Chapter 1 #2
At some point, I must’ve fallen asleep because before I knew it, I was being jarred awake by a loud banging sound.
With a racing heart, I felt around my bed, looking for my phone.
Finally grabbing it from underneath my pillow, I hit the unlock button and squinted up at the time.
It was three in the morning. Twelve after.
Turning over on my back, I dragged my hand over my forehead until I knocked my bonnet off.
With my eyes on the ceiling, I listened to Sean and Sabrina upstairs arguing.
Shaking my head, I flinched at the sound of another big bang.
He was beating her ass again. On cue, one of the six kids they had started to cry.
Taking a deep breath, I turned over on my side and went through my phone, hitting the message icon.
I scrolled to Meech’s messages and opened them, tempted to text him, asking where he was.
It was twelve after…no, thirteen after three and he should have been home by now.
My thumb hovered over the keypad, hesitating.
I was supposed to be sleep. I wasn’t supposed to be up worried about him.
If I texted him now he’d know I was worried and I wasn’t supposed to be the one who worried.
I was the one who prayed and gave it to God whenever he left the house.
“Fuck it,” I mumbled, as my fingers got to moving.
‘???’ was all I sent before I dropped my phone next to me.
My eyes went back to the ceiling, listening to Sean call Sabrina all kinds of bitches and ho’s.
She cried. She always cried and begged him to stop.
But it was as if all of her crying just fueled him to do the opposite because her cries got louder and his voice, scarier.
Later, when I saw her in passing, she’d have on a headscarf and a pair of dark tinted shades, hiding bruises and shit everybody in The Woods heard her get.
With a deep breath, I tore my eyes away from the popcorn ceiling and shifted them over to the phone, tempted to call him this time.
Not even three minutes had passed since I texted him but so what?
I was on edge a little. Usually, he’d be home by now.
If not laid out on the couch, at least at the door, unlocking it, getting ready to walk in.
I—
Before a could complete my thought, there was banging on the front door.
I shook my head, knowing it had to be Sabrina.
She did that sometimes too. If things got too bad between her and Sean, she’d run downstairs to the apartment, looking for shelter.
She chose us because Meech had whooped on Sean a few times for putting hands on her, and I always kept what happened to myself.
I wasn’t like the majority of the bitches in The Woods.
I kept to myself for the most part, only fucking with my cousins.
You wouldn’t catch me posted up, gossiping about how Sabrina came to the crib, beat the fuck up, in fear for her life.
I didn’t pass judgement.
Wasn’t my place to. I just hoped for the best where Sabrina was concerned.
I tossed my thin sheet from my body, and sat on side of the bed, getting up.
The banging grew louder. More impatient.
I shook my head, slid into my thong sandals and headed out of the room.
I adjusted my titties in my tank, stood at the door and got on my tiptoes a little to look out of the peephole.
When I did, my eyebrows snapped together and I backed away from it.
It wasn’t Sabrina. It was the Christ brothers.
And the oldest, Exodus, stood in front, eyes centered on the peephole like he knew I was checking it.
What the fuck were they doing here? More specifically… what the fuck was he doing here? At three in the morning? At my door? Our door?
I sucked in a gust of air that I held onto as I wringed my fingers, staring at the big black metal door. I flinched at the sound of another big thud coming from upstairs. With closed eyes, I tilted my head back and finally released the breath I was holding onto.
“Yeah?” I breathed out, with a shaky voice.
There was silence on the other side of the door for what felt like minutes but couldn’t be no more than a couple of seconds.
“Open the door for me real quick,” said one of them.
I sucked my teeth, shaking my head. “Hell naw. What the fuck y’all niggas want?”
I scanned my mind, trying to remember who I saw standing out there when I looked through the peephole.
Was Zeke with them? Shit. I needed to look again, but I was cemented with fear.
The Christ boys on my doorstep at three in the morning, after Meech had gone out on a lick didn’t sit well with me.
