“Bring our girl home,” Kenya said softly.
I nodded, feeling where they was all coming from.
We left out of Kenya’s house and hit the city immediately. None of us needed to speak on which side of town to go on; we already had an idea and hit the south side, checking all the lil’ ducked-off places I knew he was at before, and where he could have been.
We pulled through each parking lot slow, looking for something that would stand out to me, a nigga in the window, a car parked like it was in a rush, maybe even a car with outta state tags.
I had nothing to go off, so anything that made the hairs on my arms stand up, I was on it. We rode through five different run-down motels and didn’t spot nothing but some cracked out niggas on the corner with some bitches that were tryna fuck for a quick twenty dollas.
After that, we drove to the gas station where the YN seen him before and pulled up a picture, asking the owner if they had seen him there recently, but again, nothing.
When that shit didn’t pan out with anything, I started to get desperate. We rode down every block, asking anybody outside if they had seen a nigga that looked like him.
Frustration was growing in my chest with each passing no.
No more panic, no confusion, just irritation building to the top of disappointment.
Sammy finally spoke up while we were parked at a red light.
“You want to keep doing this block-to-block shit, or you want to move like you’re supposed to?”
I turned my head slightly.
“What the fuck that mean?”
He looked out of the window. “That means you moving like you forgot who you were again, that you don’t have to be hunting the nigga down.”
“That nigga is still here,” Keith voiced. “We just have to figure out what side of town, cause it damn sure is not the south side.”
I leaned back in the seat, jaw tight, watching the lights turn green, and we started moving again while Sammy’s words sat in the air.
Moving like I forgot who I was.
I didn’t respond right away because it wasn’t even about pride. It was about the fact that he went ghost in a city that didn’t nobody know him, with my wife.
“So what we finna do?” Sammy asked. “Keep guessing, or pay niggas to do the guessing and the seeking for you?”
I didn’t respond.
We kept driving around. I showed his picture to random people, asking if they had seen him, and kept coming up short.
All damn day, I continued to come up short, until it was fuckin’ dark out, and even though my niggas didn’t say it, I could tell that they were irritated.
I picked up some carry-out for Amir and me, and we went back to the crib.
The ride to the crib was quiet. It felt different from how it did earlier.
I felt defeated, even though it had only been hours. I wanted my girl home where she belonged.
Once we got to the crib, my niggas hopped out. They all dapped me up, each telling me to stay cool, we were going to find her, she can hold her own. Before they hopped in their car and pulled off, all that shit was easy to say but hard as fuck to do.
I walked into the house and found Katie and Amir waiting in the living room. Amir ran over to me, hugging me and taking the food out of my hand.
“Is Islah okay?” he asked.” I looked at him and couldn’t say yes or no. “We will talk about it later.”
Amir walked off, digging fries out of the bag while I sat on the couch beside Katie.
“Is everything okay, cousin?” she asked.
