Shattered (22 page)

“Here’s a gun just in case,” he said, taking the .38 Smith & Wesson from the duffel bag.

I let out hot air.

“It’s the same one you used that day we went to the range. Do you remember?”

My hands trembled as he put the lightweight silver-and-black gun in my hand.

“All you have to do is aim and shoot. It’s a short-range gun, so if you have to use it, you gotta be close. You understand?”

I nodded and wiped my forehead nervously.

“Double-tap that muthafucka when you use it, too. Just to be sure. You hear me?”

“Yeah,” I whispered.

“Okay, KiKi. I’m gone.” He pulled me close and kissed me hard before letting me go. A teardrop landed on his shirt. He wiped it away and said, “I’ll call you as soon as I’m in range. Don’t be scared. Be brave.”

“Where you going, Rashard?”

“Don’t worry. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

“What if you don’t come back?” I asked.

“Then…call Pat. She’ll come get you,” he said before walking through the door.

I couldn’t believe that was his plan. I watched Rashard back the black truck down the gravel road before his headlights disappeared. I had a vision of Dizzle leaving me back in the trailer that time all those years ago. Scared, alone, and in a strange place. At least this time, I had a gun. I checked my cell phone but saw there was no reception. I looked around the cabin and saw that at least there was a landline. I called Meeka to check on Amir and see if she heard any news about Peaches. When she told me Peaches was stable and that she was at Washington Hospital Center, I took a deep breath.

“Where are you?” she asked.

“I don’t know, but I gotta go. I’ll call you again when I can,” I said before hanging up.

I thought about calling Toya to see how Mommy was doing, but that pain was too much. I walked around the cabin trying to take my mind off of everything. Here I was trying to protect her from knowing what Ryan did to me, and instead Ryan is still the cause of her pain. I looked in drawers and closets, hoping I’d find something interesting. I was surprised to see there was a bigger version of the same wallet-size picture Jacylyn had of her and Ty’s son sitting in a frame on his nightstand. Guess he used this house, too. Maybe he did have a heart after all.

I went to lay in the biggest bed in the cabin, and the sheets smelled just like Rashard. I was gonna have to get used to calling him Rashard and not Rich. There was probably a lot I was gonna have to get used to, like the fact that he was a cop. It was like we was gonna have to meet each other and start all over again. I put the .38 underneath my pillow and closed my eyes. It took me awhile to fall all the way asleep cuz I was waiting to hear from Rashard. I kept listening to the hum of the fridge. Soon I was knocked out. I woke up a couple hours later cuz the cabin had got so damn cold since the fire had went out in the fireplace.

I sat up and looked at the clock. It was just after five. Rashard had been gone for six hours, and he still hadn’t called me. I tried to relight the fireplace with some long matches I found. I rubbed my arms and waited for the room to warm up. I turned the TV on and grabbed a blanket from off the bed to keep me warm on the couch. I cut on an old Mike Epps movie they had sitting in the DVD player since there wasn’t no cable.

I was laughing at something funny that had just happened when I heard the front door open.

“Rashard?” I asked, jumping up. Then I smelled the burning cinnamon scent in the air. I only knew one person who smelled like that. Even though I wasn’t scared, I ran to Rashard’s room. I was gonna have something waiting for Smurf’s ass, but he was much faster than I thought.

“Come here, you snitch bitch!” Smurf said, storming toward the room as I slammed and locked the door. His twisted face and heavy accent seemed strange in this safe place. He kicked the door as I fumbled for the gun underneath the pillow. I was too scared to use it, but the more Smurf kicked the door, the more I found the nerve to squeeze the trigger. I fired three rounds at the door. Smurf stopped kicking. I wondered if I had hit him. I waited for another minute, then suddenly Smurf yelled, “You missed, bitch!” Then he kicked the door much harder, and this time it flew off the hinges.

I screamed when I saw his ugly face glaring at me. Smurf was up on me before I could squeeze another round. He slapped me so hard, he knocked me to the ground and the gun fell underneath the bed. Smurf reached the gun before me and slid the nose inside my panties and smiled as I squirmed away. His touch was disgusting.

“All you had to do was play your muthafucking part. You should know how to do that by now!” he yelled over top of me. He unbuckled his pants, and my eyes grew big. “But now I’ma remind you who your ass is.”

“No!” I yelled. I wasn’t gonna let him rape me. He was crazy if he thought I was gonna let him just use my body again for his own sick pleasure. I thought about Yenee fighting back with Skinny Man, and Nakeeda telling me not to give up. “Get off of me!” I screamed, and then I tried to crawl away backward.

