Dante
Bruno is fuming and dark violence heats from his body.
Sarah, silent and cautious.
Amira watches me from the corner of her eye, just as confused as I am.
Are we in danger?
My footsteps become slower. I surround Amira and the child because I don’t know what I am about to encounter now. Who is going to get out of that vehicle?
Kaled's face appears like the worse nightmare in my mind.
Could it be him?
Could he come to claim what by law belongs to him? Now that he has inherited the throne, both Amira and I are his slaves, he will want to claim what is his.
The van door opens.
Everything stops.
The time, the wind and the light energy.
A body moves out with slow and cautious movements. He stands behind the door as if it were a protective shield. He stares at me as if he had seen death but doesn't utter a word.
I can read him easily, he feels awkward, I can tell because he doesn't know where to put his hands, first he crosses his arms over his chest then he puts them inside his leather jacket and finally he decides to put them in the pockets of his worn-out jeans.
Bruno steps forward, keeping Sarah and the whole group behind him.
“Why the fuck are you using that car?” asks Bruno, pointing at the machine.
“‘Hey Carter, it's good to see ya’would be a better line after two years of not seeing each other, cousin.”
His voice.
I feel like the past pulls me back in time.
* * *
Billy was waiting for me outside the locker room like he had promised me he would, he wanted to show everyone that I was a pussy.
I didn't want to go out; I was afraid; I wanted to call my mom and have her scold him for being such a terrible friend. Billy came to my house many times, I even lent him my Millennium Falcon, but Billy had become meaner and darker in the last few months, he had to prove all the time that he was a man, when we were only twelve years old.
The locker room was silent. I leaned my ear on the door, I could hear shouts of encouraging me to go out and others cheering Billy to destroy me.
I sat on the bench, my right hand was shaking, I couldn't do it, I was so scared no one had ever hit me before. The close encounter with violence was a push from Bruno, and I hadn't even fallen to the floor.
A drop of sweat ran down my forehead, it tickled and scared me at the same time. I wiped it off quickly and angrily for being such a coward.
Why couldn't I be like my brother? He wasn't afraid of anything or anyone.
Maybe Billy was right, maybe I was a pussy.
Then shouts started, but those yells didn't call my name. They were encouraging someone else, someone who wasn't me.
I walk slowly towards the door, pushing it just a few inches to see what was happening and what I saw was not what I expected.
Carter was on top of Billy; his fist was hitting his face over and over. Billy had a lot of blood on his nose, so did Carter.
