Chapter 12
I took her for granted. For the many years that I had lived with her, I took her for granted. She was always there for me when my mother was breaking down and crying over losing my father. She cared about me, and I was just beginning to get to know her. But now, she was gone. I was hesitant to listen to Julia when she told me to leave for Chicago with Summer. Now that she’s gone, the least I can do is to wipe my tears, get up and do as she said: go.
I dragged Summer by her arm as more men in balaclavas invaded our home. We had to leave before they came for us. Julia had taken her last breath and the men ran past her now lifeless body like it was nothing. A few attacked Mr Johnson and others used knives and guns to try and break through my mother’s bedroom door. She had locked herself in there with Jamila. She was seated too far away from me to save me in time.
Summer cried for her father as I pulled her out of the door and into the cold wind outside. I could tell she was scared by how her hands were shaking, but she followed me anyway. She had no choice, it was either me, or the men with guns in our house.
“Amari, wait!” she yells behind me with a breaking voice, but I ignore her. We have to leave, and we have to do it quick. As soon as the Vipers realize I’ve disappeared, they’ll be right behind us.
We couldn’t use the streets, that would be too obvious. We ran to the backyard and jumped over the wall into the backyard of the house behind us. Everyone in the house seemed to be asleep, or perhaps enjoying their Christmas dinner, so we jumped over their wall and into the street again without being noticed.
The street was empty, except for two girls who barely had anything on standing at the corner of the street with cigarettes between their lips. They slouched against the wall as they waited for a man who’d pay them for their services.
Summer and I ran, and ran, and ran. As we ran past the park that we had visited on her birthday, it felt as if we were leaving all the memories behind as well.
We stopped and hid behind an old car wash behind an older thrift shop. Only then did I realize how terrified Summer had been. Her face was covered in tears and snot. She had not said a word or questioned where we were going because she was too shaken to even complain.
Tears begin to well up in my eyes at how broken she looks. “I’m so sorry Summer,” I whisper as softly as I can. I take off my hoodie and she gratefully puts it on.
She looks to her left and right in fear. She does this for another solid two minutes.
I hesitantly pull out the tickets from my jean pockets.
“Summer, this is the only way to get away from this. We need to leave, now. If…if we stay…” I take in a deep breath and continue with my already breaking voice. “If we stay here Summer, they’ll kill us. I will never forgive myself if something happens to you.”
Summer looks up and her bloodshot eyes stare into mine.
“You…you knew,” she says shaking her head.
“What?”
“You knew, you knew they were coming Amari. That’s why you’ve been acting so strange and that’s why you wanted me to go to Chicago with you!” Her voice gets louder and I fear that someone will find us.
“Summer...”
“Don’t even think of lying to me! Not again Amari! Did you know this was going to happen?” she asks. The look she gives me doesn’t allow me to lie, and so I decide to come clean.
“I…I thought I didn’t have to tell you. I thought I could protect you myself, and I didn’t want you to worry about it.”
She laughs in disbelief. “Are you kidding me, Amari! My father is probably dead right now because you thought telling me my life was at risk was a bad idea! Are you trying to get me killed!?”
“What? No! Summer, I’m sorry!”
“Sorry? You’re not sorry, Amari! Come on, enlighten me! What else are you hiding from me?”
Damn.
This is what it’s come to. I’ve put not only Summer’s life, but her father’s life in danger as well. I’ve made her best friend pregnant and once she knows, she’s going to be done with me.
“Summer, you have to forgive me, please. You’re all that I have.” I hold her hands and she surprisingly doesn’t pull them away.
“What are you hiding, Amari?” she asks. Her tears fall down her cheeks and onto my hand.
“Promise you won’t leave me.” I know it was wrong, seeing that I was giving her every reason to leave and more, but I couldn’t afford to lose Summer, not after I’ve lost so much.
Her lips tremble as she struggles to speak. “Summer, please. Promise me you won’t leave.”
She leans her forehead against mine. “I promise,” she finally says. I sigh in relief but hope that she means the words and won’t take them back.
“Cassie…Cassie is pregnant,” I slowly say, and Summer immediately breaks into a soft sob, with her forehead still against mine. “And, the baby is mine.”
What Summer does next catches me by surprise. She stumbles back and slaps me with the back of her hand, leaving a burning sensation on my cheek. “You’re proud!?” she exclaims.
“No…no Summer, I didn’t mean it like that.”
