Chapter 1 #2
His voice didn’t reveal ill intent or an undertone of anything but amusement.
Kamilla didn’t have time to dissect his tone, she wanted to be back in the safety of the home she was going to occupy for the next two months.
Being locked inside of whatever this was with this... this stranger wasn’t on her bingo card.
“I just – I just want to go home. You can’t just hold me against my will. This is kidnapping,” she fussed, then returned to twisting and turning locks.
“Cops don’t really come over here to look for missing persons,” he coolly stated, moving her out of the way to unlock the door. “You know where you’re going?”
“Y-yes,” Kamilla stated. “Just move so I can get home.”
He stepped back, grabbing his keys in the same motion. “After you.”
“I’ll walk.”
“First of all – no you won’t. You don’t know where the fuck you are. Second – that stubbornness is going to have you snatched up by a nigga that ain’t as couth as I am. After you,” he stated again.
Kamilla’s lip twitched with a response, but she opted for a huff instead.
She stomped out of the door into the summer night air of Los Oceania.
The coolness, a contrast from the day, hit her bare thighs.
Her eyes trailed the block. A sea of blue, unlike the red-bandanaed-men she’d seen from the living room window.
“How far am I from 35th and Mecca?” she lowly asked.
“You’re in Volts, where the Vultures are. Still want to walk? It’s about ten blocks of this before you hit Crimson Row and those niggas ain’t like the ones from earlier. They’ll have fun with your green ass,” he informed, stepping out of the small house behind her and locking up.
Kamilla’s stubbornness was zapped. The last time she saw this much blue was tenth grade, when her father’s street life caught up to him.
By then, him and her mother had been estranged.
There were years of on again, off again love.
When her father was out of jail stints and not chasing his entertainment past, things were good – things were whole.
When he was locked in to his passion – no part of the puzzle she was made to fit in made sense.
Then that fateful day and the little bit of light her mother had left was zapped.
“There’s not a bus or…” Kamilla spoke up, trying to avoid being in close quarters with a stranger.
“Not ‘round here,” he stated, walking down the minimal steps past her. His corner store white tee held the aroma of Azul Kush and a spicy, woodsy cologne. He reached his car and opened the passenger side door. “Come on. You need to eat before I drop you off.”
Kamilla quickened to the car, not wanting to be any more exposed than this.
She wasn’t leaving the house again. Sliding inside of the 1970 midnight blue Challenger, she buckled the seatbelt and wrapped her arms around herself.
There were too many questions floating around her mind, but she would never be back in his presence.
Therefore, none of the questions mattered.
“You know the address?” he posed, pulling off from the curb.
Kamilla saved face and nodded. She didn’t know the address.
She’d been in the spin cycle of grief and barely remembered her name.
All her energy had been used to remember her mother’s voice, her scent, the faintness of her laughter, and her face.
She needed all of those things to stay at the front of her mind. Addresses weren’t important.
C4 studied her briefly. “Burger, pizza, tacos?”
“Home,” Kamilla offered in return.
“Not for nothing, I respect that, but you damn near cracked your skull open on a dirty corner store floor. Before I return you to whoever you belong to, in good conscience, I need to feed you.”
She muttered. “I don’t belong to anybody.”
He heard her. He felt that statement in his chest, and it threatened to gut him, but he remained poised. “So, tacos.”
“Home,” she repeated. “Just home.”
“Aight,” he conceded. Knowing she had no clue where she was, he took the scenic route, opting out of pulling up on the taco truck and settling for Loco’s Tacos drive thru.
Rolling the window down, C4 rolled an order off his tongue so smooth, she almost found herself focusing on something other than what’d been occupying her.
He crept to the window and grimaced at the woman hanging out the window awaiting his arrival.
“C4,” she purred. “I thought that was your sexy ass.”
“You talk to all your customers like this?” he posed.
“Nah, just you,” she continued. “Who’s that?”
Kamilla caught the change in her tone and paid no mind to it.
“My friend. You gon’ keep pressing me or get my food?” he asked, uninterested in anything else she had to say.
“Damn, I’ve been trying to be your friend. She’s not even all that cute,” the woman muttered before snatching the money out his grasp and slamming the drive thru window.
Kamilla turned her attention out the window but could feel his eyes lingering longer.
“Where you from?”
“Does it matter?” she quipped.
“Yeah,” he toyed. “We friends now.”
“I have no intentions of passing out again so…it doesn’t matter.”
A soft scoff left his lips. “Aight then.”
Minutes passed before the tacos and drinks were flung out the window, and he pulled off. Another ten minutes of almost silence before he crept down her block. Aunt J’s car was back in the driveway, and the porch light was on.
“Do I need to run to the door or something?” she sassed.
C4 swayed his head. “Don’t nobody fuck with me like that. They won’t fuck with you either, which house?”
“The gray one with the porch light on,” Kamilla shared, as the car came to a slow stop. What she expected was C4 to unlock the door and watch her get out before speeding off. Him opening the door, handing her the second bag of food and a drink seemed to be off the beaten path.
“Eat and stay out of mix,” he directed.
All she offered was a nod before quickening into the house. Little did she know... that small, seemingly innocent enough gesture marked her.