Beautiful Nightmare

by Johnna B

  “Say it again.” He looked into her eyes. He wanted to see her say it.

  “I love you with all of my heart.” She looked him in the eyes.

  “This doesn’t feel real. I never thought this would happen again.” She caressed the sides of his face.

  “Well, it’s happening, and I ain’t going nowhere.”

  “Promise me you’ll never leave me again.” Tears rolled down the sides of her face.

  “I promise,” he whispered.

  “Can I keep you?” she asked, using the question he had asked her in the beginning.

  “I’m yours.”

  They made love numerous times that night, catching up on lost times . . . with an audience watching the whole thing through the bedroom window.

  Chapter 28

  Vengeance Will Be Had

  Reagan had been following Valencia ever since she’d seen her at the mall. She’d gotten her address with her credit card information. She was going to kill her, but when she saw Kidd walking up to the door, she figured she’d wait. He was innocent, and she only wanted Raven to suffer. Whether or not Valencia admitted it, Reagan knew she was Raven. And she was going to deal her the same fate she’d dealt her sister. She felt no one in the world could understand what it felt like to lose a twin. Raven thought she got away with everything she did, but Karma’s a bitch.

  * * *

  “Ahhhh!” Sena was awakened out of her sleep with a pain so fierce she thought somebody shot her in the stomach, causing Moochie to jump up.

  “What’s wrong?” He pulled the covers back and could see clear slimy stuff mixed with blood flowing between her legs. “Aww, man.” He hoped she wasn’t losing the baby.

  “I don’t know. Aaaahhhhhh! I need to get to the hospital.” She was in so much pain she couldn’t move. He put on some basketball shorts and a tank top, grabbed his phone, then picked her up and carried her to the car.

  “Please, don’t let me lose my baby. God, please,” she prayed.

  “Fuuuuuck!” he looked over at her and could see she was in agonizing pain. He picked up the phone to call his brother.

  “Hello.” Kidd sounded asleep.

  “I’m on my way to the hospital. I think Sena’s in labor, man.”

  “What!” Kidd jumped out of bed and started looking for his clothes.

  “What happened, babe?” Vee looked at the clock. It was six in the morning. She was now up, looking for something to slip into.

  “Sena’s in labor.”

  “Wait. It’s way too early.” Now it was her turn to go into a Code Blue.

  “I know. Come on. Let’s go. What hospital y’all going to?”

  “St. John’s,” Moochie and Valencia said in unison. He looked over at her.

  “It’s the only hospital we go to.” She could tell what he was thinking.

  “We’re on our way.” He hung up.

  When they stepped off the elevator, they could hear Sena yelling down the hall. Not because of the pain but because the doctors didn’t know if the baby would survive once it was born. They had a heart monitor on the baby, and she was still alive. Valencia ran to the room and literally jumped on the bed with her. Moochie was pacing back and forth not sure what to do. Kidd walked up to him and hugged him. It hurt him to see his little brother in this kind of pain.

  “Man, I don’t know what I’ma do if my baby doesn’t make it,” he cried into Kidd’s chest.

  “Shhh. She gon’ make it, so don’t talk like that. She gon’ make it.” Kidd was trying to convince him of something he wasn’t so certain of.

  “My baby, Vee. Why they trying to take my baby?” Sena looked to her with pleading eyes. “Please don’t let them take my baby. That’s all I want. I’ll give up everything, just don’t let them take my baby, Vee, please, please. Ahhh!” She was having contractions and couldn’t have an epidural since it was too late for that. Moochie ran back over to her. “They trying to take our baby!” Moochie was lost. He didn’t know what to say. Sena placed his hand into her stomach. “Don’t let them take her.”

  The doctor came back into the room. “Okay, it’s time to check her again. I need you all to step out for a moment.”

  “No, I want them in here. Please don’t leave me.”

  Kidd stepped over to a place where her va-jay-jay wasn’t in view, and Vee sat right where she was at. It was gonna take the whole police force to get them to leave, and the doctor could see that.

