Chapter 26
Chapter Twenty-Six
The water streaming off my hands ran red into the drain, and then pink, and then clear.
I was at the kitchen sink, washing off the blood on my hands, two bodies soiling the living room carpet behind me. The two most important people in my life looked on, neither of them saying anything as I pulled my phone from my back pocket.
“I know it’s late,” I said into the receiver once he picked up on the other end. It was almost two o’clock in the morning, and my friend Marlon had definitely been asleep. “I made a bit of a mess…”
“What kind of mess?” he asked, and I could hear him getting out of bed.
“The only kind of mess I’d be callin’ at two AM over.”
“How many?”
“Two.”
“Why?”
“She got picked up,” I replied simply.
This put a little more energy behind his words.
“Wait, huh? You mean Lauren?” Marlon had a bit of a soft spot for my girlfriend.
Not the kind of soft spot that made me look at him crazy, of course.
It was protective, which I had no problem with.
My guess was that Lauren reminded him of his younger sister, Eden.
They both had that doe-eyed innocence about them—the kind of energy you just felt compelled to protect. “Is she a’ight?”
I glanced in her direction, and in trying to describe her, the description that immediately came to mind was tired. Nothing more, nothing less.
“For the most part,” I answered Marlon’s question.
“I’m on my way.”
***
Saturday, March 12th, 2016
(Fourteen Weeks Ago)
Lauren had just pulled out of Marlon’s driveway when I walked back into the house.
I half expected to be bombarded with questions by my friends, harassed for an explanation.
Instead, the only person I found waiting for me when I stepped inside was Amir, lounging around in Marlon’s living room, a freshly rolled dutch between his fingers.
Knowing what was coming, I took a seat across.
“You ever hear of hero syndrome?” Amir asked before taking a long drag at the blunt in his hand. Confused, my eyebrows came together questioningly, as he spread the weed smell throughout.
“I think you just made that up.”
He made a face, and clarified. “You know what I mean… Savior complexes… Superman Syndrome… Captain Save-a-Hoe headass.”
I could see where this was going. “It ain’t even like that.”
“So enlighten me.” He stretched out an arm and welcomed an explanation. “You wanna tell me why all this time and energy is going into a bitch who—”
“Mind your fuckin’ mouth.”
“You see!?” Amir set the blunt down and slouched, resting his elbows on his knees as he said, “That’s the shit I’m talking about! Since when do you give a fuck about who I call a bitch and who I—”
“I really couldn’t care less, Am. But what you won’t do is talk that shit in front of me. You know her name. Use it.”
“Hmm,” he pondered before shaking his head.
“You playin’ games, bruh. I know you go for them regular girls, ‘cause you like to trick yourself into thinkin’ you normal.
But lemme make this fuckin’ clear before you get yourself in some serious mess—you ain’t fuckin’ normal, Kain. You ain’t never gonna be normal.”
When I didn’t say anything, he continued.
“And she ain’t normal either. Lauren ain’t your usual brand of outsider. Her father—”
“Man, I know.”
“Do you though?”
“What am I supposed to do? Leave her defenseless? If Silas ever gets her—if he doesn’t kill her immediately, he’s gonna make her wish he did.”
“Okay, and?” Amir shrugged, not seeing the problem.
“I can’t let that happen to her.”
“Who died, and made it your job to start savin’ people?” Amir argued, frustration thick in his voice. “Bringing me back to my original point—hero syndrome.”
“Not people,” I corrected. “Just her.”
“Sounds like a lot of fuss over a girl who—”
“If you don’t want to help me out with this, then don’t, Amir.”
“Oh, I don’t want to,” he made clear. “Just like Marlon and Jay probably don’t really want to, either.
But we all see the writing on the wall. Girls like that…
they talk under pressure. If we let Silas get her now, the first thing she gon’ do when she feels her life is at stake, is speak your name.
You too fuckin’ pussy-whipped to see that.
We ain’t protectin’ her for these next six weeks, Kain. We protectin’ you.”
“Nah, I’m doing it ‘cause I like her.” My head twisted in the direction of Marlon’s voice leaning into the threshold that connected the living room and his bedroom.
“Kain is grown. I could give a shit about what he’s gettin’ himself into.
His girl, though… You ain’t never lived with Silas, Amir, so you just don’t know. ”
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?” Amir retorted.
Marlon and I went way back.