I couldn’t let him have me. But then Smurf grabbed me hard by my hair and kept me still with his other hand. I reached around to grab something. Anything. My hand knocked the phone over, and then I reached the lamp cord. I yanked it down hard, making the lamp crash over his head. I hit him in his face and scratched his eyes with my fingernails. I did any and everything to try to keep him the hell away from me. It slowed him enough for me to pull farther away. I flipped over on my knees, feeling for the gun that he had dropped.

“Get back here, you stupid bitch!” He jerked me back toward him, just as my fingers grazed the gun. A few more inches and it would be mine.

“I can fuck you just like this, too,” he said, pulling my sweatpants down.

I leaned forward another inch and pulled the gun from under the bed just as Smurf pulled my panties down. I twisted my body around so I could face him with the gun in my hand, but before I could squeeze the trigger, I heard a
poouuf
sound, and then Smurf’s heavy body collapsed hard on top of me. Rashard stood over top of Smurf with a gun that had a silencer on it. I was so happy when I saw Rashard that I cried. My heart raced with relief.

“I knew that stupid muthafucka was gonna follow us here. You all right?” he asked, rolling Smurf off of me, then scooping me up from the floor.

I held on to Rashard tight and tried not to look at the bullet in the back of Smurf’s head as he carried me out of the room.

“You fought back, baby. You fought back. You’re okay now,” he said over my sobs.

He was right. I had fought back, and I survived. Donte and Ed dragged Smurf’s body out to the back of the cabin where Ty was waiting.

“You’re safe now,” he said, wiping away my tears and rocking me in his lap. “I’ll never let nothing happen to you again.”

“
I’m
never letting nothing happen to me again,” I said.

Rashard smiled and kissed me. “Yeah, you’re definitely a big girl now.”

I closed my eyes, relieved that I was safe and that Rashard was here. I was so proud of myself. I could tell that I’d grown so much in such a short time. All the shit I’d been through in my life was only making me stronger for something else. Even though I ain’t know all of what I was doing with my life, I knew that I was in control of me and that I had to take care of myself cuz I was worth it.

“Diamonds are made under pressure,” Rashard whispered in my ear.

I guess he had always seen that in me. Seemed like a lot of people seen that in me, except for me. Mommy, Toya, Peaches, Yodi, and Meeka. Even Kareem and Audri saw a light inside of me. I was sorry I hadn’t realized it sooner. Yenee said something in that room that still sticks with me—“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you”—and she was right. Even though I had Rashard’s love and support, there was still much for us to talk about, especially the secrets we both kept. I had to learn to love myself first, though. Flaws and all.

I
took a deep breath as I leaned forward to look closer at my eyes in the mirror. I was so nervous. My note cards was lying on the bathroom counter, waiting for me to do another practice read. I thumbed through them and took another deep breath.

“Are you one of the speakers?” asked a girl with long braids and big chunk jewelry as she washed her hands in the sink beside me. Her eyes was a dead giveaway for her fifteen or sixteen years, even though her makeup wanted people to think she was much older.

I nodded.

“Oh, which one are you? I’m the mistress of ceremony, Misa Hodges,” she said, smiling and shaking her wet hands off before drying them on a towel.

“I’m Shakira Scott.”

“Oh, you’re the one Ms. N told me to make sure I pay extra attention to,” Misa said, smiling.

I smiled because I had finally agreed to talk to Nausy’s girls at the annual YELL Foundation Fund-raiser Reception, and it seemed like everyone was here, local politicians and community leaders. My family even got dressed up for the event. Mommy, Toya, and even Yodi came out the house to hear me speak. Peaches and Meeka was everybody’s stylists for the evening, making sure we all looked good. Rashard looked hella good in his Michael Kors suit. At the last minute, two girls stumbled in the room looking lost and excited at the same time. One had a real short haircut with cute gold earrings, and the other one, long dark tresses down her back. I couldn’t believe my eyes. Camille and Trina Boo had showed up. As happy as I was to see them, my stomach shuddered a little. I was worried about what I was about to say in front of all these people. It wasn’t just strangers in the room, but my family and closest friends who was about to learn the truth about me. I had already talked to Mommy about what had happened to me when I was in foster care, about Dizzle, Nut, and even about Ryan. At first she was devastated. She couldn’t understand why I didn’t tell her or why I never reported Dizzle. I couldn’t understand that totally, either. I had just wanted to forget anything bad had ever happened. Telling someone would make it all real. Once I told her that I was okay and that I was doing my best to move on from the pain, she said she’d try her hardest to do the same. Every time I talked to her, I could tell she was getting a little better than the day before and so was I.

