by Kiki Swinson
“What? What’s the matter?” I asked.
“The locker number, Karlie,” he replied.
“Oh, goodness. My mind is so gone. Walt had said it was number four-thirty. That’s what I have written down,” I answered, still trying to shake the cobwebs from my brain.
“A’ight. When I get out, Karlie, you get in the driver’s seat, just in case anything goes down and y’all have to pull out of here,” Sidney instructed, obviously thinking way ahead of me and Miley.
“Oh, hell no! I’m the better driver,” Miley protested from the backseat. “I’ll get in the driver’s seat. No way I’m trusting Driving Miss Daisy over here to save my life if things get hot. You know damn well my sister cannot drive fast. We will be dead depending on old sugar foot here to get us out of danger.”
“Fine. You drive, Mario Andretti,” I snapped at her. “That’s why your ass always got tickets from the Virginia state troopers. But, whatever. You’re the expert driver, I forgot.” Miley could be real annoying sometimes. Everything wasn’t a competition. She was lucky that I loved her behind unconditionally.
“I don’t care who drives. Somebody get your ass in the seat just in case. When I come out, if everything is good, I’ll hop in the back and we can pull over somewhere and change back after we are free and clear from this area,” Sidney interjected. “And stop all of this stupid arguing. We have to stick together more than ever now.” My face flushed red, and so did Miley’s. We both knew that Sidney was right.
Miley and Sidney both exited the truck. She slid into the driver’s seat just like he had instructed. Sidney whipped his head around, hyperaware of his surroundings, as he headed into the gym. I did the same from inside the truck. I looked up the block through the windshield. Then I turned around and looked down the block through the back windows. I even checked the side mirrors and rearview mirror inside the truck. The block seemed normal to me. Just the usual hustle and bustle of the midday crowd. There were no strange cars around that I could see. My heart sank once Sidney disappeared into the gym though. Just because outside looked good, that didn’t mean there wasn’t someone inside waiting to pounce. It had been my idea to rent lockers at three different gyms as stash spots for the money. I remembered this old-school hustler named Benny who used to hang around my mother telling her to stash some of his money at a YMCA locker once. Even as young as I was then, I’d thought that idea was genius. Who would think to check those lockers for anything other than sweaty gym clothes or changes of clothes? I knew we could take a gym bag full of money inside without people getting suspicious. Once we put our own locks on the lockers, nobody would mess with it. If the gym attendants saw a locked locker, they would just assume someone working out had locked up their stuff. I already knew how lax those gym attendants were anyway. It’s not like they’d perform nighttime checks to see if any of the lockers remained locked. It was a genius idea in my mind. I guess everyone else in the crew thought so too because they had all agreed to the idea.
As we sat and waited for Sidney, Miley started swinging her legs in and out nervously. It was driving me crazy.
“Would you keep still?” I grumbled.
“What?” she snapped. “What does my legs moving have to do with you?” She sucked her teeth.
“It’s annoying and it’s just making my nerves even worse. So stop,” I retorted, rolled my eyes. There was so much tension between us. I knew it was both of our nerves being on edge that had us at one another’s throats. Miley stopped shaking her legs for a little while. I said a silent thank-you for the peace.
I looked at my watch and back at the gym door. I let out a long breath. It seemed like an eternity since Sidney had gone inside.
“What time did he get out of the truck?” I asked Miley.
She shrugged and turned her face away from me.
“Oh, now you’re not speaking to me?”
“I said I don’t know.”
“You didn’t say anything,” I snapped. “Just forget it.” I looked at my watch again. Now my legs were swinging in and out with uneasiness. Of course Miley shot me a look and then looked down at my legs.
“What?” I growled at her. We were both on edge.
“There he is!” Miley said excitedly. “Finally. Now we can get the hell out of town.”
I whipped my head to the left and smiled. My heart melted when I saw Sidney’s gorgeous caramel face and sexy physique rushing from the gym doors. Miley threw the SUV into drive. We were ready to go. My stomach did a few anxious flips. I felt like a giddy child who’d just received a new toy.
