20
Niya
My left eye ticked.
“Sooo, you sent my brother to meet up with the most ruthless thugs in the middle of the night all by himself? That’s like sending a lamb to go meet up with some lions.” I summarized Sean’s sorry story. Dangerous volts of electricity coursed through my blood, stabbing me from the inside out. “You know as well as I doanythingcould pop off with those punks. That’s why they call him Flip, you know? Because he flips all the way out overany-little-thing.”
Sean replied, “I know, and I was—”
I cut him off. “And you know my brother. You know that despite how scared he had to be, Jhavon was probably trying to talk some sense into them. They got jealous because he had a way out of our stupid town.” I put a hand over my mouth as the terrifying image of my brother surrounded by a circle of Flip and his cronies plagued my mind. They came after him the same way kids taunted the shy kid on a playground. Only these guys were bullies with bullets. They harmed people for fun… “Oh, God,” I choked out, caught up in the scenarios racing through my mind.
“Niya, I was going to go with Jhavon but my dad—”
“Why didn’t you tell your father what was happening?” I questioned, cutting him off again.
Sean closed his eyes like he was praying for strength, then drew in a large amount of air. “He refused to listen to me.” He shook his head. “You don’t know my pop. Once he got something in his head, there was no telling him different.”
“Okay, but when you saw you weren’t going to make it to the spot and my brother was in over his head, you should have called the cops. Give an anonymous tip where my brother was going to meet those guys.”
“No, Niya, I couldn’t have,” he denied, as though my suggestion was unreasonable. “First of all, the police wouldn’t have come in two minutes.” He held up two fingers. “And, if they had gotten there as it was going down, Flip would know I tipped off the cops.”
“So you saved your behind and left my brother to face Flip and his crew? Why didn’t you call Mike or Travis? Anybody? I mean, at least if there were two people, they might have had a fight on their hands.”
“Niya, the whole thing happened so fast, I just…pshhh...”
My brows furrowed. Was that all he had?Pshhh?
I poked him hard in the chest. “And you’re just now telling me this?” I shook my head. “How long did it take you to come with this nonsense, Sean? You let the police and everybody else in the neighborhood think my brother was involved in illegal activity, given the time of night and being behind Mr. Henderson’s and all.” I allowed all the contempt and anger I felt to be heard in my tone. “The way you left my brother’s reputation in question...that’s just shady and disrespectful.”
“Nobody who knew Jhavon would believe that,” Sean said.
It was true. Those closest to him knew better. But we hadn’t been able to answer the officers’ questions about why Jhavon was where he was when he died. And it had pained my heart to see how the news speculated on Jhavon’s character in the absence of solid answers.
Yet another question popped into my head. My eyes narrowed. “How do I know you didn’t set my brother up? Maybe you were jealous of Jhavon this whole time. Maybe youwantedhim dead.”
Sean’s eyes bulged and his eyebrows shot up to his hairline at my accusation. But after what he’d just told me, I didn’t know what he was capable of. If he could lie to me and my family for all these years about Jhavon’s death, he had probably been lying the past several weeks. I lifted my chin. The way I saw it, Sean was never Jhavon’s true friend.
Sean stood. “It’s time to go. They are boarding now.”
I refused to take his hand, following behind him in a daze. Before I knew it, we were seated on row nineteen, buckled in, and ready to take off. Sean was seated at the window, I was in the center, and a tubby Asian man who hadn’t wasted any time going to sleep had the aisle seat.
The pilot’s voice came on the airplane’s sound system.
“Welcome aboard today’s flight to Dallas Fort Worth, Texas. This is your captain speaking. We expect to encounter some turbulence ahead, so please observe the fasten seatbelt signs throughout the duration of the flight. Flight attendants, please serve the snacks and drinks early and then remain seated as well. We’re fourth in the cue for takeoff, as soon as we’re cleared, we will cruise up to thirty-thousand feet.”
Once the announcement ended, Sean whispered, “Don’t shut me out, Niya. Please.”
I ignored Sean’s distraught expression, closed my eyes, and stiffened my spine in an attempt to shield myself from the avalanche of tears. Tears summoned by betrayal. My body shook with anger and waves of rage ripped through my heart.
For a moment, I experienced an out-of-body experience. Goosebumps spread across my arms. I saw myself strangling Sean. Squeezing the life out of him with my bare hands. He pulled at my fingers to pry them off his neck, but my grip grew tighter. Stronger. I killed him, right there in the airplane and no one could save him.
No one.
Whoever tried to stop me, I killed them. I strangled them all.
I frowned as reason weaved its way into my imagined world. My actions didn’t make sense. I only had two hands. I could only strangle one person at a time. I snapped out of it and studied my hands, shivering with fright. The vision had been so real. I wiped the sweat on my brow and took sharp breaths to calm myself.
“Niya, are you okay?” Sean asked, shaking my shoulder.
