24. Ghost
Ghost
Empty Chinese containers covered the nightstand, and a pizza box sat open on the table in my room from two nights ago. An overflowing ashtray rested beside a bottle of liquor that had long since gone warm. I looked around my room. It looked exactly how I felt. A bitter laugh escaped me.
“This is some bullshit.”
I left my room and then took my sorrows to the living room. But everywhere in this damn house was a reminder of Trigga. This was the couch we’d sat on watching basketball.
I glanced behind me at the kitchen where we’d argued over who made the better wings.
And then there was his bedroom that was still back there untouched.
I got up and headed in that direction. I stood in the doorway for a while before entering.
I hated my mother for leaving this room exactly how he had left it.
On the dresser in there was a picture of him and me.
We were at one of the parks on the basketball court.
I’m sure for some summer league that our father urged us both to do.
Saying our father still sat sour in my mouth. When we were younger, he had the better life, and now we were both grown men and still, he had it better than I did.
“So that’s it? You just gone make that decision and stand on it?”
I was in an empty apartment, but I was talking to that picture on the dresser as if he could hear me.
“It’s cool…”
Before I knew it, I was knocking shit off his dresser. Snatching shit off the walls and tipping the nightstands over. I was angry. So fucking angry, and this was the only way I knew how to get some of this anger out.
When I was done tearing the room apart, I stood in the middle of the chaos, breathing heavily.
I stood and walked over to the window. The city moved like nothing had changed.
People outside laughed, and cars drove by casually.
Life kept going for everyone but me. I thought about Ryan.
The pressure was getting worse, and I needed to make some shit shake and fast.
I rushed back to my room and knocked the pizza box off the table.
Underneath it were my car keys and my gun.
For a long moment, I just stared at them, then I picked up the gun, and it felt familiar in my hand.
It felt like the only thing in my life that hadn’t changed.
I needed to speak to Trigga one last time.
I needed him to understand that helping me was crucial.
I grabbed my keys and locked the apartment behind me.
I didn’t belong in this apartment complex.
The only reason I got in was because I snuck in behind somebody coming through the gate before it had a chance to close.
I spotted Tahari’s Chevy Impala the second I turned the corner toward his building.
I had called him twice on the drive over, and he didn’t even bother to answer. A humorless laugh escaped me.
“So, you’re home.”
I cut my engine and sat there staring at the car for another minute. Part of me wanted to walk straight up to his apartment. I wanted to knock on the door and make him look me in my face.
I wanted to make him tell me again that he chose them over me.
My hand landed on the door handle, and I started to push it open until headlights swept across the parking lot.
I looked up. A white Benz eased around the corner before slowing beside Tahari’s Impala.
It pulled into the parking space right next to it.
It sat there for a while, and I knew that car.
I knew exactly who it belonged to. My jaw tightened.
The fight Trigga and I had in the alleyway crossed my mind, then the argument we had in my living room, and then finally, me calling him today and receiving no response is what took me over the edge.
Finding out we shared the same blood was supposed to bring us closer. Instead, it pushed him further away. My grip tightened around the steering wheel until my knuckles turned pale.
“Aight.”
I reached into the side panel of my door and then grabbed my gun. The cold steel met my palm.
“They got you.”
My thumb slid across the frame of the gun.
“If I can’t get my brother back…”
I stared through the windshield. My voice was barely above a whisper.
“Then they don’t deserve to keep what they took.”
I picked the pistol up and rested it across my lap.
BLEEK
Sitting on the passenger side while my daughter drove had my nerves bad. I taught her ass how to drive, and still I caught myself pressing the floor as if I had a brake pedal on my side.
“You know this gate code by heart now, huh?”
I looked over as Maliah leaned toward the keypad outside the driver’s window and punched in a few numbers.
“I’ve been over here enough,” she said with a smile.
A second later, the speaker crackled.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
The gate buzzed before slowly sliding open.
I smiled to myself.
“You ain’t even gotta say your name. He just knows who me is, huh?”
She laughed.
“I told you…I’ve been over here enough.”
She eased her white Benz through the gate before making a couple of turns inside the complex.
“There,” she pointed ahead, “that’s his building.”
A few seconds later, she pulled into the parking space beside Tahari’s Chevy Impala. She shifted her car into park.
“Ooh, this is my song,” she said with a smile while turning the volume knob a bit.
Don’t you know I’m no good for you?
I’ve learned to lose, you can’t afford to
Tore my shirt to stop you bleedin’
But nothin’ ever stops you leavin’
“Quiet when I’m coming home, and I’m on my own.”
She was singing her little heart out.
“This sounds like some Emo shit,” I said with the stank face.
“Daddy, this is Billie Eilish.”
“I don’t give a damn if the same people that made English McMuffins made this. It sounds sad.”
