Pink Lips (26 page)

Kail looked at him, no fear in her heart as he murdered her with his eyes and clenched teeth. She smiled at him as she pushed the gun with her forehead daring him to do something that she knew deep down he couldn't. She looked him dead in the eyes as she lowered his gun with her grass-green-colored finger.

“Go home.” Kail picked the sniper up and aimed it at Rock.

“You think I won't kill you?” Junior asked as he shot beside Kail, making her flinch.

They both looked at each other; their eyes met with a fury and hate so strong like a furious storm was raging inside both of them. With their weapons ready to draw blood to end this battle, they held strong.

“I'll shoot you quicker than you would shoot me.” Kail pointed the gun at him; her jaw clenched.

“You'll be on the ground before the bullet can even reach me.”

Kail looked at him as she lowered her gun. She was there to take a life, not lose her own. She passed by him, her shoulder shoving into his body as she walked out of the room. She didn't want to play Russian roulette; that was no fun for her and she left knowing that she would kill Rock one day if it were the last thing she'd ever do.

T
he sky was gray and musk filled the cold night air. Evelyn stared up trying to look for the moon, but its face was nowhere to be seen. Dark clouds filled the night and all she could see was a bird fly by, adding to the eeriness of the night.

The stars in the sky were nonexistent; between them arose puffs of gray. Those balls of cotton seen during the day shifted into streams of gray, the color of ash and soot. They blanketed the sky, hiding the full moon in its full glory behind them. But the moon started to fight to shine its light on the earth, and as Evelyn leaned on her car, the light rested on her face, adding a glow to her already tanned skin.

The moon hung high in the sky, a perfect silver disk, bleaching the land into a ghost-like replica of daytime. Evelyn smiled as she looked at the stars passing by her up above. She knew one of them was Melee, high in the sky with no worries. She smiled as her deceased daughter's face entered her mind.

The thundering noise of the hemi echoed through the darkness; the cacophonous sound of a ton of steel and screeching tires made Evelyn realize that she was no longer alone. She looked behind her as the red truck parked and Talvin appeared at her side.

“You have five minutes.” Evelyn started to count down.

“You were right about Willow.” He used his hands to talk. “I hate that bitch. I want her dead.”

“She killed my daughter,” Evelyn said as a tear fell from her icy-cold stare. “I want her dead also.” She wiped her eyes in fear of showing emotion in front of anyone. “She's just more skilled than you. She's smart and she thinks more ahead than you.”

“Then we need to put our heads together to end this bitch.”

“I'm ahead of you.” Evelyn opened the door and grabbed something from her car.

“What is this?” Talvin asked.

“Security,” Evelyn said and kissed his lips. “Something tells me this is our security. As long as we have this, I'm sure Willow will play by our rules.”

•  •  •

Willow thought it was unusually quiet for a Saturday night. Usually there were taxis and pedestrians, but today there was only a bored-looking crossing guard sitting against a giant potted plant in the middle of a two-way intersection.

She walked deep into the alley, and then turned left at the trash heap past the tramp finding her high. There beyond the puddles and shattered street lights was a door. “Virgin Mary,” she whispered, as the door slid open. How could she forget the password? She saw this alley, that tramp, that debris in every nightmare since she'd last seen her father. And here she returned to see him again.

The doorman pulled his shirt over the pistol wedged deep behind his belt. It was the only sign of sincerity toward the girl he remembered as an infant, always happy and crying in her mother's arms. He remembered her at her beginning, smiling and laughing. Yet her mother always had her arms wrapped around her. Willow noticed, but only glared at this sign of weakness; he would be the next one killed. In this world, only the fiercest survived.

Willow was inside the place her father called his private office. Time had dismantled the crispness of the wall paper; cigar smoke stained the ceilings. Chairs were withered down to their foam stuffing, and plywood held up the bar. Her father once poured liquor in crystal glasses to men in tailored attire. Where were they now? Shattered and forgotten, just like those prized glasses.