“Yes. Finally.” I sighed. I was smiling because Sidney was almost to the truck, which meant freedom for all of us. Before he got to the door, a loud noise caused me to twist my head to the right. It was the squeal of vehicle tires that had snatched my attention away from Sidney. My mouth dropped open when I saw a black van speeding toward us.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, the words barely audible when I noticed that the van had abruptly stopped directly in front of us.
“Aghh!” Miley screamed when she noticed it.
“Oh shit!” I yelled. The van had blocked us. Before we could even react, two men jumped from the van, guns drawn and rushed Sidney. Sidney had stopped walking when the screeching tires startled him. He had been so caught off guard that he didn’t have time to react fast enough to get to his gun before the masked men threw a black bag over his head and dragged him towards the open back door of the van.
“Sidney!” I squealed so loud the back of my throat itched. “No! Sidney!” I jumped in my seat. I could feel blood rush to my face as I continued to scream. My screams didn’t throw my sister off her game at all.
Instinctively Miley threw the SUV into reverse and sped backwards away from the van. I could see them throw Sidney inside and the men jump in after.
“No! Wait! We can’t leave him!” I screamed, reaching over and hitting Miley on the arm. “Stop the fucking car! We can’t leave him!” With my eyes bulging almost out of my head, I watched as Sidney’s truck sped backwards, farther away from the van.
“Miley! Don’t leave him! No! We can’t fucking leave him!”
Miley ignored me and continued to skillfully drive the vehicle in reverse.
“Goddamn it! They’re coming!” Miley shouted. She stepped on the gas even harder. “They have him already. Do you want to die right now? There is nothing we can do to save him, Karlie! He is gone!”
“Aghh!” I screamed. Both out of the fear of being chased and out of the agony of leaving Sidney behind. I knew Miley was right, but the aching in my heart at that moment would not allow me to let it go.
“No! We have to save him! He is my man!”
“Oh my God!” Miley screamed when she saw the black van gaining on us. “Nah! Fuck this! I got this. They will not get us!” she gritted out, moving the steering wheel like a movie stunt driver. My body swayed left to right and then back again. I had already hit my head twice with the way Miley was swinging that SUV.
When we got to the corner, Miley quickly put the car into drive, wheeled it around and, with tires screeching, sped down the street opposite the gym.
“Fuck! I can’t believe this shit!” Miley yelled as she looked up into the rearview mirror. “They are right behind us! I can’t shake these bastards. We are fucked!”
“Miley! We have to go back for Sidney!” I cried out. “We have to stop and go back for him.” I don’t think the danger we were in was registering in my mind. My thoughts were too clouded by the fact that I had lost Sidney . . . forever. Tears were running down my face in streams. “We can’t just leave him like that! They are going to do him worse than they did Walt.” I cried some more.
“Karlie! Snap the fuck out of it! There are five men in that van chasing us right now. You think the two of us can save Sidney if we stop? Hell no! We are on the run from God knows who and you’re talking about stopping! Be quiet!” Miley screamed at me as she floored the gas pedal and wheeled the SUV better than
a NASCAR driver. I put both of my hands up to the sides of my head and began rocking in the seat. I knew Sidney was a dead man. I looked up into the mirror as Miley eased onto Highway 264.
“Fuck it. If we get pulled over for speeding at least the cops will save our lives,” she said in a frantic voice. Every move Miley made in Sidney’s truck, the van followed.
“We can’t even go get the rest of the money. To me, it’s like whoever is after us knows exactly where to look for us. How would they know to come to that gym? How did they know it would be our first stop? So now we are fucking broke and homeless and in danger,” Miley spat as she maneuvered Sidney’s truck in and out of traffic. My heart was racing and my stomach was in knots. Miley whipped the SUV down the highway, switching lanes like a pro.
“All right, Karlie. I’m about to fuck their heads up,” Miley told me. She looked up into the mirror, and the only thing separating us from the van was one minivan filled with a mother and her kids.
“Hold on tight. This is about to be some stunt movie shit,” Miley warned me. She was focused and in a zone. I had never seen my sister this focused. It felt kind of nice depending on her for a change instead of it being the other way around.