She laughed before reaching for the driver’s door handle. I could tell that she was excited because she didn’t even turn the engine off yet. I shook my head.
“Aye.”
“What?” She looked over.
“I got your door.”
A smile spread across her face.
“Daddy, I can open my own door.”
“I know you can.”
I unbuckled my seatbelt.
“But you a lady, ain’t you?”
She knew that I didn’t play that shit. Her mother didn’t open doors or pull-out seats when I was around. And I was trying to teach her that she shouldn’t go for anything less either. She laughed and leaned back against the seat.
“Yes.”
“So, let me open your door, then.”
She rolled her eyes, but she let go of the handle.
“Okay.”
She started swaying her head to that sad-ass song that was playing.
I smiled before reaching for my own door.
The handle was already in my hand when something in the side mirror caught my attention.
It was movement, and it was fast. Somebody dressed in all black stepped out from between two parked cars.
My eyes locked onto the object in his hand. He had a fucking gun.
Everything inside me went still.
“Maliah…”
BANG!
The first shot cracked through the parking lot, and glass exploded everywhere.
I didn’t think, I just reacted. I wasn’t driving, so it’s not like I could have gotten us up out of here.
I threw myself across the center console, wrapping both arms around my daughter as another shot ripped through the car.
“Get down!” I yelled.
BANG! BANG!
My body covered hers before I even realized what I was doing. I was hit. I felt it, but my priority was Maliah.
BANG!
“Stay down!” I said weakly.
When I did, I tasted blood in my mouth. I tightened my grip around her until I couldn’t anymore.
TRIGGA
I looked around my apartment one more time before reaching over to fluff one of the pillows on the couch. Maliah bought them a couple of weeks ago.
“You need color in here,” she’d told me.
At the time, I thought they were just pillows. Now, if one of them was out of place, I noticed. I stepped back and nodded to myself.
“That’ll do.”
Just as I turned toward the kitchen, my phone rang. It was the number for the gate. I answered quickly because I knew that it had to be Maliah and her father.
“Yeah?”
“It’s me.”
A smile found my face. I pressed the button to buzz her through.
I heard the gate click open before I ended the call.
I glanced around my apartment one last time.
The dishes were washed. The counters were clean.
The couch looked right. When I was satisfied with the final look, I headed toward the front door.
I’d barely made it halfway down the hallway when…
BANG!
My heart stopped.
BANG! BANG!
There was a pause, and then there was another shot.
BANG!
My body moved before my mind caught up. I spun around and sprinted back toward the kitchen.
I jerked the drawer open and wrapped my hand around my pistol.
Then I ran out my front door and down the hallway.
By the time I burst through the building entrance, a black Toyota Camry was fishtailing toward the exit of the complex.
Its license plate was covered. It didn’t matter because I knew that car.
“Ghost!”
I raised my pistol with my finger settled against the trigger. One shot was all it would take before he made it to the corner. Then this screech stopped me.
“Daddy!”
The scream cut through the parking lot.
“No!”
My head snapped toward the sound. Everything inside me dropped. The speakers were playing from the car, but it sounded muffled from where I was. The driver’s side door was open slightly. Glass was scattered across the pavement.
“Maliah!” I screamed.
The gun in my hand fell to my side as I took off running.
Ghost was gone, and I hoped he knew that now.
He was on my list. When I found his ass, I was going to kill him.
At the moment, I had to push him out of focus because Maliah needed me.
I closed the distance as fast as I could.
My pulse was pounding in my ears with every step as I ran toward the car.
When I pulled her door open, I heard the music louder.
But nothin’ is better sometimes
Once we’ve both said our goodbyes
Let’s just let it go
Let me let you go
“Baby!” I called out to her.
“Daddy, wake up!” she screamed.
I knelt down to get a good look inside of the car. Mr. Browne was slumped over Maliah, his body still covering hers like he was trying to shield her from bullets that had already stopped flying.
“Mali…” I reached inside. “Look at me, baby.”
My eyes frantically searched her face before moving lower.
“Are you hit?” I asked.
She couldn’t answer. She was crying so hard that the words wouldn’t come.
“Daddy… Daddy, please wake up.”
She kept shaking him. Her hands were trembling so badly that she could barely keep hold of his shirt.
“Mali.”
I gently grabbed her wrists.
“Look at me.”
Her eyes finally found mine.
“Are you hit?”
She shook her head so fast I almost missed it.
“N-no…”
Relief hit me for all of half a second before my eyes landed on Mr. Browne. There was a lot of blood in the car. Too much blood.
“Shit…”
I looked around the parking lot. One of my neighbors stood a few cars over with a phone pressed to her ear, pacing back and forth. She was talking fast. Good. Somebody had already called 911. I looked back at Mr. Browne.
“Hold on, Mr. Browne. You hear me? Hold on…”
I said as I started applying pressure to the wounds that I could visibly see.