“Sam?”
22
Kiani
Brian springs from his position, grabbing her and slamming her against the wall. I rush over to him, trying to pry his fingers from around her neck. “Brian, stop it! This is Sam!”
“Oh, I heard you. The real question is, if this is Sam, where is Derrick?”
The blood drains from my face as I realize that his question is extremely valid. We know that Derrick had to have come to this building looking for her. If she’s here and walking around with Bandits, that means that she’s fully one of them. I bring my knife up and place it next to her cheek. “Sam, where the fuck is Derrick?” She tries to respond but Brian’s grip on her neck is kind of preventing her from forming full words. “Brian, ease up a little bit so that she can respond.”
“You guys should have kept going, now you’re going to die with Derrick,” she gasps out once he eased up his grip.
I press my knife into her cheek, drawing blood. “That’s the wrong fucking answer, Sam. So, let me ask you again: Where the fuck is Derrick? I’d suggest you answer this time unless you want to revisit the feeling of a knife piercing your stomach.”
“It’s so easy for you to kill me, Kiani?”
“There’s nothing easy about any of this. But I do know that Derrick risked his life to come and find you. He left the safety of our group to go on a wild goose chase. He never stopped believing that you were alive. If I find out you had something to do with any harm that had come to him, I’ll do what I have to do.”
“He was beat up when he came here. But he’ll probably be dead by the morning.”
“Why do you say that?” Brian asks when it was clear I had lost my voice.
“The Boss likes to do tournaments when he catches a new straggler. They have to fight off some of his best men. If he lives, he’ll have to work for the boss. If he loses, he’s dead. Since he was barely able to walk on his own, I’m sure he won’t be able to last after the first battle.”
“And you were just going to let him fight and die?” I ask incredulously. “What the hell happened to you Sam? Do we mean nothing to you? It’s been barely over a year! What could possibly have happened to turn you against us so vehemently?”
Sam’s eyes burned bright as she stared at me, chest heaving against Brian’s forearms. “You have no idea what I’ve been through since they took me. I-,”
“Exactly!” I interrupted. “Since they took you. Or did you forget they were the ones that gutted you like a fucking fish. Is your memory so shitty that you forgot it was me that ran towards you? You’ve never been one to get played so easily, so what’s really going on here?”
Sam stares at me for a minute more before dropping her eyes. “I wasn’t going to let him die. I’m actually on my way to try and free him. You guys being here complicates things.”
“Free him? But not escape with him?” Brian asks.
“My place is here,” she whispers.
“For fuck’s sake, I don’t have the time to try and decipher your riddles. Let’s get Derrick and let’s go. The others are waiting for us.”
“Others?” she asks.
I realize my mistake, knowing that I can’t really trust this Sam. My throat aches at the pain of losing her all over again, though this time in a way that hurts more than when I thought she was dead. This time, Sam is choosing to be away from us.
“Brian, let her go so she can take us to Derrick. Sam, I don’t think I’d have to warn you, but if you make any sudden moves, I’ll kill you with no hesitation.”
“Gee, thanks for the vote of faith, Ki.”
“Only friends can call me Ki. You can call me Kiani. Let’s go”
“You’ll have to be quick. The shifts are changing in the next fifteen minutes. You’ll have that amount of time to get Derrick and to leave. They’ll be looking for you after that.”
We nod our understanding and begin heading back up the steps. She walks over to the keypad and press in a sequence of numbers. I poke her in her back with my knife and she says, “It’s nine-nine-four-seven-three.” The door clicks open when she finishes with the keypad. She strides confidently out in the hallway, even though Brian still has a grip on the back of her neck. “He’s down this hall.”
Brian glances at me, asking me with his eyes if we should be trusting her like this. I shrug, letting him know that we don’t have that many options if we want to get out of here alive with Derrick in tow. This is The Game, I just know it.