“Here we go!” she yelled out. Before I could grab on to the door handle, Miley turned the steering wheel to the left with so much force my body was pushed to the right.
“Oww!” I hollered as my head banged into the passenger-side window. Miley whipped the truck again, and this time I was able to hold on in time. I heard tires from other cars squealing behind us. There were also car horns blaring all around us. We were in a high-speed chase like something out of a movie. Miley started for the next highway exit and so did the van chasing us.
“If you get off the exit, they’ll catch us at the light!” I screamed at her.
“Shut up, Karlie! Let me do this! I got this!” Miley screamed back.
“Oh my God! They are following us off, Miley! We can’t take the streets or they’ll catch us!” I hollered.
“Would you shut the fuck up!” she spat. At the last minute, my baby sister wheeled the SUV to the right, drove over the shoulder and grass off the side of the exit, sped down the shoulder of the road for a few seconds, zipped back onto the highway, and flew past the exit instead. The van had already sped into the exit ramp and couldn’t back up in time without hitting the cars behind it. Miley had forced them to get off the highway, but she had gotten back on. That move was pure genius.
“Ahhhh! Hahahah! I got them! I fucking got them! I outsmarted their asses!” Miley screamed in victory. She slammed her right hand on the steering wheel as she sped down the highway and farther away from the danger.
“You did that!” I cheered. “You handled that like a pro.”
“Hell yeah! Woohoo! Don’t play with this bitch when it comes to driving. I am that bitch!” Miley celebrated. We were finally able to drive at just above the speed limit. Things slowed down. As we rode down the highway, my heart grew heavy all over again. I fell silent and hung my head.
I couldn’t take part in the celebration anymore. I was glad we were safe now, but I couldn’t stop thinking about my man. I covered my face with my hands and began sobbing. I couldn’t believe I had let Sidney get snatched and done nothing about it. Sidney was probably already dead. The thought sent another round of wracking sobs through my body.
“All of this is my fault,” I cried. “This is my karma for being greedy. I just let it happen. Just like that.”
“Karlie, you can’t beat yourself up. We were all down with that robbery. We all have to take responsibility for the shit that’s happening to us. Sidney knew the danger after everybody started popping up dead. It is not all your fault, so stop blaming yourself. There was nothing either one of us could’ve done for him against those goons with guns. Even Sidney didn’t expect that. He couldn’t even get to his gun in time. It all happened so fast. It’s not your fault so stop saying that,” Miley lectured.
“What now? What will we do now?” I cried out. “Our entire life is fucked. All of this over some goddamn money. Money is the root of all evil, I swear. Why couldn’t we just accept that we were meant to be broke? This is what the universe had planned for us.”
“Would you stop it? Damn. Nobody wanted to be broke so we came up with a plan. Okay . . . it didn’t go according to our plan, but that doesn’t mean we had to accept being broke,” Miley replied.
“But what will we do now? That’s the question. You think we can go back to the apartment? Hell no. You think either one of us can go back to work? Hell no to that too. I have about two hundred dollars to my name right now. How far will that get us, Miley?”
She was quiet for a few minutes.
“I don’t know the answer to any of those questions yet. But whatever we decide, it needs to involve trying to get to the rest of that money. If we can get to the last two stash spots some kind of way, we will be good. I know we don’t have anything right now . . . not even a damn place to stay, but just like when we were kids, Karlie, we have each other,” Miley said on the verge of tears. She was right. The seriousness of her words exploded in my ears like small bombs, and it made me feel even worse. Since our mother died and left us to fend for ourselves, I was usually the one who had all of the answers for the both of us. At that moment, with the odds stacked against us, I was drawing a blank. We were on the run with no place to run to. But, like my sister had said, we still had each other. For now.
While I tried to figure out my next move, I took out my cell phone and made a call to the only person I knew that could help me right now.
