Chapter 19 #2
A few days had passed, but nothing about what happened had settled in me the way it probably should have.
If anything, it had the opposite effect.
The more time that went by, the worse the feeling got.
It was heavy and unresolved, like something that needed to be handled instead of thought about.
Pops had gone back to moving the way he always did, calm and calculated, like he was working angles I couldn’t see yet.
And that’s because he probably was. He was always the strategic kind of mover, and whenever he got his get back, oh, the shit was epic.
Tahari had been around more, too, not in an overstepping way, but enough for me to notice.
Dad was opening up to him chilling with Mali around the house.
She was still healing, and we all knew it.
That whole experience I knew was traumatizing.
She needed to heal at her own pace, though.
She had been trying to move forward, I could tell.
Trying to act like she was okay, like what happened didn’t shake her the way it would shake anybody.
But I knew her better than that. I knew what it looked like when she was trying to hide how she felt about some shit.
And honestly, I could see how deep down my sister was still hurting.
That alone was enough for me. I didn’t need another conversation.
And I damn sure didn’t need another warning to fall back from Dad.
I understood that he was our father, but I was her brother, her big brother, and I wanted to handle this my damn self.
I just needed a name and a location. And I got both.
Word traveled the way it always did, quick and quiet, and it didn’t take long before I found out which gym Cornelius had been working out at.
Once I had that, everything else fell into place like it was supposed to.
I pulled up and sat in the parking lot for a minute.
I looked at the entrance while my fingers tapped lightly against the steering wheel.
When he finally walked out, I knew it was him before I even saw his face clearly.
The way he carried himself, like nothing had touched him, like life had kept moving without consequence, told me everything I needed to know.
I stepped out of the car before I could second-guess anything, shutting the door behind me as I moved toward him with purpose.
We didn’t speak in school, there was no need to, besides him being in the grade under me, he wasn’t shit but a football-playing jock.
When I got up on him, I saw that he still was bruised and battered, I’m assuming from when Tahari had whooped his ass. If he thought that was something, then he was in for a rude awakening because I was about to do worse than what Tahari had done.
“Cornelius.”
My voice came out strong in the empty parking lot, and that made him turn.
Confusion flashed across his face at first, like he was trying to place me, but that didn’t last long. Not once did he see the way I was coming at him.
“What’s up?” he asked, but there was hesitation in it now.
He was looking around at all the cars, I guess trying to see if someone was near to save his ass. I didn’t stop walking, though. Witness or no witnesses, he was about to catch this fade.
“You put your hands on my sister.”
The words came out low and controlled, but there was nothing calm about what sat behind them. I didn’t say it with question either because it was a statement. He and I both knew what he had done. If he didn’t know who the fuck I was, it clicked for him then. I saw it in his eyes.
“Man, it wasn’t even…”
He didn’t get the chance to finish. His biggest mistake was letting me walk up on him the way I had.
My fist connected with his face hard enough to snap his head to the side, and from there, everything else took over.
There was no thinking and no hesitation, just movement.
Every hit I threw had purpose behind it, every connection fueled by the image of Maliah crying, by the thought of her feeling scared because of him.
He swung back, but it was sloppy and unbalanced.
I slipped those light jabs easily and came back with another hit, then another, driving him backward until his body hit the side of a car.
The sound echoed through the lot, but I didn’t care.
The alarm on the Prius started going off, and I didn’t give a damn about that either.
I kept going. By the time he tried to cover up, it was already too late.
I was landing clean shots that were breaking him down piece by piece.
It was the way I had been taught. Pops didn’t play when it came to boxing.
All three of his kids took classes growing up.
I was smiling ear to ear while whooping his ass.
This was what I came for. This was what he deserved.
I barely registered anything else around me until it was too late.
There was a sudden shift in the air, something off that I didn’t catch fast enough, and before I could turn fully to react, something hard came flying from the side.
The impact hit me clean, sharp, and unexpectedly.
A small dumbbell connected with the side of my head hard enough to throw everything off balance.
My vision blurred for a split second, my body stumbled as I tried to regain control, but that moment was all it took.
I wasn’t alone out there with him. By the time I realized it, it was already happening.
Some players from the football team came from different angles, and they were closing in quickly.
They must have been in there working out with him, and I didn’t know it.
They were not giving me space to reset or even think straight.
One hit landed, then another, then another, each one stacking on top of the last before I could properly defend myself.
I swung back where I could, catching one of them solid enough to feel it, but it didn’t matter.
There were too many of them, too many coming at once.
Five. At least five. Gym sneakers scraped against pavement, fists connected from directions I couldn’t track fast enough, and every time I tried to get my footing back under me, another hit knocked me off balance again.
In a fight, never let anyone get you on the floor, I heard Pops’ voice loud and clear in my head, but I couldn’t help it.
I felt myself dropping, my knees hit the ground before I could stop it, my hands barely caught me before another blow forced me down further.
The rough pavement scraped against my skin, but the pain barely registered over everything else crashing into me.
They didn’t let up. Didn’t slow down. Didn’t give me a second to breathe.
I curled in on myself without even thinking about it, my body moving on instinct as I tried to protect what I could.
My arms came up to shield my head while the hits kept coming.
The world around me blurred into noise. My body tightened into itself when I realized that they really weren’t going to stop.
The cold ground pressed against me while they continued to jump me without hesitation.
MALIAH
I sat in the passenger seat of my own car while Tahari drove.
My fingers rested lightly against my thigh as I watched the road ahead of us.
It felt strange at first, letting him take control like this, but not in a bad way.
There was something about the way he moved that made it easy to relax into the moment.
He had been talking here and there during the drive, pointing out little things, but mostly it had been quiet between us.
Not the awkward kind either. It was the kind of silence that didn’t need to be filled, the kind that just existed comfortably.
“I want you to see my place before anybody else,” he had said earlier, and I hadn’t missed the meaning behind that.
It mattered to him. That alone made me sit a little softer in my seat. We came to a stop at a red light, and I turned my head slightly, letting my eyes wander the way they naturally did. That was when I noticed him.
A man sitting in a black Camry in the lane next to us.
He wasn’t just glancing over. He was staring directly at us.
My brows pulled together slightly as I held his gaze for a second longer than I probably should have.
There was something about the way he looked, but before I could really place it, the light had changed.
Tahari eased his foot off the brake, and the moment passed just like that.
I turned my attention forward again, telling myself I was probably overthinking it.
After everything that had happened, my mind had been a little more alert than usual anyway.
I was noticing things I might not have paid attention to before.
Still… I glanced in the side mirror once more just to be sure, but the Camry blended back into traffic like it had never stood out in the first place.
“You good?” Tahari asked, his voice pulled me back.
“Yeah,” I answered, offering a small smile, “I was just thinking.”
He nodded like he accepted that and didn’t press me, and I appreciated that more than I said aloud.
A few minutes later, he turned into a gated community.
He slowed down as the gate opened to let us through.
I looked around as we drove in. I was taking in the neat layout, the quiet atmosphere, and the way everything looked maintained.
“This is nice,” I said honestly while glancing over at him, “real nice.”
He let out a small breath, like he had been waiting for my reaction but didn’t want to make it obvious.
“It’s cool,” he replied, trying to play it down just a little.
When he parked, I took another look around before opening the door and stepping out. The air felt different over here, calmer somehow, and I could see why he chose it.