the pale man and realized that I couldn’t quite cinch either hand tight. It felt and looked like I was trying to make a fist around a golf ball. I’d need to have Fati take a look at it if—when— I got out of there to see if there was anything she could do for me.
In the meantime, I didn't need to make a tight fist to shadow box. So I began working through drills, starting off slow and steady at first, but quickly picked up my tempo, sidestepping, pivoting, bobbing, weaving. I threw out combination after combination, envisioning myself standing across from me.
I'm not sure how long I went on. But I could usually do a hard ten rounds, which equated to roughly forty-five minutes, give or take before I felt winded. When I finally stopped, I was utterly worn out. My shoulders burned, and I could barely hold my arms up in front of my face.
I staggered back over to the bed and collapsed, sweat pouring from my body. I ran a hand along the puckered scar on my torso, tracing the full length of the marking, and then allowed my hand to rest on the center.
Goosebumps rose on my skin as my body cooled, readjusting to the temperature cell. A minute later I was uncomfortably chill, and got up from the mat and walked towards my shirt on the opposite corner of the cell, but froze when I saw my breath fogging the air in the cell.
I felt it then, the temperature plummeting, and my eyes widened. Frost coated the metal surfaces of the mirror and toilet, and the fluorescent light inside of the wire mesh on the ceiling began to flicker.
I felt him before I saw him, but when Mbwiri stepped through the wall looking every bit as terrifying as the last time I’d saw him, something changed. I felt no fear. I’m not sure if it was the fact that I was now armed with the knowledge of the link between my well being and its own, or if it was the cold reality of the fact that it had left me behind back at Bezi’s house in a move that not only nearly got me killed, but in so doing would have also sent it back to the nether realm. Whatever the reason, I quietly watched as it leveled his gaze on me with the feline-like slits he had.
“Darien.” It said, “You’ve been gone for nearly a week. Completely gone.”
It paused as if waiting for me to say something, but I held its gaze in silence. I walked directly up to it and stopped inches from its face. "What do you want from me, Mbwiri?"
Mbwiri’s face hardened. “Only my enemies or my victims call me by my name, Darien. Are you either of those?”
“What would you consider us?”
It spread its arms. “Why, friends, of course. I’ve proved nothing less to you, Darien.”
“Bullshit.”
My shivering became uncontrollable, and the brutal cold consumed my entire focus to the point I began losing my train of thought. “Cut this shit, Red. I’ve been around you for years and never once did I have to deal with this fuckin’ cold. Stop with these scare tactics.”
Mbwiri laughed again. He waved a hand in front of his face, and the Red I had known for half my life stood before me, and already the temperature was much more tolerable and continued to rise steadily.
"That feel better now, D? Shit man you gotta relax." He laughed in that low rumble of his, no different from the way he had countless times before when we shared a joke. Except this time, I saw through the facade and caught the subtle hint of mocking sarcasm. "We've been through plenty ‘o shit before. No reason shit gotta get all weird now. But I need you to answer my question. How did you disappear from me?"
“I don't think I owe you any type of explanation.”
“Is that how it is now?”
“So that’s why you’re here…because you’re scared, your tether to this world was missing.”
Red grinned and wagged his finger at me. “Someone'
s been studyin’.” He spread his arms wide. “The reason why I'm here is the same as always, D. This ain't no place for you. I'm here to help you outta this shit. Now, yo ass been stubborn as fuck lately, but that's alright.”
“Help me? It's your fault that I'm in this position now. All of this is your fucking fault.”
Red sighed and shook his head. “Fucking humans…”
"You're not fooling me anymore, Red. You were never my friend. Come on; I'm smarter than that. You were only protecting yourself."
"And I thought you were smarter than this. It's your fault you're in here. All you had to do was listen to me, at any point over the past week, and I would have guided you away from this mess. I told you for years you weren't crazy, that you didn't need to see some shrink, but you didn't listen. I told you not to go see that bag of fuckin' bones you're wife dragged you to go see—fuck I even told you not to marry that bitch."
