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Layla.
My sweet and fearless Layla.
Lately, I’ve been feeling restless, like something is missing from my life. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I have no friends or a social life to speak of. It’s kind of difficult to create any lasting bonds when you can’t even tell people what you do for a living. Passing strangers are easy enough to fool, but to actually open myself up in order to let someone get close to me, well, then the nondisclosure of my line of work ends up being an issue.
The only thing that lifts the weight off my chest of such self-imposed solitude and gives me some semblance of peace is when I go to the little corner diner Layla works at. The food there is shit, but if I had to, I’d gobble it all down with a fucking smile on my face. Fortunately, I can get away with only ordering the horrid slush they call coffee.
With the image of her jade-green eyes flashing in my mind, I put the car in reverse and hightail it out of Queens and over to Hell’s Kitchen, needing to get my fix as my second reward of the day.
Although it really isn’t a contest.
I’d take one of Layla’s genuine smiles over a million dollars any day.
Once I’ve parked my car across the street, I wait a few minutes just so I can watch her through the glass windows of the diner. Even though the place is a total shithole, with even less savory clientele, Layla never fills a cup of coffee or delivers a plate of food to a table without a smile stitched onto her face. I’m sure she’s extra pleasant to the clientele in the hopes they will shell out a buck or two as a tip. Of course, you only need to take one look at the hovel to know that no one who willingly goes in there has spare cash to dole out, even if it is to give it to the prettiest waitress they have ever laid eyes on.
Still, Layla does the best she can to go about her day with a cheerful grin plastered on her face, even though her eyes tell a different story. They speak of utter exhaustion, and like the kindred spirit I believe her to be, they scream of loneliness too.
Aside from the younger sister she dotes on, my Layla’s only companions are the burdens and aches of the life she was forced into. Since she was sixteen, she’s had to fend for herself and Zoey, making an effort to always have a roof over their heads and give her baby sister a home filled with love and happiness—even if they are lacking most of the usual basic material possessions. She lives and breathes for Zoey, and that sisterly bond is what drives her to wake up in the morning and face the dire challenges of the day ahead without complaint.
I should know.
I have spent the better part of the last five years watching her do it.
Unbeknownst to Layla, I’ve been a constant shadow and a permanent fixture in her life since that fateful day I found her on an empty road, seconds away from being killed. I was on a job and on my way to one of my favorite pig farms when, lo and behold, I encountered a hellish scene that has played center stage in my nightmares more times than I can count. Right before my very eyes, I witnessed a delicate flower stand up to a monster and face certain death with a courageous dignity none of my targets have ever been able to muster when I paid them a house call.
Sometimes I wake up late at night in a cold sweat, thinking what if I had chosen a different road on that day? What if instead of feeding the pigs the rotting corpse stashed in my trunk, I had used lye instead? Or a funeral home’s oven?
What a sin it would have been for such a beautiful soul to die at the hands of such filth. The world would have been a miserable place without her light, of that I am certain.
I recall how my heart stopped when the fucker was still able to unload a shot, even after I killed him. In a mad dash, I left my car running in the middle of the road and ran to the young, innocent girl who faced the devil and lost. Air filled my lungs when I realized the shotgun wound was only to her shoulder, missing all of her vital organs, but the impact of the shot made her fall hard, her head bouncing off the concrete with a loud thud.
I had to think fast.
I couldn’t exactly call nine-one-one, since the stiff stuffed in a black plastic bag in my trunk would raise questions, ones I had no intention of answering, but there was no way I was going to leave her behind to bleed out either.
So, without further thought, I picked her up in my arms with the intention to leave her in the closest hospital I could find. Before I left her in the doctor’s care, I would also hand a note to the receptionist for the police, so they could make their way over here and see the bloodbath the prick I killed left.
I cringe every time I remember the young boy’s mangled body lying in the middle of the road, and the woman’s at the side of it, amongst the bushes, with her head blown off in such a way there was no telling what the woman looked like before.
It was only when I had her in my arms that the tiny little creature flew at me from God knows where and swung her tiny fists against my leg to grab my attention.
“You let her go! Layla, wake up! Wake up!” she shouted behind me as I made my way back to my car. After I made sure the girl in my arms was safely tucked in my backseat, I kneeled to the little warrior giving me shit.
“Listen here, kid. We don’t have much time, so I’m going to need you to cool it for a bit. Can you do that?”
The little blonde spitfire wiped her tears, her lower lip quivering as she kept her gaze fixed on the girl inside my car.
“Is she your sister? Layla. That’s what you called her, right?”
She nodded between sobs.
“What about you? You got a name?”
“Z-Zoey,” she stammered, lifting her chin just enough to make eye contact with me. “Layla told me to run, but I couldn’t leave her. I just couldn’t. So I hid. I hid really well. But now you’re going to take Layla away! Just like Daddy took Mommy and Gage away. I won’t let you! I won’t!”
She was a scared little rag doll of a thing, but she had heart.
“Okay, kid. Listen here, because the clock is ticking. No one is going to take your sister away. But she’s hurt, really hurt, so I have to take her to the hospital so the doctors can fix her up, okay? So, as I see it, you’ve got two choices. Stay here all on your own or get in the car and help me help your sister out. What will it be?”