CHAPTER 10
LAST RESORT
Miley and I had made it out of the Virginia Beach area unharmed. I had my arms folded across my chest, hugging myself in an attempt to calm my nerves as I paced in the parking lot of a Marriott Fairfield Inn off Mercury Boulevard in Hampton. I could not get Sidney off of my mind. I could not stop thinking about our situation. I was all cried out.
When I saw the minivan pull to a stop, my heart jerked in my chest. I breathed out a heavy sigh of relief when I saw her face.
Yes. She came through like she said she would.
“Oh my goodness. Ms. Karlie, are you okay?” Trina asked, rushing toward me with concern etched on her face. “Sorry it took me so long. You know how it is. I got here as soon as I could. I was so thrown off by your call. It’s not like you not to be at work, so everyone was worried sick about you. I had to drop the kids at daycare or else I would’ve been here faster. I have so many questions.... What is . . .” Trina rambled. I put my hand up to stop her from rambling on. I knew her, so I knew that could go on forever.
“Yeah. I’m good. Nothing to worry about,” I assured her, lying through my teeth. “It’s just one of those situations.”
“You sure you’re okay?” Trina asked, eyeing me suspiciously. I am sure I probably looked like a damn mess.
“Yeah, girl. There’s nothing to worry about. I’m cool. Just needed a little time away for myself. Kind of want to go off the grid for a little bit and didn’t want anyone to know. Thanks for coming right away. Sorry for making you come so far out. I guess it wouldn’t be getting away if I had stayed in Virginia Beach, right?” I replied, letting out a phony giggle and giving Trina a quick hug. “You didn’t tell anyone I called you, right? Or where you were going?” I clarified. I had told her not to say anything to anyone, but I had to make sure.
“No. No. I didn’t tell anyone anything. Not even that pain-in-the-ass baby daddy of mine. I did exactly what you asked. I called in to the job and said I had an emergency with one of the kids and I rushed right down here. Of course, Amy was asking a bunch of questions about what happened and when I would be in. You know how nosey she can be. Plus, she always thinks somebody is trying to make her do all of the work. I was one minute from telling her to mind her damn business, but I was nice about it. I just told her I simply had an emergency and I’d see her later. I think that got her off my back for
now,” Trina said reassuringly. The tension in my body eased a little bit hearing that. I smiled.
“Good. Yeah, you can certainly handle Amy. She’s so corny. One day, I hope she gets a little bit of swag about herself. Or maybe a man that will give her a little swag,” I said, chuckling nervously. I kept looking around and over Trina’s shoulder suspiciously. Checking my surroundings had become like second nature now. It must’ve made me look crazy and paranoid. I could tell it was making Trina a little nervous.
“So like you said on the phone . . . you just want me to get you a hotel room in my name?” Trina asked for clarification, her eyebrows furrowed. I realized after she repeated back to me that it seemed like a ridiculous request for a manager to be asking an employee—especially because I had chosen a hotel so far away from our city. I was desperate. I had no choice. Trina was my last resort. When I was trying to come up with a plan, Trina was the only person I came up with that I could trust to do this kind of a favor. I had pegged her as more trustworthy than Amy. I just hoped that I was right.
“Yeah, that’s it. Like I said, I just need some time off the grid. Away from everyone and everything. Since the robbery, I’ve been overwhelmed. I can’t really eat. My man is stressing me out.” I lied. “I can’t sleep. I can’t get my mind to calm down. Honestly, I feel like I’m losing my mind. I need this time or else I might lose it,” I said. It was halfway true. Since the robbery I had been a wreck emotionally. My appetite was nonexistent, and sleep was like an elusive, rare diamond.
Trina was hanging on my every word like she was trying really hard to believe my story. I could tell by the skeptical creases in her forehead and the glint in her eyes that she didn’t believe me for one second. I quickly and silently decided that she didn’t have to believe me, so long as she did the favor for me. I knew that chances were I’d never see Trina again after that day.
“You sure you’re okay? You say it’s just a break you need, but to me you look like you’ve been crying,” Trina pressed, tilting her head to one side inquisitively. “I’m not trying to get all up in your business. I just want to make sure that you’re really okay, because you don’t look okay.” There she went again, rambling on and on.