“Watch your fucking mouth.”
Red laughed. “Don't be so sensitive, D.”
“This isn't a fucking game, Red. I'm sitting in a fucking cell facing crazy ass charges.”
“You actually seem worried. You know I wouldn't let you go out like this.”
“I've seen the evidence they have on me, Red. I'm fucking done." The images of me on the screen flashed in my mind again, and I had to pause to collect myself. "I didn't even know I was capable of those things."
Red snorted. “Don't kid yourself. Yo bitch ass definitely couldn't get you out of that alley. They would have killed you if I hadn't stepped in when I did.”
A cold wave of reality washed over me, and all I could do was stare at him. The events I could remember flashed into my head, the darting through the back alleys of the buildings behind the club, chasing Red all the way into the dead and having him disappear, only to then find myself in the middle of Morningside Park, bruised and bloody.
“It was you? Y-you possessed me?” The reality made me feel even more vulnerable than I had that night back at Bezi’s house, and the already tight confines of my cell felt oppressively constricting.
“So you used my body to beat and murder two people, and possibly two others?”
"Try not to lose too much sleep over those guys, D. They probably woulda killed you if I ain't get to ‘em first. You might have taken them yourself if you would have—once again—listened to my fuckin' advice all these years and stayed away from the fuckin' alcohol and other crazy shit that clouds the mind and dulls the reflexes. So I needed to step in for yo dumb ass, and even then your body was like controlling a fuckin' fifty-year-old woman standing on a waterbed."
“Come on Red, you—I—beat them to fucking death. That shit wasn’t necessary. You could have just had me run away.”
Red shrugged. “Wasn’t an option. The hunter was comin’, and we weren’t in a position to get away safely. I needed to get rid of them before he got there.”
“And what about the woman? Would you have raped her?”
Red grinned. "Don't I get to have a lil bit of fun when I get the opportunity? I mean, she damn near threw the pussy on you back inside the club." Red paused and gave me a strange look. "Oh—oh you mad cuz I ain't let you finish? Shit, I ain't know you were that selfish, D. I mean fuck, ain't no fun if the homies can't get none too, right?"
I lost my patience and swung on him with a pathetic attempt at a fist from my mangled hand. My hand went straight through him as if he were the very air itself, and he laughed.
"Damn, D." He said in between breaths of full-bellied laughter, "calm yo ass down. You ain't never been this easy to rattle. We can hash this shit all out later, but for now, we need to get you out of here."
“You’re not even pretending to be a decent person anymore are you?”
Red shrugged. "I tried for damn-near our entire friendship, D. But what good did it do me? The old bitch whispered in yo ear, and that was all it took to turn you away from me. So fuck that, no, no more pretendin'."
“I don’t need your help.”
“Bullshit. You need my help. And I pla—” He paused and looked at me as if he saw me for the first time. “You look like shit. Damn. That Hunter done fucked you all up huh?”
“He almost got me. And if he had, you would have been fucked.”
Red’s smile melted away. “Now, every time I get back into a good mood, you go and say some shit that fucks it up again. Stop playin’ around and accept the fuckin’ help I’m offerin’ you, D.”
"I don't want or need your help. I want you to leave me alone, for good. I'll figure out a way out of this shit myself, or I'll be stuck in a cell somewhere until I grow old and die. That shouldn't bother you none since your tether would still be eating, sleeping, shitting. So just go and live me to rot in this hell hole."
Red looked around the cell, and a slight chill returned to the air. "This is not hell, Darien. This is far, far from hell."
I shrugged “Better for me then. Get out of here, Red.”
“You know they’re planning on leaving yo ass down here for as long as they possibly can right?”
“That’s fine. Mitchell will be here soon. He was out of town, but he’ll get here as soon as he can, so it’s all good.”
“Oh…Mitchell ain’t coming, D.”
"What? What the hell are you saying?"
