Chapter 5 Villain
Villain
I don’t know how long it’s been since I started crying. I’m lowkey embarrassed right now, but not because of that.
Because I was scared.
And she saw me.
I couldn’t even manage to make myself look at my boys before I left them in that fucking plane. Too fucking scary to see them. I just kept my eyes focused elsewhere like a fucking punk.
I’m exhausted.
What am I gonna say to Vanessa? Ja was her only son. She loved that boy more than she loved her own life. I guess all mothers do.
Well, not all.
And my aunt Avery. My uncle James. Crown was their whole world.
I’m starting to wish it was me instead of them. At least the pain would only last a minute. I can handle a minute. What I can’t deal with is this never ending pain, this feeling of being empty inside.
The only thing that snaps me out of it is Ms. K moaning. When I look over, she’s clutching her side.
“It hurts,” she says. “It’s starting to hurt real bad.”
“Where?”
I look over at Ariana, who’s laid out with her back against a tree, her wounded leg in front of her. I almost forgot she was here.
“It hurts everywhere,” Ms. K whispers, like speaking with a full voice is too painful. “But mostly my stomach, I think.”
“I got percs and oxy,” I say. “Which one do you want, K?”
Ariana shakes her head. “Of course you have a stash of drugs.”
I snap my head in her direction, teeth gritting in anger. “What’s it to you?”
She ignores that. “She needs to eat something with it.”
“Why?”
“Because people who don’t take drugs for recreation usually can’t tolerate stuff that strong on an empty stomach.”
I scrub a hand down my face, wiping tears, and also wiping away the frustration this woman makes me feel.
I pull myself to a standing position and approach the pile, flames crackling a few feet behind me. They’re slowly dying, just like my will to live.
I grab the first loose thing I see, a package of dried apple slices, then I find my LV bumbag and dig out a baggy of white pills. I rack my brain for a minute before deciding to give her just two. I can handle three or four at a time, but K is new to this.
I snatch a bottle of water out of the pile and position myself next to K.
“You want me to feed you, or you got it?”
She holds her hand out.
I tear open the shiny black bag and pour the dried apples into her hand.
“Just enough to line her stomach,” Ariana says. “We can’t waste supplies.”
“Fuck is you talkin’ bout?” I snap. “We got way more than enough to get us through the next few hours.”
“Hours?”
I turn to look at her, my face balled up.
“What you think this is, Gilligan’s Island?
I’m a fuckin’ superstar! They out lookin’ for me right now.
With this big ass fire, ain’t no way they don’t find us.
” I turn back to K, pressing the pill into her other hand.
“Eat what you want. Lemme know what else you need.”
She nods, a grimace on her face.
Silence falls over us. The only sound is the crackle of the wreckage burning behind us. I glance up through the trees to the blue sky above. No cloud in sight. No planes in sight either, though.
Ariana might know private jets, but she don’t know shit about this right here. I’m one of the most famous men in America. Ain’t no motherfuckin’ way we don’t get saved tonight.
“Vincent.”
I look over at Ms. K, my eyebrows raised.
“Please don’t fight with her,” she says softly.
I shrug a shoulder. “She think she know every fuckin’ thing. She’s pissing me off, K.”
“Okay, but y’all need to work together.”
“For what? Somebody’ll be here soon.” My eyes drift up to the empty sky again.
The fire is weak now, burning orange instead of the angry red and black from before, and I have a thought that makes my stomach turn.
Did the plane cremate them?
Are they just bones now? Maybe ash? No chance of burying them now, from the little I know about it. When the rescue people find us tonight, will they have to transport my people in trash bags?
It’s a nauseating thought.
My eyes well up again, but I blink the tears away. I ain’t lettin’ that woman see me cry again.
Then it hits me.
I jump up so fast, my head spins. But I’m not so dizzy I can’t get to that pile.
I go to my knees in front of it, digging, scavenging, scrounging.
Then, I see it. The sleek collection of phones all lying haphazardly in the same place.
I don’t know what phone belongs to who, but I grab three of them and drop then on the dirt where I was just sitting.
“Ariana, what your phone look like?”
“It’s in my bag,” she says weakly. “The black Telfar.”
Of course her phone is covered in pink glitter. I hand it over to her, then ask Ms. K. She says hers is in her purse. I find it easily; it’s the Gucci tote I bought her for Christmas last year.
All of us sit there, quiet for a moment, almost like we’re nervous. And then we all exchange a look right before we look at our screens.
And then, together, we press the buttons.