Kiani’s Journey- Mayhem

by Raqurra Ishmar

  “What’s with all of the questions?” Ravi ask me.

  “Just trying to see how prepared y’all were for the journey, is all.”

  “And what are you guys going to do?” he asks.

  “Find a boat that can hold all of us and some rations and then set off from wherever we are. The boat is the main obstacle. I refuse to split us up for a journey that long and dangerous.”

  “Can we travel with you?” Sarah quickly asks.

  “Sarah, what the hell?! We don’t need them!” Ravi exclaims.

  “Like hell we don’t need them! That little plate of food was the first time we’ve eaten in weeks! My little sister was sleeping under a pile of broken-down cardboard boxes, fighting for her life as we blindly looked for medicine that might help her. So, no, I happen to disagree with you, Ravi. We do need them.”

  Ravi stood there, face twisted up as if he just licked some dirty feet. I steeple my fingers in front of my face as I watch the couple squabble, enjoying the entertainment until it became a little old. “Are you going to wait for our answer, or will you continue to tear each other down without it?” I ask. They stop mid argument and stare at me. “I'll have to discuss this with my family first. I’m sure y’all can appreciate that.” Before waiting for them to answer, I got up and head back towards the twin’s room. We enter the dim room, seeing Ashlynn propped up against the headboard as Ashton quietly talks to her while sitting on his side of the bed.

  “What’s happening?” he asks, hopping up. Ashlynn looks like she’s trying to get out of the bed, but I quickly stop her.

  “We have a family decision to make. Our three guests want to tag along with us on our journey. Well, one of them wants to, the other one hates us, and one is unconscious. I know that usually I decide whether or not someone would stay, that’s what I did with each and every one of y’all, but this is different. We’re a little torn apart due to Ashlynn being hurt and Derrick going AWOL. What do you want to do?” I answer.

  The room is quiet until Isaiah breaks the silence. He takes a step forward so that he could look at me when he says. “I think we should let them come with us. We’ll be no better than the Bandits if we turn our backs on them.”

  “That’s noble, Izzy, really is. But we can’t forget that we barely survive on our own as is,” Ashlynn quietly responds. Instead of the instant groan that usually follow after anything that Ashlynn says, there was no malice in her tone. She was stating the obvious.

  “I agree with you both,” I state. “So, it’s up to you guys. All for them coming with us, raise your hand.” Isaiah and Christine's hand pop up immediately, which was no shock to me. I wait a little bit, seeing if anyone else will join in. I’m just about to say that we deny Sarah her request when Ashton hand slowly creeps up. Three against two. “Alright then. If they can decide within their own group, then they can come with us.” I turn around to go and tell Sarah what we decided when Ashlynn calls out to me.

  “Hey Kiani, thanks for getting this medicine for me. Ashton told me the risk you took for that. I know we aren’t the best of friends, but I guess at this point we’re family.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “We’re family.”

  18

  Derrick

  The walk down the corridor is quiet, except for my labored breathing. I see that they’ve been slowly renovating the space, trying to make it homelier. Some spaces are still offices, and other spaces have walls torn down to make them bigger. I’m curious as to where they eat and shower though; I’m sure this place isn’t really as comfortable as living in a regular home, but they’re making do.

  I must have stopped to stare around for too long, because one of the Bandits shoved me from behind. Thankfully the two brutes holding me on the side didn’t want to let me get too far away from them, so I didn’t have far to stumble.

  Sam’s steps echoed against the walls as she led us down to the main office. “I can’t believe you’re a Bandit now, Sam. One of the same kind of people that killed your parents. Or are you a senseless killer now, too, and it doesn’t matter?” I ask, watching as her shoulders tense up. Sadly, she didn’t take the bait and chose to ignore me. I guess some things never changed. Even growing up, she never really argued with Kiani or I if she didn’t see the point to it.

