Chapter 9 #2
“I don’t know what you talking about,” I said, a half-smile creeping in as I let myself drift with him.
“Yeah, you do.” He grinned.
I shook my head and reached for my chips. “You need to let that go. That stuff’s behind us.”
“Is it?” He tilted his head, studying me. The humor disappeared.
“Yes.”
Booda shook his head slowly. “Nah. Look how you living. This ain’t you.” He gestured around the empty space. “Remember their faces.”
I froze for a second, then kept eating like I hadn’t heard him.
“Think about their faces,” he repeated.
“I said I don’t know what you talking about.”
He pushed off the wall and moved closer to me. “You do. I need you to remember for me, baby. I can’t get at those niggas for what they did to you if you can’t tell me who they are.”
“Why? What good will that do?”
“A lot. And it’ll also help you understand why I did what I did. Until then, anything I say will be just words,” he said. “Plus, that’s part of our history, our love story.”
“Booda—” I groaned, already feeling the pressure mounting.
“Don’t fight me on this,” he cut in. “I need every face. Niggas don’t get to fuck us over and live.”
I looked away and forced myself to keep eating, but my mind didn’t stay quiet. Faces started surfacing in quick flashes, slipping in and out. I slowed down, chewing just to give myself something to focus on.
A man behind a counter came first. He was tall and slim, caramel-colored, with lots of tattoos, wearing a gold chain, and his gold-toothed smile stretched wide before the image disappeared.
Another followed right behind him. He was older, bald, with yellow eyes and a nose too big for his face. Then he vanished just as fast.
My appetite faded, and I set the sandwich down.
“Let it go,” I snapped, my breathing growing heavier as the sense of danger increased.
“No. You need to remember,” Booda replied.
Another face pushed through and stayed this time. Dark skin. Beard. A scar cut across his cheek. My grip tightened until the plate slipped from my hands and hit the floor, scattering chips across the carpet. I stared at the mess, and the back of my neck tingled.
I said leave it alone,” I snapped, because the more I saw, the worse the feeling in my stomach became. “Every time something comes back, it’s not just the memory. A feeling is attached to it, too.”
I dragged a hand across my face and looked away from him.
“And what if I don’t like who I was before all this?” I asked. “What if that person deserved what happened to her?”
I swallowed hard and looked away from him.
“Don’t say no shit like that,” Booda said as he grabbed my chin and turned my head back around, forcing me to look at him.
“You hear me?” His eyes searched mine. “I don’t care what we did, who we robbed, or how ugly shit got.
Nothing that happened to you was deserved.
You was solid before that accident, and you still solid now.
You loved hard, rode hard, and stood ten toes behind the people you cared about. That ain’t something to be ashamed of.”
His thumb gently brushed my cheek.
“You think I’d still be ready to lay down the world for you if you were a weak-ass woman I couldn’t respect?” he asked. “Nah. I loved you because of who you were, not in spite of it.”
I held his gaze, trying not to let him pull me under the way he always did.
“Now stop running from your head and tell me who you saw.”
My breathing gradually slowed, but the ache still lingered. However, I still tried again because Booda had asked me to.
The memory pulled me under harder this time.
The leather seats creaked softly every time I moved, and the air conditioning chilled my skin while the smell of Booda’s cologne lingered inside the car.
The windows were tinted dark enough to hide me from the street, but I could see everything clearly through the windshield.
My tongue dragged across my teeth as my eyes moved from one side of the street to the other. Somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed, but they sounded far enough away not to matter.
That should’ve calmed me down. Instead, it made my nerves worse. The block’s silence didn’t feel natural.
“It’s coming too fast.”
I saw one flash, then another, and another.
“Try to slow it down. Focus on one thing at a time,” Booda coached as he gently rubbed my back.
“A man walked toward the car carrying a duffel,” I said, straining to keep the memory from slipping away again.
“Describe him.”
I swallowed hard and squeezed my eyes tighter. “He had on black clothes. Hoodie. Jeans. Gloves.” I paused, forcing myself deeper into the memory. “The hood was up at first.”
Booda’s hand slowed against my back. “Tattoos?”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “I think I saw something on his neck when he got closer. Writing maybe. I couldn’t really make it out.”
“What else?”
My breathing slowed as the memory sharpened around me again. I could hear my heartbeat thump in my ears as I watched him move toward my car.
“The hood fell back when he stepped under the streetlight,” I whispered.
“Dark skin. Beard. Scar across his cheek.”
The image hit me so hard that my eyes flew open for a second before I squeezed them shut again.
“I know him,” I whispered.
“From where?”
Another memory crashed into me before I could answer.
Headlights. Tires screeching. A car flying toward me.
“No…” I breathed.
“Koko.”
“That’s him,” I said, my voice shaking now. “That’s the nigga that tried to run me over.”
The memory of that night of the accident returned.
He stepped under the streetlight, and that was when I noticed the chain hanging around his neck. Diamonds flashed when he moved, and an emblem swung against his chest.
Rich.
My stomach dropped.
“Oh my God,” I whispered.
“What?” Booda asked immediately.
I opened my eyes and looked at Booda.
“His chain,” I said. “It said, Rich.”
“Who is he?” Booda asked.
“You don’t remember him? We took everything he had.” The memory pulled more with it. “We thought he was dead,” I said. “He was supposed to be dead.”
Rich wasn’t just somebody we robbed. He was a problem you didn’t leave breathing, but we hadn’t.
“That doesn’t make sense,” I said, standing to pace the floor.
“What doesn’t make sense is how he knew about the drop,” Booda replied, making me pause mid-step.
I quickly turned around, my eyes wide with surprise when I peered at him.
“Somebody set me up,” I said, anger rising through my entire body. “Somebody really tried to have me killed.”
“Whatchu wanna do about it?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” A sob broke loose as tears fell from my eyes.
“You know.”
“Booda—”
“Don’t Booda me. Tell me.”
“No.” I dropped my head into my hands and shook it. “I want to leave that shit in the past,” I admitted quietly. “I woke up not remembering the fucked up shit I’ve done, and for a while… I got to be somebody else.” My voice cracked as I wiped angrily at my face.
“I don’t wanna go back to being that person.”
Booda stayed quiet for a moment before crouching in front of me.
“Baby, that life already came back for you,” he said softly. “Rich made sure of that the second he tried to kill you. You think that nigga gon’ stop?” Booda asked. “You think the people who set you up just forgot about you?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Because deep down, I knew the answers to those questions.
“But why just me? Why haven’t they come for you, too?”
“Nobody knows I’m here, but you. I’m lowkey. Now tell me what you wanna do about them niggas, Koko,” he said again, lifting my chin until I looked at him. “Say it.”
I dragged in a shaky breath. “I want to find everybody who played me,” I whispered. “Everybody who owes us money. Everybody who thought they got away with crossing me.”
“And then what?”
The tears stopped as something colder clicked in their place.
“I want them dead.”
Booda nodded as if he approved. “Then they will die.”