The Hunted

by L. A. Banks

  She folded Inez into her arms, hugged her tight, and whispered to her like a mother would speak to a hurt child. “I should have never left you in there. I should have killed the bastard. Period. But I ran, and I vowed to never run from a fight like that again, or to leave my own behind in danger. I’m sorry I didn’t get there for you earlier, Inez. Trust me.”

  For a long while they just stood there like that, holding each other and allowing the memories to wash over them while their tears washed away the grit, horror, and hurt they’d shared. Yeah, there were demons and predators in the world—inhumane humans as well as the living dead. Wasn’t much difference between the two entities. Both stole lives, shattered futures, broke spirits, and twisted healthy minds.

  “You had to live on the street for a month, until Momma could come get me. She asks about you all the time.” Inez’s voice was a ragged whisper, and she sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “Damn, this shit takes me back. We were supposed to be laughing and having fun tonight. I don’t know why I went there.”

  “I was all right,” Damali said. “This conversation was probably good for both of us.” She pulled back from Inez, and wiped her girlfriend’s tears. “I kicked his ass good, though. Left his ass jacked up and in the hospital so he couldn’t mess with you while you waited for your mom. Right? You got out, I got out. We survived. It’s all good.”

  “You saved my life, D,” Inez murmured, her gaze tender with gratitude. “And your crazy ass had the balls to call my momma long distance, using his stolen credit card, and you told her everything. Just confessed.” Inez shook her head. “And then told everybody about him coming for you—even called foster care on the run, and charged his plastic until it melted.”

  Damali smiled sadly and took Inez by the arm and brought her to the table to sit down. “It was reparations,” she said quietly. “Fair exchange is no robbery.” She then retrieved the wine and poured two new glasses for them both, and plopped into a chair across from Inez. “Girl, you know me. I’d been in foster care all my life. I knew how to survive—so, by rights, I was really older than you, experience-wise. Gotta let it go. I ain’t mad at you, never was. If we never talk again, for whatever crazy reason—’cause life ain’t promised, please, Inez, you gotta believe that.”

  “You’re scaring me, girl. Don’t even say we might never talk again. I’ve seen so many of us from the old neighborhood die young . . .” Inez shook her head. “Don’t even say it; words have power.” Then she shivered and looked at Damali hard. “Not my girl. You cannot die on me, hear?”

  She held Inez’s gaze. “I have a sixth sense about when bastards are plottin’ on a sister. It’s always in the eyes. That’s why I don’t have anybody yet. Until I can look a man in his eyes and see his soul—see no malice of intent . . .” Damali shook her head. “Nah. I ain’t going out like that. Neither one of us are. It’s settled.”

  She took a sip of her wine and allowed her gaze to travel out the window once Inez had squeezed her hand in agreement.

  “Girl, you pray this house up good, hear? Like your momma taught you, she’s a good woman,” Damali murmured. “Your uncle tricked her into thinking he was cool, and your poor aunt, bless her soul, was trapped. So, you put down some salt and sage and incense and shit around you and your baby girl. There’s all types of demons in the world. Predators. Fucking vampires. Goddamned werewolves. Snakes in the motherfucking grass, sis. Trust me. And I don’t want you going out like that, either.” She looked at Inez hard. “I have seen them. Ask me how I know.”

  Her girlfriend only nodded. “I hear ya.”

  Damali nodded, and looked out the window again. Inez had heard her, but hadn’t heard the pure truth.

  “Well,” Inez sighed, “I guess if you made it a month on Rivera’s mom’s sofa without anything happening to you, then you’re gonna be all right. The music industry ain’t got nothin’ on that. You were always a fighter, D.”

  “That was so crazy,” Damali said, chuckling as the bittersweet memory threaded through her on another sip of wine. She couldn’t fight it, had to relive just a little of it within the safe haven of Inez’s kitchen. Memories locked so deep inside her began to surface, coming out of hiding in the sunshine of Inez’s sad smile. Marlene couldn’t even help them escape. The more she battled to keep from speaking, the more the memories fought with her, making her soul ache until she gave in.

