Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Silas was extradited out of Memphis.
After Lauren was shot, her best friend, Lux, came forward.
Lux revealed to the media that Lauren’s life had been threatened by Silas back in March, as an attempt to deter Joshua Caplan’s investigation.
Because of Lux’s accusations, which could be backed up with text messages she shared with Lauren, it wasn’t long before Silas was charged for possible involvement in the shooting, being held in custody with no bail.
When Lux was asked by reporters why Lauren never went to the police, she turned her wrath to me.
“Kain told her he would protect her… And she stupidly believed him.”
It wasn’t before long that blogs began to speculate that my relationship with Lauren had been a setup all along.
I was accused of taking advantage of her naiveté to gain her trust, build a relationship, and ultimately betray her.
The media latched on to the theory and ran with it, running photos of Lauren and I being seen together at the beginning of the summer, in the days after Amir’s funeral when we didn’t care about being seen.
I was made to look like a predator. It was sick.
But it got sicker.
Soon enough, the whole family was entrenched in some murder scheme against Lauren and her father, cooked up by insane YouTube conspiracy theorists, connecting dots that weren’t there.
Sanaa was accused of setting up my birthday party at The Diamond Palace so that Silas would know where Lauren was that night.
Monique was accused of trying to botch Lauren’s lifesaving surgery, getting blamed for the mistake that the first surgeon made—the mistake that caused Lauren to lose one of her lungs and get put on life support.
I was the bait. Sanaa was the net. And Monique was the slaughter. The only person whose name wasn’t being dragged through the mud was Cierra’s.
These online bloggers made Silas out to be some criminal mastermind with his evil children in tow.
And for what? So Joshua Caplan could be taught a lesson?
That didn’t even make any sense. My sister, Cierra, seemed to come out of hiding for the sole purpose of fanning the flames, posting cryptic and subliminal Tweets that alluded to the fact that she hoped Lauren would die.
Cierra was angry at Sanaa for befriending Lauren, angry with me for being the reason Amir was dead, so she was making it worse on purpose.
It didn’t look good.
Though none of the accusations levied by online commentators would ever hold up in court, the court of public opinion was destroying my sisters’ lives.
Silas, to my surprise, released a statement through his lawyer that said he had nothing to do with Lauren’s shooting.
It was out of character for him, as I’d never known Silas to publicly deny anything through an attorney.
Perhaps he felt like this new accusation was going to hurt his upcoming trial.
Although the case he was going to court for and Lauren’s shooting were unrelated charges, it was obvious that his official statement was used in order to keep him from looking even more guilty.
There was no way the jurors on his upcoming trial didn’t have pre-trial opinions of him now.
His alleged involvement in Lauren’s shooting had branched out of local Miami news and was now being covered nationally.
Silas was fucked.
Whether or not he won this upcoming case didn’t matter.
When it came to Lauren’s shooting, he wasn’t going to be able to finesse his way out of this charge. With Lauren’s best friend swearing up and down that Silas was the culprit to any reporter who gave her a mic, it just wasn’t looking good for him.
***
I kept the news on in Lauren’s room as I watched the latest updates on my family. I hadn’t seen anyone in my family, except for Monique, since my birthday party. I’d been staying at Marlon’s since he lived very close to the hospital. I never wanted to be too far away in case Lauren woke up.
It was a little after eleven at night, day five since Lauren’s shooting, and as usual she was lying motionless in bed, the beeping of her breathing machine so loud that I needed to put subtitles up on the TV.
“Remember the night we met and I told you I didn’t think Silas was gonna lose the case your father’s been building against him?
” Of course she didn’t answer. “Well…” I shut off the TV.
“…I still don’t think Silas is going to lose that case.
Still no witnesses. But this new case involving you?
He doesn’t a stand a chance with that one. ”
“There are now two people who have come forward and said Silas wanted you killed. Your best friend, Lux, and some nigga with one arm, named Swiss. It took me a while to remember where I knew that name from—Swiss. And then I remembered… That’s the dude you shot that night those other two niggas brought you over to the house. ” I shook my head at the irony.
