It Begins

“It don’t look like you’re looking for no job,” came Malik’s voice breaking over her shoulder and she actually jumped. She must have been getting soft since it began. It was not the first time odd things had surrounded her but it had never occurred with this frequency. Even now though it had been light out the room was pitched in darkness and she knew storm clouds covered their building alone. Taking a deep breath to draw herself back she willed the clouds to part before people could take notice again.

      Malik leapt back as if he’d been burned. At least there was a positive aspect to this madness. She could not believe she’d ever fancied him her knight, more like nightmare. He’d changed when she’d showed up at his doorstep. It was a gradual change yet it grew more disgusting to her daily. It was immediately clear that he never intended to rescue her. Though he’d told her those exact words when he’d convinced her to run. Oh he’d seemed happy enough to see her at first. He’d dealt her one of his mind blowing kisses and proceeded to strip her to her undergarments but when she’d expressed her delight at them finally being able to be together forever he’d quickly corrected her.

       

He’d said she could stay the night and finally be able to stand up to her father the next day. She remembered feeling as if her chest had caved in. It had not been heartbreak but gut wrenching fear for in that moment she knew she’d never loved him but only saw him as a means to an end. Apparently he’d felt the same only there ends had not met. He wanted her virtue and she’d wanted her freedom. In that moment she’d decided that she would be the victim no longer. He’d been conning her all the while convincing her to con her keeper.

      Still she’d come too far to take a loss now. With a deep breath she’d decided to take matters into her own hands. So she did not tell him that going home was not an option or that he keeper would beat her senseless and literally flay him alive. Even if he believed her he was a coward who would sell her out to save his own tail in a heartbeat. So with a smile that did not reach her eyes she’d quickly changed gears and reminded him that Correa was not her father. Her keeper’s name had felt like a curse on her tongue but she’d done her best to appear calm.

    

To sooth him she’d stripped off not her underwear but all of her jewelry. Her poise when she rose and turned to him was to be admired with the typhoon of raging emotions brewing inside her. Still she turned to him and said “I’m done with that arrangement and that should buy me a few weeks to make new ones.” Whatever objections he’d had were clouded by greed yet it hadn’t lasted long. Though she knew her mounds of gold and jewels were worth hundreds of thousands he’d not to be able to move them for more than a few thousand. Even if that were true, which it was not as she knew where his stash was and he’d only “moved a pair of flawless 3 karat diamonds, she’d looked it up and that alone covered more than just the rent in his rundown apartment for more than six months.

        He didn’t just want all of her worldly possessions or her damn dignity for having fell for his scheme. He wanted her last virtue, being a sinner in every other right including murder, it was all she had. Now after all he’d duped her out of she’d be damned if she gave him that too. And when he’d tried to force the issue was the real beginning. He’d come in stinking drunk and attempted to grope her as she slept on his coach, as far from his bed as she could get in his tiny abode. Only this time when she’d said no he’d gotten angry.

       

   “Bitch I can’t even get no pussy from nobody else with you laying up in my crib like queen Sheba. What if I call ya daddy huh? Fuck yo lil’ trinkets! How much would he pay to get his baby girl back? You want to cooperate now?” She could not explain what happened next, it may have been her fear or her deep repulsion of his pathetic attempt to blackmail her into sex but she broke. It was a divine feeling of coming undone, something alien yet tantalizing coursing through her veins.  Then the most powerful surge of lighting quaked the earth. Malik whimpered when the building shook but she felt truly free for the first time in ever. When the lightning struck again it felt as if the very earth might collapse as the room, the building, and even the city went black. “Fire” she heard wailed from a chorus of voices all around the building.

         It was only when she came awake that she felt shame for having enjoyed what had frightened so many others. Thank goodness no one was hurt in the small fire that the lightening had caused on the roof. She and Malik had never spoken of what occurred later but from the fearful glances he dealt her when he thought she wasn’t looking, he knew. He also never tried her again. Of course that wouldn’t last with a boy such as he, brimming with a dangerous mixture of cockiness and stupidity. He reminded her of that now.