It was slightly past 2 a.m.: Rock would be arriving soon. She looked around for the portrait of Bonnie and Clyde that hung above his favorite chair, the one where her pops always sat. It, too, had aged and hung slanted, its clean imprint among the wall behind it. She sat at the small table for two and peered out into the hazy crowd waiting anxiously. Women rubbed at the thighs of married men. They were all part of the business.

Willow's life was a cycle. Men entered, made money, and left. Either they found another girl to fondle their legs, or were slaughtered. No one who entered left an impact. The only person she had was her sister, Kail. She never left, at least Willow thought.

The doorman sprang up, as someone beat on the door. His hand fell to his pistol; Willow's heart to the floor. She swallowed her nerves. Was she ready to see this man again so soon, twenty-odd years after the failed attempt to assassinate her mother in front of her timid eyes? The doorman pulled the pistol out; the steel collided with the dim lights, shining a glare in Willow's direction. To her relief, it was only a base head, begging for more medicine from his suppliers.

“Will?” a muffled voice came from behind. The voice she knew too well, a familiar nickname only to the ones before the attack. It was Rock. Her father had been in the back room, feeding his very own cravings. The medicine was too strong. He stood in the shadows of his office behind a daughter he once knew.

“Willow?”

This time she turned around, solid in the face. Weakness led to death, even in her father's arms. Rock knew the rules of this life, and corrected himself. Willow had died with her mother; now only a Teflon shell remained.

Rock sat down at the chair across from her. It wobbled as his weight hit it, and he, too, swayed deliriously. His hair had an aging tint, the only precious feature. The rest of his face cracked in a mixture of smooth skin and residue. He always had trouble wiping the white medicine from his nose. With him was a bottle of brew and his trusty Bible. Willow wondered if he ever even read it, or was it just entertainment for his busy hands. As he tweaked, he could run his fingers through the pages, imagining a story of his own creation.

“So, you're here for closure, huh?” Rock muttered. He fumbled over his words in the beginning, but eventually found his route.

“Yes,” Willow whispered, ready to hear the story of her parents.

“Your mother was a beautiful woman. Yeah, she was something sweet… She had to die. Either that or it would have been all of us, including Junior. You hear me?” He then described to Willow everything, as if she weren't there to see it all already. The way she screamed when she was shot, the way the house looked after it was shot. Then, without hesitation, he told Willow that it had to be done.

“I mean, it was my fault.” Rock wiped at his nose, licking the white smear off his fingers. His teeth were like an animal's, overlapping and menacing. This was no man that sat in front of her this night, but an animal itself. Willow sat silent. She never believed she would hear this expression of guilt.

Rock smiled. “I'm happy you're alive.”

Willow jolted up, knocking the Bonnie and Clyde portrait to the floor. Her ears rang at the senseless words that foamed from Rock's mouth: a bark he unleashed at the worst moment. No amount of training from the streets could have prepared Willow for the moment.

Tears blurred her vision, as the crowd all turned to watch her as she ran out of the establishment. Weakness meant death, and the tears that began to fall were welcoming trouble. She ran past the doorman, as he once again hid his pistol under his shirt. Down the alley she ran, past the tramps and trash, back to her car.

“I'm happy you know the truth,” she heard her father yell from his office.

Willow got inside her car and sped through the clear streets with tears running down her face. She took her gun out of the compartment where she'd hidden it and questioned if she should go back and shoot up Rock's office. Her heart was beating so loud that the radio's volume at its highest level couldn't compete.

She parked and walked into her condo as Kail stopped her at the door. She glared at her for a moment; the same look she had given her right before she had shot her. Willow, aware of the look, held her hands on her gun ready for whatever that was about to happen. That night she would have killed Kail with no thought behind it.

“We have a job,” Kail said as Willow walked by, never acknowledging her presence.

“Then do it.”

“No, bitch,” Kail pointed to herself and then Willow, “we gon' do it.”

“Kail, you can't make me do shit that I don't wanna do, and tonight I'm not doin' nothin'.”