“Yeah… He was on Good Morning America, touting himself as a reformed criminal who saw the light the night his friends kidnapped you for Silas. Said he wanted no parts, and got out of the car. Lyin’ ass nigga, just lookin’ to get something outta the situation ‘cause he thinks his friends double-crossed him… Still, he basically confirmed to the world that Silas did have a bounty out for you.”
“Silas might win the trial coming up, but there’s no way he’s winning this next one,” I assured her. “He’ll pay for what he did to you.”
***
I woke up to the smell of blood.
Immediately my head snapped up, my hands in an alarmed frenzy as I reached for the light beside Lauren’s bed. The night table clock informed me that it was a little after five o’clock in the morning. I had just under three hours left until regular visitation kicked in, and I would have to leave.
With the help of her machine, Lauren was still breathing, and her skin was still warm to the touch.
I breathed out a sigh of relief, thankful to know the worst was avoided.
Still, I searched for the source of the smell, troubled by even the thought that Lauren was bleeding somewhere, no matter how harmless it might be.
“Baby, I’m just gonna check your stitches,” I explained, just in case she could feel a draft from me rising the covers off her body. Carefully, I drew up her hospital gown, doing my best not to touch the healing bruises along her side.
My breath stopped for a moment. Not because I’d found the source of the bleeding, but because this was the first time I was seeing the operation wound, a long and curved stitch running along her ribcage, a heartbreaking imperfection on what used to be flawless brown skin.
Just looking at it, I already knew she was going to hate the scarring.
This would forever be a constant reminder of her ordeal. Lauren would never be able to look at her own body without horrifying flashbacks. Fuck, I thought to myself, a pang of guilt shooting through me. I felt pins and needles in the backs of my eyes as I drew the gown down.
Things like this aren’t supposed to happen to people like her.
Still, the smell of blood in the air persisted, and so I had to continue to look for the source. When I drew the blanket back completely and searched a little harder, I found it. A small red stain between her legs.
I don’t think I’d ever been so relieved to find out someone was on their period. Releasing a sigh, I drew the covers back and pulled my phone out from my back pocket.
Monique picked up after the first ring.
“Hey, Mo,” I said tiredly into the receiver, walking away from Lauren so, in case she actually could hear me, I wouldn’t make her feel embarrassed. “Is there someone you can send up to get Lauren cleaned up? She just got her period.”
“Her period?”
“Yeah, I checked under the covers. There’s blood between her legs.”
“I see.” My sister’s voice got lower. “Sit tight, I’ll be right up with a nurse.”
That seemed like a bit much for a cleanup job, but it had been hours since anyone had come up to check on Lauren, so she was kind of overdue for a check on her vitals.
When the door to Lauren’s room opened, Monique walked in with an older nurse, a fresh gown in her hands.
I didn’t have to be told that I needed to step out while my sister and the nurse worked on Lauren. I was already on my way out.
I waited outside, eyes on the watch on my wrist, waiting for them to finish up. They were taking longer than I expected. When the door behind me finally opened, I turned to find Monique standing there, her eyes sympathetically looking up at me as the nurse she came up with excused herself.
“Is something wrong?” I read her expression, slightly alarmed. “Is something wrong with Lauren?”
“No,” Monique assured softly, something still off in her demeanor. “Lauren is fine. Well… she’s in the same condition”
Her emphasis on Lauren’s name rubbed me the wrong way, as if even though Lauren was unchanged, something had definitely occurred. Lauren, as far as I knew, was the only person in that room. I looked at my sister expectantly, wordlessly asking her to explain her strange behavior.
“Kain, it wasn’t my place to tell you…” Monique leaned against the back wall, her usual doctor seriousness cast aside for a bit. She was hurting. Whatever it was that she couldn’t tell me before, it was hurting her now. “I thought if Lauren woke up—”
“When,” I corrected.
“Right,” Monique nodded. “I thought when Lauren woke up, she might want to tell you herself, so it wasn’t my place to say anything.
God, Kain… Lauren didn’t get her period just now…
” My instincts kicked in before she could say it.
I didn’t know until that moment—or maybe it was that I had missed every warning sign, and in that moment, they all resurfaced.
Monique didn’t need to say the words, because somehow before she said them, flashbacks of the past seven weeks hit me at once—and I figured it out on my own, just before Monique said the words. “…she had a miscarriage.”