  I try not to think about Kiani or the others. If she was smart, she would be resting right now and then preparing to leave out of this God-forsaken city come first light. We stop outside of ornate double doors, of course, and wait for Sam to knock before a voice calls out for us to come in. Sam pushes the doors open and confidently walks into the office. We follow closely behind, and I was greeted with a scene straight out of a horror film.

  The Boss stood there, rolling up the sleeves to his unbuttoned, striped, collared shirt. He wore a pair of black jeans, but his apparent undressed state wasn’t what made me sick. It was the two bodies, bleeding at his feet. It seems to be two males, from what I can see of their build and short hair. Judging by the cruddy clothes that they had on, I know for a fact that they weren’t employed by him. Which means that they had to be travelers.

  As the Bandits drag me deeper into the office, I get a closer look at the bodies on the floor and promptly begin throwing up. It’s not that I have a soft stomach when it comes to dead bodies, I’ve killed a few people myself, it’s the way they were killed. It looks as though their throats were slit with a dull, jagged knife. Which means that they had to suffer immensely before they were able to find peace in death.

  “Ahhh, here’s the man of the hour! Sorry I didn’t have time to roll out the red carpet, so to speak. Come in, come in!” Boss motioned me towards a sofa that was, thankfully, a little further away from the dead bodies. I flop down with the Bandits flopping down on either side of me. Boss walks over to a wet bar and fixes himself something to drink. “Do you want anything to drink?” he asks. I glare at him without bothering to even answer him. I know this is all a part of his ploy to unsettle me, but he’s got me completely fucked up. He tosses his head back in laughter, clearly still enjoying his own sick antics.

  I spit on his floor and square my shoulders, waiting for my chance to piss him off. “So, what do you want, ‘Boss’,” I ask as sarcastically as I can.

  “Oh no no no, you don’t work for me, so you don’t have to refer to me as your boss. Call me, Alex,” he smirks over the rim of his cup as he takes a long pull of his drink. He looks exactly the same as when I last laid eyes on him; well over six foot, broad shoulders, strong jaw, dark brown skin. His eyes are still as crazed as ever, only this time, there’s a calculated calmness emanating from their depths. He walks over to where we’re sitting down, but instead of sitting in the chair across from us, he props himself on the armrest. “This, you and me and Sammy over there, this is what I like to call the circle of life. The beginning is the end, if you’re not careful.”

  “Whatever you and Sammy have going on, that doesn’t have shit to do with me. I came here looking for my friend, Sam. If I would’ve known she was dead, I wouldn’t have wasted my time,” I respond while looking at Sam. Her eyes didn’t even waver from my stare, showing me that she doesn’t care about anything that I have to say.

  “Ouch, seems like you’re hurt, Derrick my boy. Which I love. Let that anger fester, that’ll make this so much more enjoyable.”

  “Make what enjoyable?” I ask in spite of myself. I know that I shouldn’t be feeding into his Game, but his behavior has put me on guard. He’s talking to me as if we’re old friends, not like he attacked us and nearly killed me and Kiani.

  “This battle, my boy! I get tired, you know? Being on top, being in charge. You get bored of the day to day. So, when you have a chance to have… fun, you take that opportunity.” He finishes off his drink, placing it down onto the coffee table, then clapping his hands together. “I will give you two days to rest, I know my men beat you pretty good. After two days, you’ll be ready.”

  “Ready for what?” I ask as the Bandits pull me up and begin
walking me back the way we came.

  “Ready to fight for your life, of course.” His voice follows me out of the office, sounding eerie as hell as the doors slam shut.

  19

  Kiani

  Everyone follows me back into the living room, even Ashlynn, ready to get this situation all settled once and for all. I want to tell Ashlynn to stay in bed and rest, she did just get her head split open, the only thing stopping me from telling her just that is that she has every right to be a part of this discussion.

  Sarah and Ravi were still facing off with each other, although it seems as though they’ve run out of words and decided to just glare each other to death. Christine rushes over to see if Aida’s fever went down at all, even though it hasn’t been that long since we’ve given her the medicine. I doubt her condition has changed all that much.

