AllFreeNovel
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“Let me go, motherfucker.” I buck, I elbow, I claw, I swing, catching him on the side of his face. He takes it all.
“She’s gone,” he says just as the front of the building collapse in burning timber and ash.
“No.” My voice sounds broken. My chest feels cleaved in two.
A bloodcurdling scream has us jerking around. Two figures obscured by black smoke are at the barn window.
We both scramble up, racing to that side. Nikki thrusts Joi out the window, then hurls herself out just as the back part of the barn collapses much like the front.
Skirting around the people making room for me, I rush to her side.
“Nikki,” I say like a prayer, scared to touch her. She looks like a broken doll crumpled on the ground.
“Ow.”
I swing around to face Joi, her leg obviously broken, her arm dislocated. “I—I’m so-sor—” She crumples back to the ground.
“Let me pass,” Mimi says, pushing through the people. Carefully and slowly, she assesses Nikki. “Her neck’s not broken. She’s been shot.” “What’s the ETA on the EMTs?”
No sooner than she asks do they arrive to put both women on spine boards and load them into separate ambulances.
I get in beside Mimi after they load Nikki into the ambulance. Reaching over, I take her limp hand, noting how thready her pulse is but grateful there is one.
For the first time since I gave up having my prayers answered that day my father threw my mother down the stairs. It’s not for me —the fervent hope— I know I’ll never be worthy—but for her, this beautiful light that somehow decided to shine on me, I plead, “Let her live. Please let her live.”
ChapterTwenty-Five
Nikki(a few hours earlier)
“HaveI told you how beautiful you look today?” I can’t see Mathias’s face, but I hear the urgency in his voice. Then LL is there, telling him they’re ready for him. Pride bursts in my heart when I hear him launch into the speech. His sincerity and strength shine true just as it did yesterday when he first went over it for me.
The man I love is going to do great things for all the people in this community. That knowledge makes me stand taller. My five-foot-two frame feels all of six-foot-two as I watch him weave his childhood experience with the immigrant experience and his mother’s tragic love for a man who never deserved her; the fact Mathias does so with dignity and grace is not lost on me. He deserves this. I don’t for a moment regret doing what I can to help him attain his goals.
He’s not a good man. I know this. He Is my man though and I’m going to stick beside him. I’m easing back from the growing crowd so I can quickly get to the stage when I see something that stops me in my tracks. If the people weren’t so crowded around the stage, having left the vendor stalls empty and the whole festival grounds free of people, I probably would have missed it.
Way on the other side of the festival grounds, I see a glimpse of the bright red pantsuit Ms. Wannabe Olivia Pope has on today with white pumps, of course, beside the platform high-top Converse in green, boyfriend jeans, and a T-shirt pulled in a knot, which is what my cousin Joi tends to wear. I don’t have to wonder or worry what’s going on. Everything slides into place. This isn’t a Scooby-Doo mystery; I can tell by the way they are trying to hide out of the way of everyone that they are up to no good.
I take off after the heffas to confront them. Lifting my phone, I take a pic, then curse myself for not getting the upgrade when it comes out blurry.
I track them behind the vendor stands, following them through the copse of trees. A couple of times, I think I lose them, but then I hear one of them speak. Are they arguing? I frown, keeping up my pace until the little wooded area opens up to an old barn.
The smell of dry hay is strong as I approach. Skirting around the entrance, I head to the back, knowing these type of barns have at least two side back doors. When I get there, I twist the knob. It’s well greased, so this barn is still being used by someone—and it’s locked. “Dang it.” There are hundreds of nondescript barns and buildings like this around here because one thing folks down here will do is have an illegal side hustle. The most conservative of people run outlaw bingo and gambling business. The barn could be anything, a place they run pot liquor out of, weed, or even harder drugs. Last year, Angel and his men, along with Ulysses, rescued a bunch of kids being held in a place like this. So there is no telling what it is being used for until I get inside.
Stepping back, I survey the outside for a way in. I dip around the side, immediately seeing a window has been left open.
“Please don’t squeak,” I whisper, slowly pushing it up. It makes nary a sound, which has me wanting to shimmy. Tucking my voluminous skirts into the front of the shapewear I wore because I was feeling bloated, I pull myself through the window.
Thankful my upper body is strong enough to lift these curves, even with a fair amount of effort, I land quietly on the floor of the barn.
I hear raised voices and walk toward them, my brow puckering. Stopping behind three towering bales of hay—I guess this barn is being used as intended—I see Natalie standing over my cousin like a menacing schoolmarm and Joi looking at her in doe-eyed supplication.
For some reason I came into this thinking Joi would be the aggressor. Either blackmailing Natalie or using some other form of intimidation. Yet the sight I walk on is jaw-dropping in its dynamic.
“Listen, babe, I’ve done everything you asked me to. None of my family will have anything to do with me. I can’t get the birth certificate at this point. Kandie has it locked away somewhere or gave it to Nikki.”
Natalie swings out mercilessly, slapping Joi full on the face. My mouth drops.
“Argh.” Joi covers her face at the attack but otherwise doesn’t budge. Tears fall from her eyes in long rivulets.
