Own It
Daylin
PRESENT DAY . . .
“Do you know me?” I asked, doing my best not to allow my voice to quiver as I stared up at the extremely tall man.
He was dark, well built—something I could see even under the black hoodie he wore—and had menacing eyes that sent a chill so deep I could feel it in my bones.
The man shook his head, tongue gliding across his full chocolate lips, just before he blew out a frustrated breath.
“I don’t, baby girl, but don’t make shit hard for a nigga.
Come with me and don’t make me chase you.
If I have to chase you, that’s gon’ piss me off, and I’m pissed the fuck off already as it is,” he replied collectedly, and I was surprised I could hear him over the sound of my heart thundering in my chest.
“But why?” I attempted to stall, eyes bouncing around as inconspicuously as possible, in an attempt to find a way to get around and possibly outrun this man without him noticing the wheels churning in my head.
As I looked up at him, fidgeting and thinking, I tried to make out if he was handsome or not but because I was filled to the brim with fear and terror, that part of my brain wasn’t processing correctly.
He was young, though, maybe a few years older than me, but his eyes mirrored ones of a man who’d lived two lifetimes.
I didn’t get what I’d done in life for something like this to be happening to me.
With every true crime documentary I’d watched, I never fathomed that I could ever be the subject of an episode or—depending on how far things went—a whole two-hour documentary dedicated just to my case.
The thought alone made my blood go cold and tears form at the rim of my eyes.
“Don’t matter why. Shit is bigger than you.” He checked the time on a watch that seemingly blended into his clothing, so I wasn’t able to clock it well enough to tell on him once I prayerfully escaped the situation.
That small detail let me know the man before me was a career criminal, and shit like what he was doing right now was nothing new to him. That, coupled with the situation at hand, heightened my fear somehow.
“I promise I don’t know anybody . . . I . . . Anyone involved in anything doesn’t know me, and I don’t know them. I swear,” I pleaded and explained at the same time, praying this was some kind of mix-up.
As the daughter of two neurosurgeons and the sister of one pediatrician and thoracic surgeon, when I said I didn’t know anyone that could be embroiled in anything shady, I meant it.
In a family of well accomplished and intelligent individuals, I was probably the closest to the gutter my family could get, and I was a college graduate who owned my own business.
The man made a face, running his large hand down his beard in vexation to show he was starting to tire of this back-and-forth with my ass.
He also made it clear by his lack of response that he wouldn’t be elaborating further.
I knew then, as my stomach roiled, that talking my way out of whatever this was would not work.
Silence lingered between us as the man watched me intently, awaiting how I wanted to do things. Never one to bend and fold easily, I turned, dropping my beloved workbag that was much too heavy to take along, and darted off toward the front of the parking lot of my warehouse.
Too afraid to look back and see if the man was chasing or to check how close he was, I kept my eyes on the exit of the lot and the hundreds of cars flying up and down the street as if it weren’t nighttime.
If he was chasing me, he was preternaturally quiet, causing even more uneasiness to seep in and settle itself in the pit of my stomach. Fear had wrapped around me like vines on a tree, causing me to beg God internally to save me.
“Fuck did I tell you?” That eerily deep voice that I’d just been conversing with startled the fuck out of me as he gripped my frame from behind. I could feel my bones attempt to leap from my skin and muscle as the man held me in a vice grip.
The irritation in his voice was obvious, rendering tears of fright from my eyes instantly. If there was a word that meant something deeper, more bone-chilling than panic, that was what I was experiencing in the moment.
“Hel—” I halfway launched a scream that was quickly blanketed by the man covering my mouth with a chloroform-ridden towel.
As panic surged throughout my body, my limbs wailed and vision blurred. My mind became engulfed with a cocktail of memories, loved ones, un-obtained dreams, and forfeited plans just before everything went black.