  “Have y’all decided whether or not you wanted to come with us?” I ask.

  “Have you decided if we can come along with you?” Ravi retorts.

  “My decision means nothing if you decided not to come,” I shoot back

  “My sister and I would love to come along with you guys, if you’d have us?” Sarah asks.

  “Just you two?” Brian jumps in.

  “Ravi has yet to decide if he wants to join your family, but I speak for my sister and I with saying that we’d feel better with coming with you all.”

  I look over at Ravi and try to hide my smirk. I hope in the end he decides to go on his own, which I know won’t happen. He’s being stubborn right now, but I’m sure he’ll follow Sarah anywhere.

  “That’s great to hear. We’ve decided that we’d like for you to come with us,” I say.

  “Thank you! So, all of you said yes?” Sarah eyes bounce from face to face.

  I clear my throat and told her the truth. “Usually I make the decisions with just my friend Derrick. I wouldn’t say that I’m in charge of these guys, but I’m in charge of a vast majority of the decisions we make. Seeing as Derrick isn’t here right now, I asked for everyone’s thoughts on the situation.”

  “Where is Derrick?” Sarah asks, but I can see Ravi paying avid attention to me now.

  I could feel my friends shuffling uneasily beside and behind me, but I can’t give focus to their discomfort. I look at Sarah and Ravi and tell them Derrick has chosen to leave to look for our lost friend.

  “You see this, Sarah? They can’t even keep their own family members safe, and you think they’d worry about us?!”

  “What happened to your friend?” she asks

  “It was back when Derrick and I first got on our own. He and I and Sam were naively trying to walk in a Bandits territory and we were ambushed. They stabbed Sam in her stomach and took her body, they knocked us unconscious before we were able to check if she was alive or not. Derrick believes that she’s still alive, and for some reason he thinks she’s here. He left us yesterday. We were going to go and find him when we were attacked by Bandits again, this time Ashlynn is the one that got hurt.”

  “Are you still going after him?” Ravi asks.

  I can feel Brian staring at me, but I answer Sarah with no hesitation. “Right now, our main focus is to make sure Ash is straight. We will decide what to do after that.”

  “Sarah, I think we should stay by ourselves. Their group is obviously falling apart. We can make it on our own!”

  “I will talk to my sister in the morning and see what she wants, if that’s ok with you guys?”

  “Yeah, take your time,” I say, noticing how her ‘yes’ changed to a maybe. “I know you guys are tired. You can have a shower and take Christine and Isaiah’s bed unless you want to stay out here?”

  “Can we shower first and then decide?” she asks.

  “Sure, I don’t know if you need extra clothes, but I’m sure there are clothes in the closet in the rooms that should tide you over. You can wash your clothes in the shower if you want. Or put them back on, your choice.”

  They both left and got ready for their shower, grabbing clothes from the rooms and towels from the closet. I felt my face heat up as they both went into the bathroom at the same time. I should’ve expected that, I guess. I can’t imagine when was the last time they had some alone time. I’m just hoping that whatever they do in there, they do it quietly.

  “This just got super awkward. You think we’re going to hear something from the bathroom?” Ashlynn asks with an impish look on her face. We all groan at her.

  “What could we hear?” Isaiah asks, looking around at all of us.

  “You’re old enough to get The Talk now,” Ashton responds, wagging his eyebrows.

  “Uhhhh no! This is not the time or the place to give him The Talk!” I exclaim. Christine, Brian and Ashlynn crack up while Isaiah looks around, annoyed at being left out on the joke.

  “When helicopter mom over there calms down, you come and find me,” he winks at Isaiah.

  “Guys get some rest. Ashlynn get back to bed. I’m going to go keep watch.” I say.

  “I’ll come with you,” Brian says, putting up his hand to stop me from objecting. “There’s not enough room in here for all of us to sleep and there’s no way I’ll be able to go back to bed now.”