       “Ya need to be looking for a job. My Wi-Fi ain’t free along with my utilities, those clothes I bought you, or the food you eat. Yo ass need an exit strategy. Look it’s been a month you said a few weeks. This ain’t working out. But look I’m a nice guy so I know this nice chick you can stay with.” She loved his resolve in this, as if he had the power to determine her future. She would not let that happen any longer.

      

“Fine I’ll leave but I don’t need you to tell me where to stay. Just give me my ring and I’ll find my own way.” She’d only stayed this long out of guilt. Now that the delusion of love and valor had dissipated reality sunk into her flesh like a knife. This boy was no hero and she’d put him in grave danger. If her keeper came looking for her he would likely fry without her there. In some foolish way she sought to protect him. Sometimes plans had to change.

       “What do you mean your ring? That’s my ruby and diamond ring. You owe me that plus I said I got you.” She noted his tone becoming increasingly aggressive and though his face remained impassive he bounced his leg on the ball of his foot. His fingers even flexed nervously as if he wished to make a fist. She would tread lightly. She refused to have to hurt another human being. But she had no qualms about scaring him.

        “One of my tiniest trinkets bought these cloths and I don’t want all of it back. You can keep everything else. Okay just give me my ring that’s more than reasonable.”

     “No I’ll keep everything and you can do what I say. Look I’m done playing with yo’ ass.”

     

As he spoke she could feel the minute hairs all over her body stand on edge as the static began to cling to her. This time she willed it, calling it from the skies above and in seconds she was charged as the darkness gathered. Through Malik’s tiny window she could see the blue lightening lick the black clouds but she made sure that a bolt did not strike the earth. Another crack of electricity lit the room and she saw her reflection in that same window pane. She was monstrous with her hair on end and the tiny bolts snaking over her body, her eyes but orbes of flashing power.

      She could clearly understand the terror reflected in his own eyes and for an instant she became drunk with it before a bolt shot from her and the lamp next to Malik exploded, she stopped. It was that wickedness within her again, a monster that she did not want to unleash. Oh but once it was free there was no compare to the thrill. Only the shame returned when she heard the telltale whiz and drip of urine flowing down Malik’s pants and into the carpet. Quickly she dashed to grab her ring and head straight for the door. Though some sense of pity remained to her because she turned back. Malik flinched as if her stare would kill him.

   

  “Keep the rest of the jewels and get out of here Malik. I’m sorry for laying this at your doorstep. Even I don’t fully understand what I’m apart of but I do know it is a danger to you and I don’t want more innocent people hurt. You’ll need to put on a suite and pretend to be some big shot to move those pricier pieces and not at a pawnshop. Like I told you before they pay top dollar at that gold and diamond refinery on 5^th and Lenox but they don’t ask a lot of questions.”

    His response was a whimper but she had to make him understand. “Look my Keeper knows of my ability and he will track it here. You cannot be here when he does. He will kill you. Do you understand?” Still he sat there all but drooling like a fool. “MALIK,” she finally screamed. “A shower, the suite, 5^th and Lenox, take a cashier’s check instead of cash and don’t stay around here flashing money. That necklace alone is worth at least 50 large. That’ll be more than enough to hold you over in a new state until you can find work if you’re not stupid”

     With this she walked away and didn’t look back. She had managed to do something other than dodging Malik’s clumsy advances in her time with him. She moved with purpose and a short bus  ride later she stood at the entrance of another Chicago mainstay. The city was a jungle of finely spun brick and in the shadow of these hulking structures were gangways, an interconnected web of dark alleys crisscrossing between run down brick hovels to grand homes. Only the brave or foolish ventured into these uncertain depths and today Chazzmine felt a little of both. In the center of the pulsing darkness she could spot a slither of light. With a single breath she plunged into the darkness toward her beacon of hope.