  “Inez, girl . . . feels like it was yesterday that I was standing under that bridge, all amped, a pipe in my hand, looking crazy and wild in the eye, clothes half ripped off, then these guys rolled up on me and were hollering out a car window and were probably about to gang-bang me . . .” Damali’s voice trailed off as a red, souped-up Chevy came into her mind’s eye. She swallowed hard. A street knight in shining armor, damn. She shook her head and chuckled again quietly to herself, her gaze going to the floor.

  Inez looked at her and smiled, but said nothing. She was glad that her friend allowed a reverent moment of silence. She needed the time to just wrap that warm part of the memory around herself like a much-needed hug. It was so long ago and yet felt like it had happened yesterday He’d jumped out of his car wearing a black muscle shirt, black jeans, a red bandanna wrapped around his head, pointing a huge silver Glock toward a pack of wolves. Her very unlikely hero had seemed insane.

  It was the way he did it, and the wild look in his eyes. Crazy . . . crazy for her. She’d seen that look not so long ago. That I’ll-take-a-bullet-for-her stare of ready-to-die-with-honor expression . . . the muscles in his outstretched arm corded so tightly the weapon in his hand shook with sudden fury Then his arm had snapped back and he’d motioned for her to come to him with a nod. It had been reflex; she knew which way to run—toward him. And he’d gotten back into his gleaming red car on a leisurely stroll as the danger disbanded and drove off. He’d moved with casual authority, unafraid. His eyes were on the road, the muscles in his jaw pulsing, and once deep inside his territory where the music changed and the language on the corners was native to him, he’d pulled over, stopped, and looked at her hard.

  Damali tried to keep the tears from rising beneath her lids as her mind refused to come back to Inez’s kitchen. She’d been so afraid of him, then, too. But he reached out and touched her hair to move it off her shoulders. He’d fingered her micro-braids and cocked his head to the side with a lazy smile. She remembered flinching, her breath catching in her throat, wary of a possible new predator . . . but he wasn’t one at all. Not when he dropped his voice to a tender murmur and said, “Don’t. I won’t bite you. What’s your name . . . where’s your momma’s house?” Oh, God, he’d been so sweet to her . . . she had even kept his bandanna after all these years.

  Seeing it in her mind’s eye, secretly stashed in her dresser, she opened her eyes and tried to act like none of it mattered. She made her voice falsely upbeat as she spoke to Inez. There was no reason to allow her girl to see her bleeding to death on her kitchen floor.

  “ ’Nez, I was totally outnumbered, and would have gotten my ass kicked for sure. Then Rivera happened to roll up ’cause he was making a delivery and patrolling his territory; he jumped out his car, went off, cussed them out in Spanish, and pulled a nine.” She covered her eyes with her forearm and leaned her head back against the wall and laughed hard to keep from sobbing. “Crazy, Latino, wild man. Oh, man, I miss his ass, girl.”

  “I thought for sure you two were gonna hook up,” Inez said in a faraway voice. “Damn shame he got caught up in the life, and they got him.”

  “Yeah,” Damali said, her tone flat as she dropped her arm and poured more wine. This was definitely a get-fucked-up-and-sleep-on-your-girl’s-couch kinda night.

  “My mom was hysterical after she got your call,” Inez said quietly, her voice sounding even further away. “Sent a bunch of cousins over to my auntie’s house to protect me and her, and to visit my uncle after he got out of the hospital,” Inez added with a slow smirk. “He left the house mysteriously u
ntil my mother got there, and could get her own place with her sister. Never came back, fancy that. Reparations, I suppose?” Then Inez’s face went serious. “Why didn’t you come back with us till—”

  “I couldn’t walk back into that house,” Damali said fast, standing. She just needed to move. Why was Inez going here tonight? They’d been over a lot of this stuff before.

  “But you were lucky. It was dangerous where you were. Once Momma got to LA, it was okay to come back. My uncle was gone. I know you told me, but I never really understood that. I kept thinking it was because, down deep, you never really forgave me.” Inez’s eyes searched Damali’s face now, looking for forgiveness that wasn’t required.

  “Girl, it wasn’t you. I didn’t forgive you,” Damali said firmly, “because there was nothing to forgive. You didn’t do anything wrong!”

