Chapter 5 #2
“We need to get inside. Now,” Giani said, grabbing my arm and pulling me toward the building.
Her fingers dug into my skin hard enough to leave marks, but I didn’t argue.
We moved fast, back up the stairs and into my apartment. Giani locked the door behind us and immediately crossed the room toward the window, cracking the blinds back to look outside.
I checked the locks again before pacing deeper into the apartment with the gun still in my hand. My shoulder throbbed from the fall, but adrenaline kept me moving while my eyes bounced between the windows and the front door.
I couldn’t stop thinking about the headlights coming straight at me. The whole situation felt unreal. Somebody had just tried to kill me in the middle of the street, and I couldn’t believe it.
After one last look through the blinds, Giani finally turned toward me. “Do you even know who that is?”
I shook my head. “No, but obviously he knows me.”
Giani stared at me for a second before dragging a hand across her face. “That’s not good.”
“You think?” I snapped, my nerves still all over the place. “That nigga just tried to run me over.”
“I know what he tried to do,” she shot back. “I was there.”
Ignoring her attitude, I paced around the living room, trying to think, but my mind kept drifting to the car gunning for me.
“You recognized him?” Giani asked carefully.
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I accidentally drove to the area where I met Booda. A memory was triggered, so I got out of the car to see if I could remember something else. The muthafucka that tried to run me over with that car was there, and he threatened me,” I replied.
For a second, Giani just stared at me.
“You remember that?” she asked carefully.
“Pieces of it.”
“What else do you remember?”
I stopped pacing and looked at her. “Why?”
“Because the memories might help you remember why that nigga’s tryna kill you.”
I started to say something, then stopped. She had a point. The memories, though fragmented, could hold all the answers I needed.
“I don’t remember much,” I admitted. “Everything comes back in flashes, but I’m never given the full picture, and they don’t stay around long enough for me to make sense of them.”
Giani crossed her arms and leaned against the wall, absently tapping the gun against her ribs while she stared off into space.
“You and Booda had a lot going on before the accident,” she said after a few minutes. “Y’all had the streets on lock, and a lotta people were envious of y’all. Especially them niggas from Uptown.”
I frowned. “Uptown?”
Giani nodded slowly.
“Word around town was that Booda killed G-Bo’s brother, Tone, when he fell off. People said that was how Booda came back up after the FEDs got hold of that shipment.”
The names she mentioned didn’t trigger a memory, but the way she said it made me look at her sideways.
“When Booda fell off?” I repeated.
Giani glanced toward the window again before looking back at me.
“Tone got robbed during a play a few years ago. After that, everything went left. Niggas started picking sides. Rumors started spreading, and by the time everything was over with, everybody was saying Booda had something to do with Tone getting killed.”
“And did he?” I questioned, not really expecting her to answer.
“I never asked. I knew better than to stick my nose in business that didn’t have shit to do with me.”
Silence filled the apartment after that.
I looked down at the weapon still hanging from my hand and tried to imagine Booda killing somebody, but every memory I had of him so far was of him loving on me.
“What did that have to do with me?” I asked, and the moment the words left my lips, Giani laughed and pushed herself off the wall.
“Koko, you really don’t remember who you used to be.”
That irritated me immediately.
“If I did, I wouldn’t be asking,” I snapped, ready to take that bitch’s head off.
There was nothing funny about the shit I was going through.
“You wasn’t just Booda’s girlfriend. You was his rider,” she said. “Niggas knew not to play with you either.”
“That don’t even sound like me.” I scratched the side of my head, tryna picture myself as a female gangsta.
Giani laughed under her breath and shook her head. “That’s because you comparing who you are now to who you used to be.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you wasn’t soft, Koko.” She pointed toward the window. “And you damn sure wouldn’t have let nobody try to run you over without spinning the block right after. You and Booda were some savages, and once people crossed y’all, it was up.”
I looked down at the gun still hanging from my hand and replayed everything that had just happened. Most people would’ve frozen after almost being hit by a car, but I unloaded the clip without even thinking about what I was doing.
Giani’s phone suddenly buzzed in her pocket, so she pulled it out and looked down at the screen.
“Tiffany’s looking for me,” she said. “She heard the gunshots and is around there panicking ‘cause she can’t find me.”
I nodded, though my mind was still stuck on everything she had just told me.
Giani slid her gun back into her purse before looking at me again.
“I’m about to head out, but I’m gon’ put my ear to the streets and see what I can find out about that nigga in the car,” she said. “If he's bold enough to try some shit like that over here, somebody knows who he is.”
A bitter laugh escaped me. “Seems like everybody knows more than me.”
Her expression softened. “Don’t worry, friend. It won’t be like this forever.”
She pulled her phone back out and held it toward me. “Lock your number in.”
I took it from her, typed in my digits, and handed it back. She called my phone, waited for it to ring, then ended it and slipped hers back into her purse.
“Call me if anything happens. I don’t care what time it is either.”
“I will.”
Giani lingered by the door for another second before unlocking it and stepping out into the hallway. “Lock this behind me,” she warned.
“Trust me, I was,” I replied, and that actually made her smile a little.
A second later, she disappeared down the stairs, leaving me alone with the smell of gunpowder still hanging in the apartment and more questions than answers.