“I knew them niggas would make you soft.” Kail shook her head.
“You done forgot about this money. You let love cloud your fuckin' judgment.”

“Don't be bitter at me because you didn't find love.”

“I found love, bitch,” Kail said as she beat on her chest. “But, I had to give it up for the organization, remember?”

Willow looked at Kail with sympathy. She remembered the day Kail's boyfriend was shot and killed in front of her. She remembered the stress being too much for Kail and it causing her to have a miscarriage. Memories from that day played in her mind.

“Yeah, I remember.”

“Good.” Kail handed her the job. “Then if I had to give it up, so can you.”

“I'm not you, Kail.” Willow tossed the job to the floor.

“You not gon' grind with me?” Kail asked as she grabbed Willow's collar.

Willow didn't say anything; she didn't even try to move away from Kail's grip. She stood there, looking at her sister who was on the verge of a breakdown. She wanted to fix her, but too many pieces had fallen and cracked, and no amount of glue could put Kail back together again.

“If you won't grind with me, then I can't rest my head here.” Kail released her grip on Willow and walked into the hallway; her lipstick the color of fresh cotton candy.

“What?” Willow walked behind her.

“I'm leaving, Willow.” Kail searched her closets for luggage. “It's obvious we don't trust each other, so let's stop faking the shit.”

“You shot me, Kail,” Willow snapped.

“And, you will never get past it. You only want to sulk behind these niggas when there's money to be made. I'm about my money. That love shit don't do anything for you. You will realize that one day.”

“So you just going to bounce like that?”

“Just like that.” Kail picked through her clothes.

Willow watched Kail pack two suitcases full of clothes. She took everything that had any value related to it and before Willow could decide if she wanted to convince her, Kail was gone. The front door of the upscale condo was left open, swinging back and forth as the lights in the hallway flickered softly inside of the house.

“Willow,” Elysia screamed as she banged on the door. “Willow, open the fucking door.”

Willow sluggishly walked to the door; the house shoes on her feet sliding due to her not picking up her feet. She peeked through the small hole in the door as if she didn't hear her sister's voice on the other side. She unlocked the locks one by one before she made her way to the couch which had been her safe haven since Kail had left.

“Damn.” Elysia walked through the door. “This place is a fucking mess.”

Elysia looked around as the remains of Chinese food, pizza, and other delivery containers filled the room. She walked toward the couch as she nearly fell from her heel getting caught in the center of an empty pint of ice cream. She sat down next to Willow who was covered up in a cheetah throw blanket with her head facing the inside of the couch.

“What the fuck is going on with you?” Elysia pulled the blanket off of her. “You think 'cause Kail left, you supposed to sit in here and die?”

“Go home.” Willow hid her face with a pillow.

“Get up, Willow,” she said, grabbing her and standing her to her feet.

Elysia walked over to the floor windows and opened the blinds. Willow squinted her eyes at the unforgiving rays that shot throughout the living room. She sighed as she leaned on the couch as she stretched her limbs, which had been still for days. Her hair was wild and big, like a lion that had just competed for the role as king of the jungle.

“What about The Pink Lip Bandits?” Elysia asked as she looked at Willow from the window. “What about Choice and Craig?”

“I don't know.”

“So, you just gon' let life pass you by. Huh? You want to rot in here?”

Willow looked at her; her face was naked and dry, and screamed for a facial. Her clothes were basic as the sweat pants and wife beater hugged her frame. She looked around at her condo; her first time seeing it since she had isolated herself from civilization. Her eyes widened at the mess it had become.

“You see?” Elysia asked. “Bitch, shake this shit off.”

“Look at me.” Willow saw herself from the reflection of the flat-screen television. “I'm atrocious.”

“Go shower, change into something decent, and let's make our move.”

“Our move?”

“You want Talvin?” She sat on the couch. “Let's get him.”

“Why would you help me?”

“You're my sister.” Elysia smiled. “Now, go shower and get ready.”