“I can practically feel you two having a silent conversation behind my back. I thought you only had that kind of relationship with Derrick. I wonder how he’d feel to know that you’ve replaced him.”
“He wouldn’t care because he knows I’d never replace him, plus, he’s too in love with you to even notice anything that I do,” I mutter.
“Still stuck on that, Kiani? We both know that he’s in love with you,” she retorts.
“Interesting, then I wonder why he confessed his love for you a day before he left us to look for you,” I quip.
Her steps falter before she corrects it and continues walking down the hall, not bothering to say anything else. We get to a door and she pulls out a key to open it. What she reveals stole my breath. Derrick lay there in a heap, looking as dejected as I did when I had to walk up those steps. I rush inside, dropping down to my knees beside him. “Derrick!” I whisper, trying not to get choked up on emotion when we’re still in a lot of danger. He opens his eyes and straighten up out of his heap. He grabs my wrist and pull me into his embrace, breathing me in.
“Ki,” he sighs. “Why are you here?”
“To save you, like I always do,” I joke.
“Guys,” Brian says, dragging us out of our little moment.
“Right, let’s go.”
Derrick stands up, only to push me behind his back when he sees Sam standing before Brian. “Kiani, what is she doing here?”
“We ambushed her in the stairwell. We thought it was a Bandit and I guess we weren’t wrong. After some persuasion, she decided to help us out,” I say.
“We can’t trust her, Ki. She’s with Alex.”
“Who is Alex?” Brian asks.
“I’m Alex,” a deep voice said behind Brian. Sam’s face pales and Brian stiffens. He whips around quickly, keeping Sam between him and Alex. Smart move. Alex claps his hands, a giant smile bestowed upon his face. He reaches out confidently and grab Sam by the shoulders. He pulls her towards him and Brian had no choice but to let her go, unless he wanted to get pulled with her. Alex tucks Sam under his arm, slowly looking us over. He motions for someone to come over to the closet, and I realize that he didn’t come alone. Two Bandits step into view, both holding loaded guns, and they beckon for us to step out of the closet. I curse, knowing that they’ll have more of a chance putting a bullet in our heads than we would at fighting them.
We’ll have to wait for the perfect time.
Resigned, we walk out of the closet and follow Alex and Sam down the hallway. Derrick throws his arm over my shoulder at the same time Brian reaches out and takes my hand. I grip Brian’s hand tightly, wondering how I’m going to get us out of this mess. We enter into this immaculate office, the windows giving us a great view of the city. Alex strides over to a wet bar as we stand in the middle of the office, waiting for him to do something. He fixes himself a drink while handing Sam a bottle of water.
“I would offer you something to drink, but since this a little reunion of sorts, and Sammy can’t drink, you’ll have to refrain as well.” At that statement, Sam drops her gaze to the floor and starts to fidget with her hands. I stare between Sam and Alex, back and forth until I swear I gave myself whiplash. My grip on Brian’s hand could probably snap a spoon in half. I could hear the breath hitch in Derrick’s throat.
“Sam,” he chokes out. “Are you… pregnant?”
Alex tosses his head back, laughter coming from the pit of his stomach. “Sammy! You didn’t tell them the good news?” He laughs ag
ain, clearly enjoying all of our discomfort. “Sammy here is carrying my child, we just found out a few days ago. Isn’t that great?”
I’m struggling to not throw up in my mouth, struggling with the thought of Sam being intimate with Alex. I’m not saying that he’s ugly, because he isn’t. It’s just the fact that he almost killed me and Derrick and then abducted Sam in the same breath. I look over at Derrick and I can see that all hope of bringing Sam back with us is slowly fading from his eyes. His eyes harden up and I can see part of Derrick dying.
“Congratulations,” Brian says, voice bouncing off of the walls. “Hopefully it’s twins. Two birds one pregnancy and all of that.”