When I was four years old, Silas got a girlfriend named Marie, and she was a stunner.
So much so that Silas didn’t even seem to care that she had three kids of her own.
She was his main woman for at least ten years, keeping her kids in tow.
I grew up with Marlon and his younger siblings, and over time, all three of them started to feel like my siblings, too.
Living at the big house with Silas gave Marlon the exact same insight that I had. Unlike my other two friends, he knew precisely what Lauren was up against.
“What I’m sayin’ is,” Marlon started, ambling over and picking up the blunt Amir had set down.
He took a drag before shaking his head and blowing out a cloud around his head.
“Silas won’t kill that girl. Her father’s a state’s attorney.
Silas will keep her as a pet, and hold her captive under the most disgusting level of torture you can imagine.
He’ll taunt her father with hints about her whereabouts and condition.
Not enough to incriminate himself, but just enough so that her father knows he has her.
He’ll have her father thinking that if he loses the case, his daughter can come home.
He might even lull her into a false sense of hope with that shit, too.
And when he no longer needs her…” Marlon took another puff before finishing his sentence “…then he’ll kill her.
So I’m not doing this for Kain at all. I’m doing it for her. Because nobody deserves that shit.”
From the kitchen, Jay called, “I like the sound of that. Yeah. You can protect Kain all you want, Amir, witcho gay ass! It’s the girl I’m protecting.”
Whatever their motivations, I was just relieved to have all three of my friends on board.
Saturday, June 18th, 2016
(Present Day)
“Hey, Button,” Marlon greeted Lauren, concerned apprehension thick in his tone.
A few months ago, some dude had grabbed Lauren as she was having lunch on campus.
Marlon intercepted just before she could be forced into a car, and since then, he’d been calling her Panic Button—or just Button for short. “What happened to your face?”
I tried to listen in for her response, but I couldn’t hear it, as I dragged the bodies off the living room carpet and onto the wood flooring of the kitchen.
Without my asking, Vance handed me a canister of Resolve carpet cleaner wordlessly.
Before I covered the blood stains with the stain-lifting powder, I doused the mess in ice water.
Years of watching blood stains get removed from various surfaces had my movements downright automated. I knew the steps in my sleep. Ice cold water, never hot. Resolve powder sits on top for at least twelve hours, or until it dries. Vacuum, and then bleach.
“You mind tellin’ me what the fuck is happening?” Vance whispered harshly to the side of my face.
Not responding right away, I shook the last of the powder onto the dirtied parts of the carpet, removing all signs of any red. I sighed before I started to explain.
“My girlfriend—the one I told you about—just so happens to be the daughter of the state attorney for the Miami-Dade County district, the prosecutor on Dad’s trial this August. Dad has a bounty out for her, and I’ve been blocking it for about three months now.
” My explanation was concise, straight to the point.
No room for conversation. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I gotta go burn my clothes. ”
Vance grabbed at my shoulder, his grip tight and confrontational. My eyes fell to his hand, and I reminded myself that this was my uncle. However aggressive the invasion of space, now was really not the time to start another fight.
“Whatever you’re about to say—I know,” I informed tiredly, keeping my voice low so that only he could hear me. “But that’s my girl over there, so I don’t care.”
“You don’t think you’re a little in over your head, Youngblood?” Vance questioned. I shrugged his hand off my shoulder.
“Nah.” I looked around the room, acknowledging the mostly cleaned up mess. “I got this.”
Before going up the stairs, I asked something of my friend.
“Marlon, could you get her out of here. My house in Pembroke Pines is not too far.” Lauren had been in the room with these dead bodies for entirely way too long. Marlon turned his head to look at her as if to say, I’m ready when you are.
Lauren’s gaze darted from me to my friend rapidly, and I didn’t just see the anxiety flash in her dark eyes. I think I somehow felt it, too.
“You’d rather stay here,” I gathered.
“I… I don’t want to be by myself.” Lauren wrapped her arms around herself, something she always did whenever she felt less than secure.
I didn’t bother with pointing out to her that she wouldn’t be alone, but with Marlon.
I understood, without her saying so, that if I wasn’t there, she might as well be by herself.
Alright. Maybe Vance was right. I might’ve been in over my head.
“I’ll move the bodies.” Vance broke the silence while I tried to think, his offer taking me by surprise. “You seem like you’d be sloppy with it anyways. Better I do it.”