  I shrug my shoulders, walking out of the apartment and up to the lookout point. I know that Brian is going to use this as an opportunity to get me to talk. We settle down in our spots, both facing opposite directions. Our shoulders are pressed against each other, but we haven’t spoken a word. The sky slowly begins to lighten up over the horizon. We wouldn’t be able to sit out here for much longer, otherwise we’d end up being sitting targets for anyone to see.

  “I used to love to play baseball.” I jump at the sound of Brian’s voice. I was so caught up in my own head that I kind of forgot that he was right there behind me. He chuckles before continuing. “My parents put me in baseball at a very young age. At first, I loved it. The teamwork, the camaraderie; it was everything. But then my parents kept pushing it on me. I would practice for hours after school. They paid for individual training and everything. It became too much, and I started to hate the game. Then I started to hate my parents.” He paused before tilting his head back to look at the sky.

  “I got in a fight with my dad a few months before our house was raided by Bandits. I thought they were going to kill us right then and there. My dad stood between us and them, but they didn’t make any aggressive moves towards us. In fact, they started to talk to my dad as if he was an old friend. As it turned out, my dad was working with the local group of Bandits that were terrorizing the city. They promised him immunity if he helped them out with the more engineering side of things. He helped them hack into some of the drones, which gave them more eyes around the city.

  “Apparently my dad didn’t want to help them anymore. He was getting ready to get us to Russia and pay for our way off of this planet, which they didn’t like at all. They started to attack him, and he yelled for us to run. My mom and I left immediately. We ran for as long as she could stand. Once we got far enough away, we hid behind this dumpster. There was no one to turn to and nowhere to go. My mom was hysterical. We both know what happened to my dad. I couldn’t console her because I couldn’t console myself. We stayed there the entire night.

  “My mom wanted to go back home, to see if they left anything behind that we could take. But I know that she wanted to check to see if my dad was still there; waiting for us. I didn’t think it was smart, but I didn’t have it in me to tell her no. I wanted to try and ease the pain in her heart in any way that I could. We got back to the house and it was deserted. The living room was destroyed, blood was everywhere. My father’s body was left on the floor like he was trash. My mom fell on top of him, sobbing out his name. I ran upstairs to hastily pack our bags. Grabbing random clothes and random pictures. I was just finishing when I heard the distinct sound of a gun being discharged.

  “I froze in my steps for what felt like forever; too afraid to run downstairs and see what I knew I would see.
Eventually I found a backbone and darted down the stairs. I was greeted by my mother’s lifeless body, draped over my dad’s. Whoever killed her left in a hurry, not even bothering to kill me too. My mother died because I didn’t have the heart to tell her no. I won’t repeat the same mistake again, Kiani. I know you’re going after Derrick, but I don’t know if I can let you do that.”

  My breath catches in my chest at his admission. I should’ve known he would see through everything that I’ve been saying. Only someone who didn’t care to learn who I was wouldn’t know that I was planning on ditching all of them. But what could I do? I’ve already dragged them into some bad shit, and Ashlynn was the one to pay the price for that.

  “You still think that the only person who has your back fully is Derrick. You look after us, but you don’t really expect us to look after you. You don’t really trust us, do you Ki?”

  I swallow the lump in my throat. Struck silent by how accurately he had laid everything out. I shift a little, ready to tell him everything. He just told me something so brutal and vulnerable, and I’d be a terrible person to lie to him now.

  “It’s hard for me to believe that you all will have my back like Derrick did. We have known each other our entire lives. No one knows me like him, and no one knows him like I do.” I sigh. “It’s not to hurt anyone’s feelings or anything, it’s just hard for me to let someone in as much as Derrick.” I shrug as I draw my knees to my chest. I fold my arms on the top of my knees and rest my head on them.

  “I get it,” he says. “So, when are we going?”

  “What?” I ask as I jerk upright so that I can turn and look at him.

  He tilts his head, turning as well and pinning me with a hard look. “When are we going?” he repeats.

  “‘We’ aren’t going anywhere. You’re going to stay here and make sure that everyone is alright and safe. I’m going to get Derrick and bring him back alone.”