Alex’s eyes sharpen, seeming to get upset that Brian isn’t fazed at all by his announcement. And why should he be? He has no ties to Sam, and I’m sure the first impression he has of her isn’t all that good. Brian shrugs his shoulders and begins to drag me over to one of the couches. The Bandits behind us shuffle uncomfortably, torn between shooting us and letting us go. Derrick quickly moves with us, looking down and noticing for the first time that Brian and I are holding hands. He turns his face away quickly, focusing instead on the couch. We flop down, with me squeezed in the middle. Derrick moves his arm and takes my hand instead.
Alex looks at our conjoined hands and the glint returns to his eyes. “My my my, beautiful, it seems like you’ve been busy since I’ve seen you last. Who’s your new boyfriend?”
I ignore him. This is not the time to fall for any of his tricks. I’m trying to figure out a way to get us out of this. They didn’t take our weapons away so there’s a chance of us just killing them all and making our great escape.
“My name is Brian.” I stop myself from shooting Brian a look, trying my hardest to not give Alex any more fuel to torture us with. I squeeze his hand a little tighter, trying to tell him to shut the hell up. He ignores me as he offers Alex a smile. “It’s nice to make your acquaintance.”
Alex nods his head towards the Bandit to the right of Brian, and the Bandit instantly responded by punching Brian in his jaw. Brian slumps against me, but I don’t react. I stare straight ahead, teeth grinding in attempt to restrain myself from yelling out expletives. Brian grunts as he rights himself, not bothering to even rub his jaw. Alex’s face hardens as he realizes that we’re not going to give him what he wants. He takes a seat across from us, crossing his leg over his knee.
“We seem to have a dilemma. Derrick was supposed to fight one of my men, but that was before you two decided to break into my home. Now, how do you think I should reward such actions?” he asks. We don’t answer, suspecting that he’s asking a rhetorical question. “I think I have a solution to my problem. You two will fight,” he says, motioning towards Brian and Derrick.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Ah! She speaks! Can’t stomach the thought of your lovers squabbling over you? You should have known better than to be with two people at once, my dear.”
“You didn’t talk like this when we first met,” I ground out.
“No, I don’t believe I did. But, one must carry themselves a certain way if they want to become and remain successful. Now, answer my question.”
“They’re not my lovers,” I say, lifting my chin and staring him down.
He stares pointedly at my hands, both of them being held by both men in question. I don’t fidget at all under his gaze. “Well, your current position begs to differ. Tomorrow. One of you will die and the other two will work for me. Get them out of my sight.”
“Wait! What about The Game?” I desperately ask, trying to piece together everything. Was The Game simply finding him? Or was it this? Sam is clearly not a prize anymore, so what else are we going to be subjected to?
Alex answers me by simply laughing, beckoning for Sam to sit in his lap. He brushes her hair to the side and slowly licks up her neck, nibbling on her ear once he reached it. “You’ll find out.”
The Bandits poke us in the back of our heads with their guns, efficiently getting us up with little effort. They take us back to Derrick’s closet and we leave without even looking back at Sam. They shove us into the small space. There’s barely enough room for all of us to fit comfortably. We all slump down once the door shuts.
“What the hell are we going to do? We have to leave. Now,” I say into the darkness. Brian is patting around on the wall, probably looking for the light switch.
“Don’t bother,” Derrick says. “They took the lightbulb out.”
Brian swears before sitting back down. He takes out his flashlight, not bothering to filter the light since they know we’re already here. He takes a deep breath and simply says, “We still have all of our weapons. Why?”
“He’s overconfident. He doesn’t believe we can beat him, even with all of our guns and stuff,” I say.
“So, you guys have all of your stuff, what can we do?” Derrick asks.
“We break out, guns blazing,” Brian and I say in unison. We look at each other and chuckle.
Derrick clears his throat. “When did you guys become so close.”
“Around the time you chose to abandon me for someone who’s pregnant with another man’s child,” I snap, not regretting my words at all.
“I had to find her. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I didn’t at least try.”