And Exodus was with them. Standing front line, with a deep furrow in his brows, like he was pissed about something.
What the hell had Meech gotten himself into?
I went from being cemented with fear, to pacing back and forth in front of the door.
“We can’t talk with a door between us, baby girl,” one of them said.
I chewed on my bottom lip. “Where Zeke?”
“Right here,” he said before I heard him move closer to the door. “It’s cool, Rei. Open the door real quick.”
I wasn’t supposed to open the door.
If it weren’t for Meech, I was to keep the door locked. Especially at this time of night. I didn’t know what the hell the Christ brothers could have wanted. What if they were here to snatch me up because of something Meech did? What if I opened the door and one of them blew my head off?
I chewed on my bottom lip again, looked at the door and sighed. “Where my brother at, Zeke?”
Silence.
No one said anything and that raised a red flag for me. What the fuck was Zeke doing here without Meech? He was who Meech was with. Whenever my brother went out on a run, it was with Ezekiel fucking Christ. Why was it that he was here but Meech wasn’t?
I swallowed, stopped pacing, and stared at the door with wide eyes. “Zeke.”
His voice softened. “Sereia… open up for me, sis.”
I stepped back away from the door, shaking my head. “Uh uh. Nope. I’m not—”
“Look,” said another one of them. “We need you to open the door.”
“For what, nigga?” I shouted, as tears sat at the rim of my eyes. “Just… just tell me where the fuck my brother at, Zeke!”
Silence. Once again.
Something was wrong.
Something was horribly wrong.
Again, I swallowed. This time, with a trembling bottom lip. Neither of them said anything but then again… did they really have to? Something happened.
I hurried away from the door, back down the hallway to my room to grab my phone. I snatched it off the bed and quickly hit the phone icon to call my brother. With a heavy heart, I pressed the phone against my ear, listening to it ring.
At the sound of his ringtone sounding nearby, my eyebrows snapped together. Slowly, I followed the sound of the ringing phone until it landed me right back in front of the door. After a couple of seconds, the ringing stopped and someone answered his phone.
“Hello?” I questioned with furrowed brows as I stood on my tiptoes, peering out of the peephole, looking for Meech.
Except, when I looked out, it wasn’t Meech with his phone to his ear. It was Exodus and like before, he was staring at the peephole. This time with a softened expression. This time with less of a furrow in his brow.
My mouth turned down and I stepped away from the door.
“Why do you have my brother’s phone? Where—where is my—”
“Could you please open the door so I can talk to you?”
I hung up on him and wrapped my trembling hand around my phone. They had Meech’s phone. The wheels in my mind started to turn.
Meech left with Zeke.
Zeke was here. With his brothers at three in the morning.
Without Meech. With his phone. This wasn’t about something Meech did.
This visit was about something else. My brother…
he was gone. Either he was locked up or he was dead.
Something happened. Something earthshattering.
Something that would force Exodus to come to The Woods.
This… it was huge. And instead of opening the door to get answers, I was planted, with tears running down my face, trying to figure out what they wanted.
All I had to do was open the door.
All I had to do was let them in. But letting them in…
it would change the trajectory of my life.
If Meech was dead or in jail, everything about life as I knew it would change.
And well… I wasn’t really ready to face the reality of what it meant to have the Christ brothers on my doorstep at three in the morning.
“Sereia,” said Zeke with a sigh.
Swallowing, I finally stepped forward and undid the chain lock and then untwisted the other locks. It took me a few seconds, but eventually, I opened the door. Not too wide. Just enough to peek my head through, to size them up.
Exodus, standing at over six feet, stepped forward and looked down at me. “Can we come in?”
I shifted my eyes away from his browns and put them on Zeke. “Where my brother?”
“You let us in, we will tell you,” said Exodus.
I watched as Zeke dragged his hand down over his face, visibly stressed. The other brother, Kiss, stood resting against the wall behind them with his hands clasped in front of him, staring at me with dipped brows. There was something behind his eyes that would sit with me for a long time.