Anisa threw her hands in the air and screamed in frustration. “Fuck that! I know his ass is up to something!” She grabbed her keys off of the table and looked at me. “Put on your shoes and ride with me for a minute.”
“What? Anisa, I’m not even dressed! Where are we going?” I asked, astonished at how far she was taking this.
“We’re about to follow his ass,” she declared.
I wanted to tell her no, because I knew that Murder was faithful to Anisa. He was never home because of me, but of course I couldn’t tell her that. Anisa was tripping over money, making herself look like a real gold digger, and that wasn’t even her personality. Murder always took care of home. Whatever reason he had for clearing the safe, I knew it was a good one.
“Come on, Miamor!”
I slipped a hoody on over my camisole and slipped into some skinny jeans. I stepped into my flip flops and was out the door. I had never seen my sister and Murder even disagree, so this full-fledged argument was so out of character for them both. I felt like I was the cause of it. Everything was fine before I made the stupid mistake of kissing Murder.
We slid into Anisa’s Chrysler, and just as Murder pulled out of the parking lot, we tailed him, making sure we stayed at least a half block behind him at all times.
“Anisa, are you sure you want to do this?” I asked when I noticed us getting onto the bridge headed out of New York and into Jersey. The look she shot me told me to shut the fuck up and ride, so that’s what I did, even though in my gut I knew that something about the entire situation did not feel right.
“You don’t know Murder like you think you do, Miamor,” Anisa said. “The nigga ain’t the saint that he be trying to make himself out to be. You wanna know why you can’t answer the phone in the house? The type of business he’s into? The nigga is grimy, Miamor.”
“He’s a hustler, Anisa. He’s never done you dirty. How can you say that?” I asked.
“Baby sister, open your eyes. He ain’t a hustler. He’s the one the hustlers call when they got a problem or when they need to make a problem disappear. He’s a killer, Miamor. He would murk yo ass if the money was good. Why the fuck you think his name is Murder?” Anisa stated harshly as she floored the gas pedal, trying to keep up with Murder.
A killer? I thought incredulously. I’m around him all the time. How could I have not known? Why didn’t he just tell me? I’m a big girl. I could’ve handled it.
I was lost in my thoughts and couldn’t picture the attentive man I had come to know killing anybody, but then the look of rage that I had witnessed in his eyes the night of my party flashed through my mind. “I will murder a nigga over you!” he had said. I could hear his words as if he was in my ear whispering them at that very moment. Syllable by syllable, the phrase replayed in my mind. At the time I thought he was being overprotective, but now I knew that he had meant every word he had spoken. It was something flattering about the fact that he would take a risk like that over me. Instead of feeling fear, I smiled, but quickly wiped it off my face so Anisa wouldn’t take notice.
I felt the car jerk as she hit her breaks suddenly, and cut off her headlights. “There that nigga go right there. What the fuck is he doing way out here? He gone make me beat a bitch ass!” Anisa threatened. She was so blind with rage that she was not making sense.
As I looked around, I frowned. We were pulling onto a dead end street. There was nothing around us but old, abandoned buildings. “Anisa, I think you’re taking this too far,” I finally spoke up.
“I’m not trying to hear all that. All I know is if he’s meeting a bitch here, I’m gon’ fuck some shit up,” she said.
I sighed and noticed lights approaching from behind
“Get down. Here comes somebody,” she said.
We inched down in our seats until the car had passed us, and noticed that it was stopping directly next to Murder’s vehicle. The brake lights came on, and somebody stepped out of the car. It was hard to see because all of the street lights were busted out in this part of town.
“I can’t see shit,” Anisa whispered. “Can you see who just got out of the car?”
“I can only see Murder,” I replied.
“Fuck this!” Anisa said. She got out of the car and shouted, “Murder, what the fuck is going on?”
“Nigga, you trying to set me up?” I heard a man’s voice yell out angrily.
I scrambled to turn on the headlights because I still couldn’t see what was going on. Finally, I turned the lights on, illuminating the dead end.
Murder reached for his pistol, but before he could pull it from his waistline, the guy Murder had been meeting withdrew first, pointing a chrome.45 in Murder’s face.
“No!” I heard Anisa scream as she ran toward the scene.
“Anisa!” I yelled after her as I got out of the car.
Murder rushed the dude who had to be twice his size, and his sneak attack caused the guy’s gun to slide across the concrete.
“Murder!” Anisa cried out as she watched the two men tussle on the ground
Murder finally pulled his gun, but the dude wasn’t giving up easily. He grabbed Murder’s wrists and used his weight to his advantage as they struggled for power, both knowing that whoever ended up with the steel in their hands at the end was the only one leaving the scene alive.
Anisa ran straight into the confrontation, grabbing the guy by the shirt. He flung her to the ground and muscled the gun away from Murder.
I ran as fast as I could toward them. My flip flops came off halfway there and the gravel dug into the bottom of my feet as I sprinted toward my sister. He had the gun pointed their way, but never saw me coming. I picked up a brick and smashed it against the side of his face with all my might. It was like an ant going against a giant, because although it dazed him, it didn’t stop him from firing the gun. He slapped the shit out of me, sending me flying to the ground. I landed on my stomach, something hard digging into my side as I heard the gun shots ring out.
Boom! Boom!
“No!” I screamed. I felt Murder’s gun directly underneath me and I grabbed it without thinking, and still lying on the ground, I scrambled backwards and fired.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
The dude dropped instantly and in the blink of an eye, and behind some beef that I did not even own, I’d caught my second body.
Flashes of Perry came back to me. I started to relive that nightmare all over again… Anisa’s screams in my ear, the baby she had killed because of him… all of the sudden the man lying before me dying was Perry. The dude was scrambling, holding his stomach and choking on his own blood. Shakily, I stood to my feet, walked over to him, and put the gun to his head. I pulled the trigger again and again and again, until the click of an empty chamber forced me to stop, and his blood splatter covered my shirt.
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” Anisa yelled out. “I’m so sorry, Murder! I’m so sorry!”
I could hear sirens in my ears, but I couldn’t force myself to move. My feet felt like they were made of cement.
“Miamor, help me… he’s shot!”
I was in a daze. I heard Anisa calling my name, but it wasn’t until I heard Murder call me that I snapped out of it. “Miamor!” he called out sternly. I turned my head, my chest heaving, tears in my eyes, and distress in my heart. “I need you, ma!”
His shirt was soaked in blood, and Anisa helped him to his feet. He cringed in pain as her hands searched his body. “Where are you hit?” she asked, the sirens getting clearer.