“Well, back at that old bitch’s house you did say you wanted me to leave you alone.” He shrugged. “So I have. Mitchell was my hand-picked lawyer, so I think it’s only right if he’s included in that, don’t you?”
"You're tryin' to sabotage me?" I started making other connections. "The portfolio investments, the evidence against me, the lawyer…that's all you too isn't it?"
"No. I'm doin' what the fuck you asked me to. You asked me to stay out of your life, and so I'm doing just that. This," he waved his hand around the cell, "Is what it looks like when your life no longer has my guiding hand. Your entire fuckin' life is goin' to shit without me."
I was so angry I could barely contain myself. It was all I could do to stand there and maintain my composure. "Then let it go to shit."
Red sighed. “Fuckin’ humans.”
Red took a step back, through the wall and out of the cell.
CHAPTER TWELVE
“DARIEN, I’VE REVIEWED all of the evidence and…” She ran a hand through her Sandy blonde hair and adjusted her glasses, for what looked like no other reason than the fact that I made her uncomfortable. “It doesn’t look good for you. It doesn’t look good for you at all.”
“I understand that…Angela was it?”
“Anita.” She corrected.
“Right, Anita. I understand exactly how it looks, but I have no intention on signing that document.”
“Frankly, Darien. If you take this case to trial, you will spend the rest of your life in prison. This is pretty open and shut.”
The reality of my situation was that I was likely already checkmated, and everyone knew it. There was no way I could win, but I had no intention on tippin' over my own king. I cannot have a confession of three counts of murder—of course, Asshole that had come at me with the pole died sometime during my weekend in solitary—and attempted murder as my legacy.
"The possibility of parole is your best option, Darien. Sign the document, and there's a chance, with good behavior, you may see the outside world again—so long as the judge accepts the plea."
As painful as it would be to have DJ one day research this case and see my signature on these charges, would being found guilty and sent to prison change anything in his eyes? I wasn't sure, but I'd likely have taken that risk for the slimmest chance at some silver lining—but at the expense of a possibility at one day earning my freedom?
I looked at Angela. “And what is the likelihood the judge will accept this plea deal?”
"It's hard to say. The judge will usually accept the recommendation of the prosecutor, so long as it's within the legal bounds of the punitive range of course." She exhaled. "But there's a chance this might
turn into a high-profile case, and if that happens, given the overwhelming evidence against you and the…graphic nature, the judge may be pressured into the delivering the harshest penalty possible.”
“If I'm found guilty," I added.
“Y—yes, of course.”
I opened my copy of the documents and skimmed each page, shaking my head. “I might be willing to sign the deal if the prosecutor removes the bail restriction.”
She shook her head. “The district attorney took a firm stance. He won’t risk it.”
“Oh, come on. The government has my accounts frozen because of this fucking securities investigation. I can’t even afford a lawyer to defend myself.” I gestured to her. “No offense, but you might be what…two years out of law school? I’m hardly going to all of a sudden whip up the funds to disappear like they do in the movies.”
“I’m sorry, Darien. But this is the best deal you’re likely going to get.”
"The bitch ain't lying, D," Red said from off to my right-hand side. I saw him out of my periphery, standing with his arms crossed and foot resting against the wall. "Just a matter how fucked you're gonna be."
I tensed but tried my best to ignore Red’s presence as I weighed my options. But that was all but impossible. I kept glancing his way as I tried to think, breaking my concentration. But who was I kidding, Red wasn’t going to do any worse for this situation.
“Shit, D, don’t tell me you actually gonna sign that.” Red laughed. “Maybe I should have put you through law school instead.”
I wished he would just shut the hell up, and it grated at me that I couldn’t turn around and tell him as much. I grabbed the pen she had placed beside the folder and began tapping the desk.
"Aight D, fuck, I can't see you go out like that. I'll do you one more solid. I'll get you out of this shit, because we're friends. All you gotta do is put the pen down and slide that folder back across to the table, and I'll handle the rest—make all this shit go away."
My tapping picked up speed.
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