Murderville 2: The Epidemic (3 page)

“What did they do?” she sobbed. Her father’s hands had been chopped from his body. His lips kissed by the blade of a machete. The men had completely mutilated him. Liberty’s knees gave out, and she leaned over onto her father’s chest. She sobbed so loudly that it caused all eyes to focus on her. Racked with emptiness, she held on to his bloody remains. In the blink of an eye she had been transported to hell.

“Wake up, Daddy! Please! Help me!” she cried. Her eyes told her that he was gone, but her heart wouldn’t allow her to let go. A mob of men surrounded her, and she stood to her feet in terror. They grabbed at her body. Groped her and snatched at the thin fabric of her clothes. She tried to fight through the maze of taunting men, but they overpowered her.

Liberty was tossed back and forth, from man to man, as they violently played with her.

They pushed her so hard that she fell to the ground as she wept, her face falling hopelessly in her hands.

Out of nowhere a young voice yelled in protest. “No, leave her alone. Let me have her!”

“No . . . no!! No!! . . .”

*    *    *

“No . . . no . . .”

Po walked over to Liberty and gently awakened her out of her troubled sleep.

“Yo . . . yo, ma, wake up. It’s just a dream,” he said as he brushed the hair out of her face and sat beside her on the bed.

Liberty looked around the ratty motel and shook her head, bringing herself back to the present. She wasn’t in Sierra Leone. She was in Detroit, Michigan, hiding out with a man that she didn’t know. A man who had saved her from Samad’s bullets. After the hospital shooting he had ushered her into his car and raced away from Samad’s shooters.

I must have fallen asleep,
she thought as she put her hands over her face and groaned in frustration. Liberty’s heart raced, and the horror she felt was as fresh as it had been so many years ago. She sat up and breathed deeply as she closed her eyes. Her hands went to her clammy face as she shook her head. “It wasn’t a dream. It was a memory,” she replied in a solemn whisper as she wiped the tear that slid down her face.

“What?” Po replied with a lost expression on his face.

Liberty shook her head in dismissal and waved her hand. “Nothing. You wouldn’t understand,” she replied. She remembered the pain as if it had happened yesterday. It had been a long time since she had dreamt of Sierra Leone,
but A’shai’s death had thrust her right back into mourning, jogging memories of yesterday’s past.

“I’ll tell you what I don’t understand,” Po stated as he peered out of the motel window, cautiously surveying his surroundings. “Why does someone like you have bullets flying at you in broad daylight? Fuck is that, nigga?”

Liberty looked up at Po. How could she explain her life to a complete stranger? Samad had purchased her. Technically, she was his property, but she wouldn’t dare speak the truth. There was no simplifying where she had come from, and Liberty didn’t feel like she owed him any explanations.

“What type of shit
you
into?” Po questioned, while staring at her intensely.

“What type of shit are
you
into?” Liberty shot back defensively, feigning ignorance. “How do you know those bullets weren’t meant for you?”

Po thought about his current predicament. He had just lost the love of his life behind his own street dealings so he knew very well that the gunfire at the hospital could have been aimed at him. As he looked at the delicate woman before him he surmised that she was too innocent to be the target of such wrath. Her eyes pierced his as they stared at each other in uncertainty. A tense silence infected the air as her chest heaved up and down in fear. Po could sense her trepidation. Despite the fact that Liberty tried to appear strong, he knew that she was afraid. Her trembling fingertips gave her away, and Po was immediately filled with remorse.
I almost got her killed too,
he thought.

“So you didn’t recognize any of the mu’fuckas? You have no idea who those men were today?” he grilled for good measure.

Liberty paused as she thought about telling the truth, but she didn’t trust the man in front of her. He was a stranger who couldn’t possibly understand her struggle. “No,” she answered flatly, but inside she was horrified that Samad was lurking somewhere, preying upon her and threatening her very existence. Liberty wasn’t strong enough to face Samad.
I’d be dead right now if he hadn’t pushed me out of the way of those bullets,
she thought as she eyed Po. Liberty had narrowly escaped Samad’s clutches. She refused to give him another chance to end her life. She would run for the rest of her days if she had to.