“You did!” Summer stands up and walks away to God knows where. “Summer wait, you don’t know who’s out there… and you promised you wouldn’t leave!”
She immediately turns around and pushes my chest. “And you promised you wouldn’t hurt me! You promised you wouldn’t make me cry anymore, Amari! But you broke those promises so as far as I’m concerned breaking promises is what we do in this relationship!”
“Summer it was a mistake. I was lonely and mourning my uncle and aunt,” I explain pathetically.
“How long are you going to use that as an excuse for your failure, Amari? I mourn my mother every day, but I’d never use that an excuse to cheat on you! I missed you every single day of the school year but I didn’t go about and make a baby with your best friend! I know what loneliness feels like Amari, yet I’ve stayed loyal to you throughout! You’re not the only one going through it so stop trying to play the damn victim!”
She stormed off down the quiet road while I called after her. She began to run, and it wasn’t long before I lost her.
“Summer! Summer I’m sorry!” I cry. The lights in the houses around me switch on, but I couldn’t care less who saw me now. I fall to my knees and sob even louder.
“Amari!” a voice yells. I look up.
“Summer?” She’s running as fast as she can towards me.
“Amari, run!”
I get up and dust my jeans off, and before I can even ask Summer what’s going on, she screams as a black van takes a sharp turn into the street and stops right in front of her. I hear her scream as she’s pulled into the van and the door closes.
“Summer!” I turn around and run as fast as I can. The van doesn’t move behind me. At first, I thought the driver was having trouble starting the car, but it was too late when I realized they were trapping me. Another van turned into the road and stopped in front of me. When I turned around to run, I was hit with something cold and hard, and then everything went black.
************************************************
“I told you to go easy on him, he’s Shaun’s blood.”
“The boy wouldn’t listen. The only way to bring him here would be through knocking him out. All of you failed previously because you didn’t have the guts to do it.”
“Hey man! Watch it! Shaun gave us strict instructions to handle him with care. If he was alive, he’d be spitting down all our throats.”
“Hey, hey, hey. It looks like his waking up.”
“Tie him up!”
“Relax Orlando! Damn!”
Cold hands lightly slap my cheeks. I open my eyes, and then close them when the bright light blinds me.
“Come on kid, you need to get up. Don’t you want to see your Summer-time?” the man asks. My eyes shoot open in rage.
“You!” It’s the man who pretended to be my uncle when I was in hospital. If I remember correctly, his name is Don.
“I see you still haven’t figured it out,” he says with a smug smile. The men behind him chuckle. They’re standing at the door of this black room that I’m in. There’s a window which shouldn’t even be considered as a window judging by how small and how high up on the wall it is. The room smells like alcohol and the only thing in it is the chair I’m seated on.
As soon as I realize I’m not tied to the chair, I stand up and grab Don’s collar, making sure to suffocate him while doing it.
“Where. Is. Summer?” I ask through gritted teeth. His two friends pull me away from Don, and one with too many piercings on his face holds my hands behind my back. Don struggles to catch his breath, leaving me surprised that I was actually able to strangle him.
“You need to relax,” Don says when he’s recovered.
I spit on his shoe and the man holding my hands chuckles in disbelief.
“I told you his disrespectful. We should just deal with him the same way they dealt with his father!”
“Orlando, shut up!” Don yells to the man holding me. He looks down at his shoe and then back at me.
“If you know what’s good for you, you’ll let both me and Summer go,” I say bravely.
“Or what? It’s one against all the other Vipers out there. There’s nothing you can really do to stop us.”
“Go to hell.”
Don points to the door and his two friends walk out of the room. “When I get back from cleaning up your mess…” He points at his shoe and then continues, “you better start acting your age. All we’re trying to do is help you, and your little petty act is not helping. So show some gratitude, would ya!?”
Don slams the door behind him and locks me in.
“Help me! You’re trying to help me! You people are sick! I hate you! I hate you!”
I pace up and down the room in frustration. God only knows what Summer could be going through right now. It’s almost midnight, meaning it’s almost her birthday, and because of me, she has to spend it locked up and afraid. What if the room they’re holding her in is smaller? What if it’s dirty and full of blood from their previous murders? If they kill Summer, I’ll never forgive myself.
Hours went by and neither Don or Orlando had returned. A man came in and gave me a plate of mac and cheese.
“What is this suppose to be?” I ask.
“Early breakfast,” the man says calmly.
“Breakfast? What time is it!?” The man glances at his watch.
“4am.”