  Pacing in the small confines, Damali gestured with her hands as she spoke. “You’re my girl, my tight. And, yeah, Mrs. Rivera had a lot of crazy shit happening in her house, but, oddly, I felt safe there—like I was supposed to be there, even if for just a short time.” She ran her hands through her locks.

  “The poor woman and her mother prayed day and night, worked like dogs, Inez. Her crazy-assed sons had taken over the house, were distributing right from it . . . had all kinds of foot traffic, if you know what I mean. But, shit, as long as Carlos was around, wasn’t nooooobody messing with me—not even Alejandro, with his wild, off da hook self.”

  Inez chuckled. “You mean with his fine, off da hook self. Them Rivera boys was fine, chile. And their cousins wasn’t no slouches, either. Guess if I had my choice of where to be . . .”

  “It wasn’t even like that, girl,” Damali said, chuckling, but frustrated by the reality that Inez might never understand. “His sister gave me a lot of rags to wear, was cool, but strung out like a mug. None of her shit didn’t fit her; she’d gotten so skinny. His mom, at first, was like, ‘You ain’t bringing no Negro punta to my house, Carlos. You loco? Oh no, we don’t live like dat.’ ” Damali put her hands on her hips, approximating the older Latina, designed to make Inez laugh. Designed to make herself laugh.

  “Said it to my face, gurl. I was standing right there, my shit all ripped up, dirty, bruised, looking crazy—I wouldn’ta let my son drag nobody home to my house like that, either. Then it was on. They went into this flurry of arguments I couldn’t understand, and whatnot. All I could do was stand in the corner and watch. Brother didn’t even know me, but dragged me by the arm, pushed me up in his momma’s face and said, ‘Her foster father tried to molest her, Momma. You gonna go to church and tell the priest in confession that you turned away a child—she’s fifteen. Talk to me!’ Then he swung his arm around and pointed to a statue of the Blessed Mary and said, ‘What the fuck, Momma? You a believer, or what?’ ”

  Damali threw her head back and laughed with Inez and wrapped her arms around her waist tight. Hers was a brittle sound next to Inez’s warm melodic tone. She needed to laugh to keep from crying, just as much as she needed to relive the past like a wake. Thinking about Carlos made her whole body hurt.

  “I knew I was in, Inez, when the woman started fussing and walked away, grabbed a pile of clothes and a pillow and threw it in my face.”

  “That’s deep, D, for real. We been gurls a long time, and I know you crashed there, but I thought Carlos took you in ’cause, well . . . and that you didn’t really wanna say, ’cause . . .

  “Noooo,” Damali said, her laughter sliding away as new tears formed and fell against her will. “Went against his mom for me, stood up. Then his mom went into this thing about nobody was screwing under her roof, blah, blah, blah—drugs were cool, right, but not screwing.”

  Damali suddenly chuckled again, and sucked up the tears with an angry sniff, wiping her nose hard with the back of her hand. She walked to the sink and snatched down a paper towel, forcefully blew her nose, and crumpled up the damp paper, then took a deep breath as she cast it into the trash. “That was revenue that Mom Riv turned a blind eye to and just prayed would convert into legitimacy, I guess. Whateva. But her son was not gonna screw no Negro tramp in her house.”

  Damali slapped her forehead and closed her eyes as she stood in the middle of the kitchen floor. “Heaven help me, it was crazy. She made him actually swear he wouldn’t touch me in her house as a condition of me being there—on the Bible—okaaay. And that fool did it—for me.”

  “Stop lying, D,” Inez said, shaking her head and chuckling. “Carlos Rivera put his hand on the Bible, for you? Gurl . . . you never told me that!”

  “At first, I was like, yeah, whateva. That’ll hold up for twenty-four hours, till his mom went to work.” Damali smiled sadly and let the memory run through her like clean rain. “I thought he’d done it just to get the old bat out of his face. But the more I came to see how he rolled, and how much he cared about his mom . . . and how truly a sweet lady she was, I knew he wasn’t playing. Gave her his word, so that was that.”

  “D . . . for real, now. We go way, way back. Brother never tried you?”

  Damali just shook her head. “Not over there,” she whispered, then found her voice again and spoke louder, but her tone was introspective as she really thought back. The magnitude of what he’d truly sacrificed as a matter of honor, and just for her, hitting her hard.