Po walked toward her and sat on the double bed directly across from her. He rested his elbows on his knees and intertwined his fingers, resting his head against his forefingers while in deep thought.

“Look, we just got to lay low for the night. I don’t know what’s going on, but we need to let this shit die down. In the morning we can go our separate ways,” he instructed.

“In the morning? I need to leave now,” Liberty said urgently, anxious to put as much distance as possible between her and Samad. There was no way that she could let Samad find her. She would live her days in paranoia, watching over her shoulder, because if Samad ever caught her, he would kill her. She stood and headed for the door, but before she could open it all the way, Po’s firm hand closed it.

“That wasn’t a suggestion, sweetheart,” he said sternly. “Get comfortable.” The steely look in his eyes let Liberty know that the terms he had laid out before her were nonnegotiable. She folded her arms with a sigh of frustration and rolled her eyes as she marched over to the bed. She sat back against the grungy headboard and grabbed the remote control to turn on the TV.

Po paced the room on guard as his mind raced. For years he had moved so carefully. Every move had been meticulously calculated. He had prized himself on being strategic in the streets and suddenly felt as if everything was falling apart. With the death of Scarlett, his entire world had changed. The money that he hustled for years to save seemed worthless now that she was gone. Detroit no longer felt like home. Everything around Po reminded him of Scarlett, and now that niggas were gunning for his head he knew that it was time to go. He could no longer decipher his friends from his foes. With bullets flying in broad daylight, things in Detroit were about to get reckless, and after avenging Scarlett’s murder he planned to blow like the wind.

He peered out of the curtains one more time before grabbing the remote out of Liberty’s hands and changing the channel.

“Hey, I was watching that,” she protested.

“Now we’re watching this,” Po replied as he settled on the news station. Liberty’s eyes widened when she saw images of the hospital pop up on the screen. “I need to know what they know.”

Liberty’s heart thundered inside of her chest as she listened to the details of the news report. She hoped that her identity didn’t come into question, and she breathed a sigh of relief when the segment finally passed. No details about herself or Samad were released, and the police had no suspects.

Po clenched his jaws in frustration and looked back at Liberty. “Just hang tight until morning. Once I’m sure we weren’t followed you can go home.”

“Where’s that?” she whispered back, barely audible. The only home that Liberty had ever known was with A’shai. Wherever he was, that was where she wanted to be. Living without him would prove impossible. He was her reason for breathing, and now that he no longer could, she felt lost.

Po could see the sorrow hanging from Liberty’s shoulders. Sadness clung to her like a coat to a rack as she stared blankly at the space in front of her. She was caught up in the memory of what was and what could never be. Stuck in love with a ghost so she couldn’t move forward. She didn’t even know what her next move should be. Now that Samad had found her, Detroit was no longer an option. She had more than enough money to start her life over somewhere else. A’shai had ensured that they were set up. He had taken care of her most of their lives, and even in death he still watched over her. The first chance Liberty got she was going to empty A’shai’s safe and piece her life together as best as she could.

“What’s your name?” he asked.

Liberty looked up at him, and he could see her heartbreak.
Po didn’t know what could have possibly happened to a girl so beautiful, but he knew from jump that her story was deep. Her sorrowful eyes told a tale that her lips would never confess, and the things that she had screamed out in her sleep held too much emotion to be conjured up by the sandman. Her skin was like porcelain, delicate and pale, while her hair was thick and fell in layers around her face. For the first time since their chaotic, fateful meeting, he realized how uniquely gorgeous she was.

“Liberty,” she replied.

“Look, Liberty, I don’t mean to come off so harsh. I’m just cautious, and I would rather move smart than fast. I don’t know what happened outside of the hospital today, but I do know that I would rather be safe than sorry. I tend to be bad luck for beautiful women,” he said with a charismatic smirk. “I just lost someone who was very dear to me. I don’t need any more bodies on my heart. We don’t know each other, but please, just do me a favor and sit tight. A’ight, ma?”