“But you could easily live with yourself for leaving me behind, got it.”
“Kiani, I-,” he begins.
“Save it. I don’t care about your excuses and this is not the time for any of that. We have to get out of here and return to our friends.”
“Where are they?” Derrick asks.
“They’re in a secured building, currently taking care of our injured,” Brian caustically responds.
“Who’s hurt?” he asks, dread creeping into his voice.
“Oh, no one. Just Ashlynn. She happened to get bludgeoned in the back of the head when we were on our way to look for you, after you abandoned us. See, Kiani wanted to go on her own, but we loved her too much to abandon her, so we tagged along. Now Ashlynn has a patch of hair missing, a concussion, and a deep wound that Christine was thankfully able to stitch up,” Brian answers, voice dripping with venom.
“Enough, Bri,” I exclaimed. “This isn’t the time for any of that!”
“How was she when you left?” Derrick asks, completely ignoring me like I didn’t just say that this isn’t the time for all of that.
“She’s fine, Derrick. I went out and got her some medicine,” I respond.
“Alone. Kiani went out alone because of the guilt she had of putting Ashlynn in danger in the first place. Thankfully, she ran into some people or she probably would have kept moving and tried to rescue you in the same day. How great would that have been?”
Derrick shoots to his feet and Brian follows right behind him. They stand toe to toe, tension seeping from them in waves. “Is there something you need to get off of your chest, Bri?” Derrick spits out, grey eyes hardening into two steel orbs.
“As a matter of fact, there is. You not only abandoned a group you were the leader of, you abandoned your best friend. Someone you grew up with. Do you realize what that did to her? You didn’t see her running back, looking for you as soon as she realized you weren’t in the group anymore. You didn’t see her crumple against a filthy building, falling in a heap on the ground when she realized that the one person that was supposed to always be there for her, left her. And for what? For someone who easily forgot about you, even went as far as to get pregnant by the man that bust you across your head. I had to watch Kiani hold that pain together, had to stand by her as she tried to lead us to safety even when she wanted nothing more than to lay down and cry. So yeah, I guess you can say I have a lot of stuff on my chest. But as Kiani pointed out, we don’t have the time to sit here and go through them all.”
“You sure you’re not upset because out of the blue you got feelings for Ki?” Derrick asks.
Brian laughs in his face, looking like he
’s itching for a fight. “Out of the blue? You don’t know what I’ve been feeling since I’ve joined this group. You and Kiani were practically glued at the hip until you decided she wasn’t that important anymore.”
I hop up when I see Derrick ball up his fist. “Are you guys stuck on fucking stupid?! We do not have time for you two to have a pissing contest! Unless you want to wait around and let Alex put you in this weird fighting arena and you two can fight to the fucking death. I’m not about to sit around and waste time when our friends are counting on us to get out of here alive.
Brian looks at me and takes a deep breath. He grabs my hand and tugs me into his side. “I’m sorry Kiani. You’re right.” I take a step away from him, not liking how he’s trying to show a little possession of me. I shoot him and Derrick a look and flop back onto the floor. I check my watch and realize that it’s well into the night now, going on nine o’clock.
“We need to go. Should we try to lockpick the door or just break it down?” I ask.
Derrick takes a moment to calm himself down before he shifts back into my partner in crime. “We need to try to break out of here as quietly as possible. They’re going to be expecting it, seeing as they left you with all of your weapons.”
“Kiani, work your magic,” Brian says with an apologetic smile on his face.
I groan while crawling over to the door, kneeling in front of it so that I can get a better view of what I’m working with. Brian walks over with the flashlight so that I don’t have to squint to see. Thankfully, this lock is a lot simpler than what I had to work with to get us into this building. It takes only about five minutes until I have the door unlocked. I turn around and give Derrick one of my guns. That still leaves me with one gun, all of my screwdrivers, my pocket knife and my baby machete that Ashton gave me.
Kiani’s Journey- Mayhem Page 16