  “I slept on the sofa in my clothes for a month, Inez, and when Alejandro pushed up on me, like he always did any of Carlos’s territory, Carlos gave me a nine and said, ‘Shoot the bastard if he gets in your face while I’m out handling my business.’ Oh . . . shit . . . Inez. I have lived a wild life! I cleaned that woman’s house from stem to stern every day to keep her off my back and a roof over my head—when she walked in from work, I practically fucking genuflected and brought her a lemonade.”

  Damali bent over and forced an even harder chuckle as Inez’s laughter collided with hers. The floor became blurry and she sucked back new tears along with what was fast becoming hysteria. Oh, shit . . . they’d killed him. He mighta been a lot of bad things, but he didn’t deserve to go out like that.

  After a moment, she stood. “Girl . . . your mother saved my life. Debt cleared, even though there never was no debt between us.” Her gaze held Inez’s tenderly. “She didn’t go to the police, didn’t tell where I was.”

  “Momma understood immigration issues,” Inez said, smiling. “She came from Mexico, but Poppi was from Rio—Portuguese, that’s why she was there. She got stuck there after he left her.” Inez’s expression became serious. “Momma understood about being a young woman stuck somewhere with a man, somewhere you might not want to be, but had to stay until you could make your break.” Inez sighed hard, the weight of it filling the room. “She hated the authorities, still does, so as long as you said you were okay, she was good with that. Knew if you weren’t, you’d tell the world.” Inez chuckled softly. “I’m glad you came back to her—us, though, after she got her apartment.”

  “Me, too,” Damali said quietly.

  “Glad Mrs. Rivera didn’t tell on you.”

  Damali smirked. “She got to like having a maid, and wasn’t about to bring any authorities to her house. Plus, the way I kicked your uncle’s ass, they would have tried to pin it on one of her sons. It was all good. It was only a month—but it was a great month.” Damali sighed and walked to the tiny window and looked out. “I had so much fun. His sister and her friends were so cool . . . so nice to me. And even if his boys woulda been game if I was, they chilled and became like a bunch of big brothers, ya know?”

  Her voice became very far away as she spoke, suddenly realizing that if she hadn’t lived with Carlos briefly, she might not have ever agreed to go into a community-living situation with the guardians. The sheer irony of it made her weary. “I learned a little bit of Spanish, watched the fellas race.” She shrugged. “Carlos even taught me how to shoot a nine. Deep. When you think back, it’s amazing the things you remember.”

  “Yeah, girl.”

 
She could tell Inez was going back to the past, too. Inez stood and came by her side so they could both peer out the window together. She had crazy-good things to look back on, things to warm her soul when life got cold and real; her girlfriend didn’t. In an odd way, despite all the trauma, she felt blessed. Damali said a silent prayer that Inez’s future would make up for everything stolen from her girlfriend’s childhood.

  “How about if I peek at your princess?” Damali said. “I know she’s more beautiful than her pictures.”

  “She is,” Inez said, and then she slung her arm over Damali’s shoulder.

  They walked the short distance through the kitchen and living room, going down the hallway, and Damali took in all the things that made Inez’s apartment a real home. A crooked picture on the wall. Dirt smudges from sticky little fingers marring the ivory-hued paint. A light blue carpet that needed vacuuming. An overflowing laundry basket. A faucet that dripped. Sanctuary. Just like Mrs. Rivera’s house had been.

  Not perfect, but filled with family, love . . . Crazy sons, wild activities, drugged-out daughter, but laughs. A full house, a superstitious grandma that finally relented and gave her the a-okay from a vision. Damali smiled just thinking about the old dolls. It had a lot of things the compound had, as well as a lot of things it didn’t.

  Dinners that were a noisy gathering of people eating from plates while standing up because they had things to do, business to handle, all crammed in the kitchen, tossing beers to each other, talking shit, laughing, and laughing, and cussing each other out, coming home the next day after catting around . . . women falling by and sitting on the sofa to wait for some man like sparrows on a telephone wire, guarding their territory over whichever fine brother they were trying to hook up with. The kitchens were the same, in that way, but the living room was devoid of outsiders—a closed environment. Even though all of it was insane, part of her knew that she’d do it again any day. By comparison, Mrs. Rivera’s house wasn’t all that bad.