“Well, I’ll see you out there,” Misa said, touching my arm.

“Okay,” I said, smiling before putting a second coat of lipstick on. I took another deep breath, then walked out of the bathroom.

The art gallery was filled with beautiful artwork, some from the YELL teenagers and some from well-known artists. I watched Mommy and my sisters eating hors d’oeuvres and talking about some of the sculptures. Just when I was about to move on, I smelled Rashard’s soothing cologne beside me.

“Hey, beautiful,” he said, placing his hand on the small of my back.

“I’m so nervous, babe,” I said, flipping through my note cards.

“Don’t be. You got this. Just be you.”

Ever since Smurf “disappeared,” Rashard’s case dried up. He had the Colombian connect, but Salvador didn’t make it his business to operate in the States, so there was a big problem. Rashard was assigned to another case, but because he was frustrated with everything that had happened to me and felt somewhat responsible for the deaths of Nakeeda, Yenee, and even Ryan and Peaches’s shooting, Rashard had decided to continue his regular detective duties without doing any more undercover work. We had been living in a small house in Chantilly, Virginia, away from all the drama he had become so used to in D.C. The only time I thought about Smurf and what had happened in Costa Rica was when we went to visit Ms. Pat and I saw
Bonita Applebum
parked in the driveway out Calvert County.

“Hey, KiKi…you ready?” Nausy asked, walking up to me. “We’re about to get started.”

“Okay.”

Several minutes later, I listened as Misa shared the purpose for the YELL Foundation to the audience, and then she introduced the speakers. A few of them shared their stories of success, and then Nausy introduced me herself. After she told the audience how reluctant I had been and that she and I knew each other ever since we met at Ms. Val’s foster care, she welcomed me to the podium.

I waited for the slight applause to stop, then I said, “‘Just because you have a nightmare, doesn’t mean you stop dreaming.’ That’s a line from a Jill Scott song I heard on the radio on the ride here tonight. From the time I was eight years old, my life was just that…a nightmare,” I began, putting the note cards to the side. I thought about what Rashard said. I was just going to be me and say what was in my heart.

By the time I had finished sharing stories from all the muddy roads I traveled down and how I was finally strong enough to talk about it, I had remembered Brianna and her cloudlike dress in that Laundromat all those years ago. I told them that I still had dreams of being a real dancer, that I took dance classes at night, and that when I danced, I felt free. To the young girls in the room, I said, but also signed for my mommy, “No matter what you been through in life, what crazy, dark past you may have, or what sin somebody inflicted upon you, remember to dream. Dream big, too. Know that someone is always there to help you reach your dreams—you. But only if you never, ever give up and always, always love yourself first.”

The room erupted into thunderous applause. I wiped away a tear that trickled down my cheek just as a flash from a camera lit up the stage. What I had shared had released me. I took a deep breath and smiled. More flashing lights. Nausynika jumped out of her seat to give me a huge hug. She squeezed both my hands, then said, “Ank thaga ou yaga.”
Thank you
in pig latin.

I saw Misa clapping and wiping away a tear from over Nausy’s shoulder and knew that I had done the right thing. “No…thank you.”

1. What role, if any, did KiKi’s mother have in what happened to her children being split up across the city? Was she to blame for the discovery Yodi’s day care provider made? 
   
2. If KiKi’s father was alive, do you think her family would’ve experienced just as many disappointments? 
   
3. Do you think the relationship KiKi had with Nausy and Dizzle was a result of KiKi’s poor self-esteem or something more? 
   
4. Why do you think KiKi decided to work the streets for Nut rather than live with her mother? 
   
5. How do you feel about Peaches not giving KiKi a place to stay when she was at one of her lowest points? Did she owe KiKi considering all she had done to help Peaches get that house? 
   
6. Prostitution is considered the oldest profession in the world. Was KiKi too quick to turn to it every time she was in a bind? If so, what else should she have done for money? Consider her education, experience, and skill set. 
   
7. What was it about Audri that drew KiKi to her? Was Audri right by not getting KiKi some help? 
   
8. How would you describe Toya and KiKi’s relationship? Why do you think they never seemed to get along? 
   
9. Do you believe Ryan always had an incestuous attraction toward KiKi? Why or why not? Should she have told her mother sooner about the incident? 
   
10. Why do you think KiKi struggled with the decision to open up about her life to others? Is this something she should’ve kept to herself? Why or why not?