Liberty nodded her head in agreement. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“I’m Po.”

She extended her hand and almost lost her breath when her heart skipped a beat as he shook it.

“Thank you,” she said.

“For what?” he answered.

“For caring about what happens to me. A lot of niggas would have just sent me on my way. Although I don’t appreciate being stuck here until morning, I can appreciate
a genuine person when I meet one. I haven’t run into a lot of them in my lifetime. So thanks.”

Po put two fingers to his forehead and nodded his head in salute before he turned his focus back to the television. No other words were spoken that night. They both were dealing with their own issues, nursing wounds that were so similar that it was irony at its finest. They were mourning the loss of love, but neither of them spoke about it. Instead, they suffered silently while keeping up a composed exterior to fool the world.

Liberty turned her back to Po and mumbled, “First thing in the morning I’m kissing Detroit good-bye.”

Her words caught Po’s attention, and he asked, “What you running from?”

“The past,” she answered simply. Exhausted and still adjusting to the new heart in her chest, Liberty quickly dozed off.

When Po was sure that she was asleep he finally allowed himself to relax. He pulled his gun off his hip, clicked off his safety, and chambered a round into the head before placing it on the nightstand next to him. If anything did pop off in the middle of the night he wouldn’t be caught off guard. Po would wake up blasting, no questions asked; the same way that he slept every night. He was never at peace, and it was the one thing he hated most about his chosen hood profession.

Po’s paranoia forced him to look outside of the curtains once more and put the security chain on the door before retiring for the night. He walked past Liberty and saw goose
bumps forming on her bare arms. He pulled the cover over her body, and then noticed the Greyhound bus ticket that she clasped tightly in her hand. He removed it and put it on the nightstand next to her, and then surrendered to his own bed, falling into a restless sleep.

By the time Po awoke the next morning Liberty was long gone. Off to catch that bus Po supposed as he looked around while shaking his head.
Bitch was hardheaded,
he thought. He quickly dismissed Liberty from his thoughts before peeking cautiously out the door. Seeing that the coast was clear he concealed his pistol on his waistline and headed to his car. The quicker he kissed the city of Detroit good-bye the better off he would be.

Po pulled up to the home he had shared with Scarlett and instantly a knot formed in his stomach. Every time he stepped a foot inside, he was tormented by the memory of her death. He could still see her body tied to the chair in which she was tortured. The horrible memory ate away at his conscience, and he was overwhelmed just at the sight of the place.

“Let me hurry up and get the fuck out of here,” Po mumbled as he reluctantly got out of his car and headed up the walkway. Distracted by grief but eerily aware of his surroundings he froze when he got to his door. The hairs on the back of his neck stood straight up as his internal alarm sounded. Pulling the 9 millimeter off his hip was second nature, and he flicked the safety off, ready to dead something . . . anything . . . anyone . . . on sight.

Like a thief in the night he moved with stealth as he
fearlessly entered, but when he saw the state of his house he realized that the intruders were long gone. Couch cushions were cut in half, furniture was turned over, hardwood floor boards were ripped up. Everything was completely ransacked, but Po knew that this was no random break-in. Whoever had come had been looking for something specific, and as Po raced down to his basement he prayed they hadn’t found it. He rushed over to the laundry room and pulled open his electrical panel.

“Fuck!” he yelled. He hit the concrete wall so hard that he instantly regretted it as his hand exploded with pain. “Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!” he shouted, half out of pain and half out of anger. The quarter million that he had saved up for Scarlett and him was gone. The safe that he had installed behind his electrical panel lay wide open. The only thing left inside was a white piece of paper. He frowned in confusion as he nursed his aching hand, then reached inside to grab the note.

If you want your belongings back bring the girl to me.

“That lying bitch!” he yelled through clenched teeth as he thought of Liberty. He punched at the air in frustration. It had taken him a long time to stack that much money. It was his only way out. It didn’t matter what he had to do to get it back. He had to go get it. He was too close to his exit to let a major setback like this put him back at square one.

*    *    *