  “No problem.” The obstetrician placed a glove on and pulled the cover up from her feet. He saw the baby’s head coming out. “Are you ready to see your baby ’cause we are ready to deliver?” He went to the door and called out for help. The nurses and doctors weren’t far away because they knew it was going to happen soon. And they needed all hands on deck to help the baby survive.

  “Is the baby still alive?” Valencia asked.

  “Yes, ma’am. There is still a heartbeat.” He pointed to the heart monitor that was still on. “OK, I need you to push.”

  Sena looked around at all the people waiting on her baby to come and seeing the incubator waiting for her baby. She gave one big push and felt the baby being pulled out. Everybody watched as the baby came out with Moochie and Vee in tears. Kidd was holding on to Vee as they all prayed the baby would make it. After a few seconds of no crying, it wasn’t looking so good. They could hear the doctors over there working on her. “Come on, baby. Cry for me,” the doctor kept saying as she rubbed her finger up and down the bottom of her tiny feet.

  “Please, baby girl, don’t die on me,” Sena pleaded another second or so, and then, everybody in the room heard the most beautiful sound ever . . . a faint yet resilient cry. “Thank you. Thank you. Oh my God, thank you,” Sena cried. After a few more minutes, they brought the baby over to them.

  “Here is your beautiful baby girl.” A nurse put the baby in Sena’s arms. She was so small and looked so fragile.

  “She is so beautiful, babe.” Moochie had never seen something so wonderful in all his life. He was a father, and there was no greater feeling in the world.

  “Look at my goddaughter. Ain’t she precious,” Vee gushed.

  “She takes after our side, of course,” Kidd joked.

  “Whatever, hater. You know I’m hot to def.”

  “Not right now, you ain’t. You are in dire need of some Carmex.” Kidd pointed to her white lips.

  “Okay, ma’am, we have to take her to the nursery and make sure everything is okay. Someone will bring her back later, or you may have to come visit her in the nursery.”

  “Okay, thank you so much,” Sena said before the nurse left.

  “Well, you’re not done yet. We have to get the afterbirth out,” the doctor told her.

  “Okay, I don’t think I have to see that. Congratulations, honey. I love you. And you be thinking of a name that rhymes with Valencia.” She and Kidd stepped out of the room.

  “Let’s go to the gift shop. I want to buy her some more stuff.” Valencia was excited. He laughed at her.

  “Okay.” He felt around, realizing he had left his wallet at home. “I don’t have my wallet.”

  “That’s okay, I brought my purse. Shit, it’s in the car. Let me go get it.”

  “Naw, I’ll go get it.”

  “Oh, whatever! Just go and pick out some stuff. I’ll be right back. The car is right outside the door. What, you scared some sexy man will come and sweep me off my feet?”

  “Do I have to worry about that?” Kidd walked up to her and pulled her into his arms. They shared a kiss that made them want to go get a quickie.

  “Umm, never.” Vee blew him a kiss as she walked up the ramp to the doors.

  “Aye,” he called out to her.

  “Yes, babe.” She turned to look at him.

  “The song is ‘You Bring Me Joy’ R. Kelly.” He turned and walked toward the gift shop. Yeah, we gon’ be okay, he thought. They were leaving for Egypt in a couple of days and would travel the world for a while till they decided wh
ere they wanted to live.

  Valencia had just gotten to her car when an odd-shaped minivan covered in flowers pulled up beside her, and someone snatched her inside the van.

  Kidd had noticed she was gone a little too long, so he decided to look for her. Only thing he saw was a minivan with flowers all over it leaving the parking lot and another one sitting next to Vee’s car. He noticed someone was sitting in it and went to see if the man had seen what happened to Vee.

  Just as he got ready to knock on the window, the side door flew open, and three men jumped out with machine guns aimed at him. Right then, he knew what had happened to her. She had gotten snatched by Mr. Jackson’s people. Next thing, everything went black.

