Chapter 3 #2
Cupping his ear, Faheem turned his head to the side.
“Ion comprehend head gestures, and with a head as big as yours, you need to be careful swinging that shit around. Use that mouth for what it was made for.” His cockiness pissed me off.
I wanted to say some slick shit back to him when he mentioned my head, but he had the upper hand, and I didn’t know what his motives were right now.
“No. I haven’t talked to either one of my parents since I dropped my mom off last week.” My attitude was loud, and I couldn’t resist the urge to roll my eyes at him.
“Careful, you don’t want them pretty eyes to get stuck up there.” Faheem winked at me.
The flutters in my stomach annoyed me because why was I excited hearing he thought I was pretty when he was damn near holding me hostage? I mean, he hadn’t said I couldn’t leave, but I could read the damn room. Faheem wasn’t letting me leave until he got what he came here for.
“I’ll be fine,” I grumbled, folding my arms across my chest.
“You tryna take a ride with me?” He smiled, but it wasn’t a genuine smile. More like he was nicely threatening me.
“Do I have a choice?” I sarcastically asked.
“Nope,” he replied, still smiling at me. “Let's go, Juniper.” He nodded towards his white Jaguar that flashed its light when he unlocked the door.
***
“What do you want with my dad?” I asked, breaking the silence we’d been driving in for the last fifteen minutes.
Faheem cut his eyes at me. “He owes me and my dad a lot of money.”
Smacking my lips at him, I frowned. “Why would y’all loan him any amount of money when he doesn’t have a job to pay y’all back?”
“Never stopped him from payin’ us back before.” Faheem chuckled. “I ain’t running no buy here, pay here business. Ion need a proof of income. As long as I get my bread back.”
Before I had the chance to respond, Faheem came to a screeching halt in front of my parents’ house.
Oddly, their house was pitch black, and that wasn’t like my parents.
They didn’t go to sleep until the early morning, and it was about to be the weekend.
They normally would have a porch full of people running in and out of their house.
The first thing that ran through my head was Faheem had done something to my parents and wanted to finish the job with me.
Peering over at Faheem, I tried to read his body language, but he was void of any emotion.
“It don’t look like anybody is home,” Faheem spoke, getting out of the car. In a daze, I tried to plot my escape for it quickly to be thwarted when my door was snatched open. “Let’s go,” Faheem demanded.
Cautiously getting out of his car, I was nudged forward toward the stairs. With no other option, I led us onto the porch, looking back at him when we got to their door that was slightly cracked.
“Did you do something to my parents?” There was no sound coming from their house, and that was even more alarming. If Faheem was going to do something to me, there was no need for me to mince my words.
“Not yet, but if ya bitch ass daddy don’t appear soon, I won’t be able to say that.” He snarled at me, frowning for the first time. “Open that door,” Faheem commanded as I watched him pull out a big black gun from the waistband of his jeans.
Doing as he said, I slowly pushed the door open and was greeted by darkness. “Mama, Daddy?” I called out with no response.
Faheem flipped on the light switch, and confusion filled me as I took in what I was seeing.
My parents' house was never the cleanest. Neither of them had any sense of cleanliness. The house in front of me looked as if it had been halfway robbed and ransacked. Stuff was thrown all around the living room. The couch overturned, TV on the floor, and pictures missing from the walls. The only reason I knew my parents hadn’t been robbed was because they didn’t have anything worth robbing someone in their house.
The TV they had was old as hell, and they didn’t care about keeping up with technology.
My daddy didn’t own any real jewelry. He was the type to buy knockoff jewelry and try to pass it off as real.
Needless to say, they didn’t have anything with value in their house.
“They’re not here,” I absentmindedly stated the obvious.
“Nope… and that’s a problem for me.” Faheem stood right behind me. His presence sent a feeling of dread over me.
“I-I-I w-w-wish I could help,” I stuttered, turning around to look at Faheem. “But I don’t know where they could be.”
“You don’t have a choice.” Faheem smirked.
“Excuse me?” I asked, looking at Faheem like he had two heads. I didn’t have anything to do with what he had going on with my dad.
“Don’t make this harder than it has to be. You already know how this shit finna go. Yo’ daddy owes me, and until he pays me, you finna come with me,” Faheem calmly said as if that was supposed to make this shit make any more sense.
“No. You finna take me back to my car and leave me outta y’alls bullshit!” I yelled at Faheem. I didn’t know where that second wind of courage came from, but I was finna run with it.
“Come on, pretty. Don’t make me be the bad guy.” Faheem had the nerve to put a puppy dog face on.
“Take me to my car NO-” I couldn’t even finish my demands before my world went black.
What the fuck has my dad gotten me into?