Damn!
If these guys don’t, Summer is going to kill me. I need to think of an escape plan, quick.
“Where’s Summer?” I ask the man. He laughs and leans against the wall.
“She went out,” he says.
“Out?”
“She escaped.”
“What!?”
Summer left…without me? That’s harsh, especially for her. I know she’s mad at me but leaving me here would mean she wants me dead. Does she want me dead? She can’t hate me that much, right?
“Surprised that your girl left without you? Chics can’t be trusted young boy, you’ll learn that soon.”
“Says the man who kidnapped me. If there’s anyone that shouldn’t be trusted here, it’s you.”
The man gives me a death stare, but as he processes my words, his face softens, and he shrugs. “Fair enough. Now, eat up so I can get back to what I was doing. I already can’t stand the fact that Don left me to babysit Shaun’s nephew.”
“I’m not Shaun’s nephew! I hate him!” I bark.
“Is that why you killed him?” he asks.
“What! I didn’t kill him.”
“Because you didn’t get the opportunity to, right? If you could’ve, you would’ve, right?”
I don’t answer the man. “I feel sorry for Shaun. He had a good heart, too damn good to be true. Only for people like you to take advantage of him. To think he actually loved you.” The man chuckles and I notice tears forming in his eyes. He attempts to hide them by placing his hands over his face, but their quite evident. “I’ll be back in 20 minutes, you should be done by then.”
“How do I know this food isn’t poisoned?” I ask.
He briefly looks at me over his shoulder. “You don’t.” The man slams the door closed.
What just happened?
The Vipers are the strongest and the most dangerous gang in Detroit. Vipers don’t do tears. Maybe Shaun was respected and loved by all the Vipers, hence they’d go as far as cry over him. If that is the case, they’re probably going to kill me for apparently ‘killing’ their fellow Viper brother. What they didn’t know was that I’m not the one who killed Uncle Shaun. I wish they’d just listen to my side of the story!
Side.
Before he died, Uncle Shaun claimed that he was on my side.
I had concluded that he was lying, but what if he wasn’t? I mean, if he really wanted me dead, he would have shot me the moment I opened the bathroom door. In fact, he would have shot right through the door.
But he didn’t.
The man who gave me food said that Uncle Shaun loved me. When you think about it, that could actually be true. If it wasn’t, they wouldn’t be giving me food, and I would be dead by now, or at least tied to that chair. Instead, they’re letting me roam around freely in this room and they haven’t tortured me in any way.
But, yet again, if he loved me, why did he kill my father? Why did he kill Uncle Jon and Aunt Rashida? Why did he send that man to shoot at Jason and I when we were younger? Why did he send red sneaker boy to kill me in my school, and why were there a bunch of men with guns ready to kill me last night?
I wanted to believe that Uncle Jon loved me, because there was a lot of evidence to back that up. But, at the same time there was so much more evidence that clearly showed he wanted me dead.
Something wasn’t adding up. I couldn’t eat anymore. I pushed the plate of food to the other side of the room and began to really think. At this point, everyone was a suspect.
The man who gave me food returned after I figured it all out. He glanced at the plate of food that was flipped upside down. The chair that I was seated on had broken after I threw it across the room in rage. What I had found outraged me, and if I could confirm it was true, only God knows how I’d react.
“What the hell is going on with you?” the man asks.
“Why didn’t you people tell me!?”
“Tell you what? And keep your voice down if you know what’s good for you lil Shaun. I won’t be yelled at by a seventeen-year old,” he warns.
I let out a deep sigh. He’s right. I need to keep my cool if I want to crack this case.
“Call Don. Tell him I’ve figured it.”
The man nods, walks out and returns with Don and Orlando.
“Lil Shaun,” Don says walking in.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” I ask him. “If you had told me, everything would have made so much more sense. None of this would have happened.”
“You wouldn’t have believed me. I had to let you figure it out yourself, Shaun wanted that too. I only kidnapped you and Summer now because things were getting out of hand.”
I nod. He’s right. If anyone had told me this, I’d laugh at them and accuse them of lying. I had to figure it out myself, unfortunately, I had taken too much time to do that, and now, a lot of damage had already been done.
“What do you want to do about it, lil Shaun?” Orlando asks behind Don.
I looked at them all and judging by the looks on their faces, I knew I had gained their respect. They were going to have my back the same way they had Uncle Shaun’s back. I could do anything now.
“Let me out. I need to see my mother.