  * * *

  When Kidd came to, he couldn’t see anything, and his mouth was duct-taped. But he could clearly hear Vee crying real close to him. Valencia saw his head moving from side to side. She had watched them drag him down into the basement three hours ago and had been waiting for him to wake up. Her arms and legs were tied to the chair she was in. He was sitting no more than maybe a foot from her. She could see him, but he couldn’t see her. And it was a good thing. He probably would have had a heart attack at the damage they had put on her body. Her body was numb to the pain. All she wanted to do was make sure Kidd survived the whole ordeal.

  “Hey! Are you awake?” She barely got the words out. She could hear him mumbling something, but he wasn’t coherent. “Do you know what they want?” He nodded his head. He knew they wanted her dead, and he was the reason they were both down there. “Did you do something?” He shook his head. “What did I do?”

  “I’ll tell you what you did. You fucked with the wrong family,” Mr. Jackson said as he walked back into the room.

  Kidd’s head swung up trying to hear where his voice was coming from. Mr. Jackson snatched the bag from over Kidd’s face. Kidd was horrified at what he saw before him. They had beaten Valencia something terrible. There was blood running down her face and neck and a big gash in the middle of her forehead. He struggled against his restraints, trying to get to her. It broke him down to see her this way. He had promised he wouldn’t let anything happen to her . . . but he had failed.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said as more blood spilled from her mouth where a tooth had just fallen out.

  “Oh, so now you don’t know anything.” He picked up the bat they had already been beating her with and swung it at her shoulder. You could hear her bones crack all through the house. Kidd’s screams could be heard, even under the tape. He bucked and struggled to get free. This was way more horrible than what he had expected. They weren’t just going to kill her. They were going to torture her, and he was going to have to be there.

  “Please tell me what I did! What did I do?” she screamed.

  “Now, you, Kidd, you really disappointed me. I had such high hopes for you. But you let the likes of this bitch take you down.” He looked at Kidd in the eyes and could see all the hate and rage Kidd had in them. It sent chills down his spine. He knew if Kidd walked out of that basement alive, there would be hell to pay. That was why he was there. He couldn’t leave such a job to amateurs.

  “I asked you to do me a favor, and this is what I get—you sleeping with the enemy.” He got close to Kidd’s face. “I told you she killed my daughter, and you fuck her and think you’re going to run off into the sunset together. I tell you what, either you or she will die tonight, or both of you. You choose.” He snatched the tape off Kidd’s mouth.

  “No, no, it’s me. Just do it. I did it!” Valencia pleaded. When she heard that she had something to do with his daughter being killed she knew it was Raven’s doing. She refused to let Kidd die over something Raven had done.

  “No!” Kidd yelled.

  “I can’t let you die over something she’s done.”

  “Valencia, no,” Kidd pleaded.

  “I can’t let him hurt you, baby. I love you too much. And she has done so much.”

  “Vee, just calm down and let me talk.”

  “No, Wanya. I can’t let you die tonight because of me. I can’t.” She took a deep breath and turned to Mr. Jackson. “It was me; just get it over with.”

  * * *

  Moochie had been calling his brother’s phone for a few hours. At first, he wasn’t alarmed. He thought maybe Kidd and Vee were somewhere freaking off. But hours later and still no response, he was way past worried. Just as he was about to activate the locator button on his phone, it made an alarm sound. That meant Kidd was in trouble. He kissed a sleeping Sena on the cheek and ran out of the hospital like the ground was made of hot coal.

  When they first started out, he and Kidd had these chips placed under their armpits. So if there was ever an emergency, all they had to do was press it and their phone would lead them to wherever the other was. They couldn’t always trust the locators in their phones because kidnappers broke phones and disposed of them. Wherever his brother was, he prayed he would get there in time. And that all the culprits were still there, so he could kill every last one of them.

  * * *

  “So, Mr. Brown, who’s it going to be?”

  Kidd sat there stone faced. He wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of pleading for his life. He knew Mr. Jackson would never let him walk out of there alive. He just prayed Moochie would get there in time to save them both. The gunman released his hands under Mr. Jackson’s orders. He still wanted Kidd to kill her. Mr. Jackson wanted her to die at Kidd’s hand. He tried to hand Kidd the gun.

  “Don’t hand me that. It wouldn’t be good for any of us.” He was dead serious. He was willing to go out in a hail of smoke. But if there was any way Vee could walk out of there alive, he would try to make sure that happened. The gunman never took the gun off of him. They had one to the back of his head and one on each side of his neck.

  “Just take the gun, baby. Do it,” Vee pleaded with Kidd. He just sat there staring at her trying to remember her voice and pictured her before all this mess came about. Everybody turned their head to the click clacking of a pair of high heels walking into the dingy basement. Vee started to feel a horrible headache worse than the one she already had. She knew what was about to happen. Raven was coming to her rescue once again. Even though it was Raven’s fault she was even in the predicament, she was thankful she came to take on her responsibility.

  “I guess I can introduce you all to my precious daughter Reagan. The twin of the girl you killed.”

  “That bitch is a fucking slut bucket just like her sister was,” Raven spat. Raven was no punk, and, if she was going down, she was going to speak her mind. “I could have fucked them both.” Kidd laughed because he knew it was Raven. Valencia would have never said anything like that. Reagan snatched her nine millimeter out of her waistband and brought it down hard on Vee’s head.

  Raven was a little dazed, but it didn’t deter her. “Fuck you, bitch, and your freak-ass sister. I have to admit her pussy was fire. Do you taste anything like her?”

  “You shut up! Don’t speak on my sister like you knew her!” Reagan yelled.

  “I knew her good enough for her to munch on my dick like a starving child in the back huts of South Africa.” Raven knew it was her time to die. She was remorseful for how things would end for Valencia because all she wanted was to protect her by any means necessary, and, instead, she ended up putting her on a death sentence. But there was no need in crying over spilled milk. If she was going out, she was going out like only she could.

  “Arrggg,” Reagan screamed. She was furious. She began to rain blow after blow down on Raven, causing blood to fly everywhere. The gunmen held Kidd down on the ground. He fought hard trying to get up to help Vee. Where the fuck is Moochie? he thought. If Moochie didn’t get there soon, they would surely kill Valencia.

  * * *

  Moochie was creeping down the basement stairs. He had just laid out seven guards with his silenced pistol. His stomach was doing flips. He hadn’t been so scared in all his li
fe. He didn’t know what was to come when he stepped around the corner. But he did know he would go down blazing for his brother. He peeked his head around real quick and came up with a total count of five people. Three men were holding Kidd down on the ground, and some girl had a gun to Vee’s head with Mr. Jackson standing there watching everything. He had to wait till those men had their guns pointed away from Kidd’s head. He leaned back up against the wall.

  * * *

  “Bitch, you could never kill me because I been dead,” Raven spoke venomously as blood ran out of her mouth. “I made my peace, bitch, so get it over with.” Raven was in so much pain, but she would never let them see her cry. She looked over at Kidd on the ground. They locked eyes. “I’m sorry” were the words he heard. By the look in her eyes, he could see she really meant it. She had no more teeth in the front of her mouth, and one of her eyes was damn near hanging out of the socket. But you could still see her smirk.

  “We’ll see about that.” Reagan put the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

  “Nooo!” Kidd screamed watching the side of Vee’s head being blown out. His heart imploded at the sight before him. Never in all his life had he imagined this would be his fate. How had he ended up on this end of the shit stick? Why would God do this to him?

  Moochie ran in like he was doing target practice.

  He took aim and knocked off the three gunmen in a matter of seconds. Before anybody could figure out what was going on, Moochie already had Reagan in a choke hold with his gun pointed at her head. Mr. Jackson could have kicked himself for forgetting about Kidd’s watchdog of a brother. Kidd shook the men off him and rushed to Valencia’s side, but she was long gone. His heart had shattered into a million pieces as he held her dead, flaccid body in his arms. Moochie’s anger rose to a whole different level seeing how bad Vee looked. He cocked his hammer and returned the favor to Reagan.

  “Noooo!” Now it was Mr. Jackson’s turn to mourn. He had told her not to come down, but she had to get revenge for her sister. He held his dead daughter in his arms and rocked her back and forth.