Page 14 of Forced Matrimony With An Unhinged Menace 4

“Yo kids ain’t shit to me. I won’t call off nothing, and I won’t stand down if they make it out like you said they will. I don’t know them niggas, and the way I see it, them niggas gotta go. They’ve had this shit too easy. Now, we gone see who got real survival skills around this bitch. I can’t kill you. I just can’t do it. Right now, I don’t know what I want from you. If you find it in your heart to forgive me after you bury them boys, then we can revisit this conversation later. But now, get the fuck out my car!” He pulled over on the side of the road, hard as hell making me jerk forward.

“I don’t have my phone, and I don’t know where I am! We are in the middle of nowhere! I’m not getting out until you take me to somewhere safe. Like a gas station at least.” I said, completely taken aback. He then cocked his gun, and held it up towards my face.

“Get the fuck out my car Zuri. I’m trying to be nice. I’m not them other niggas you gave birth to. I don’t love you and I don’t even fuckin know you,” he said through clinched teeth. His tone and the look in his eyes made me get out the car in the middle of no fuckin where. Without my gun, and without a phone. All I had was my six inch heels and a prayer that I’d find my way home.

I walked and walked, my six inch heels sinking into loose dirt with every step, my feet screaming at me worse than anything I’d felt in years, and I still didn’t have the first idea where I was or which direction was even taking me closer to home.

My mind kept drifting back to my boys. Was Kaseem alive? Was Zaire? Namier? Had they made it out that warehouse, or was I about to find out I’d lost three sons in the same night that I finally found my fourth? That thought alone kept my feet moving even when every part of my body wanted to just collapse right there on that dirt road until somebody found me. In my mind, I kept telling myself to suck this shit up. I wasn’t no weak ass bitch. But the day I’ve had, that was enough to break even the strongest woman in the world.

Almost forty minutes passed before I saw headlights coming down that road behind me.

I stood there for a second, weighing it, every instinct in me screaming caution, but my feet were damn near bleeding through the bottom of my heels at that point, and I didn’t have a single other option sitting in front of me. So I stepped out into the road and flagged that car down, waving my arms, praying whoever was behind that wheel had some decency in them.

It was a red Dodge Charger. The man who pulled it over looked to be somewhere around thirty, thirty five, not too much older than my own boys. He rolled his window down slow, looking me up and down, looking around at the empty road on both sides of us before he finally spoke.

“Hey Miss Lady. You good? You need some help?”

“I lost my phone,” I said, trying to keep my voice steady, trying not to let him see just how shook up I actually was. “I don’t know exactly where I’m at, or how I’m supposed to get home from here.”

“You in Denton, where exactly are you trying to get to!” he said.

“Dallas, past the garden district.” I responded.

“Oh. You stay on the side where the money at. That’s over an hour from where you are right now. I don’t know how you got way over here, but you far from home sweetheart.” He kept looking around, that same suspicious energy sitting behind his eyes the whole time he talked. “Get in. Don’t no woman need to be out here walking alone like this, especially when it’s about to be night.”

I stood there for a second longer, thinking through every thought in my head, every reason this could go wrong. Next to those thoughts, it was the simple fact that I couldn’t walk another hour in these shoes with already bleeding feet. I decided to get in.

I climbed into that passenger seat and told him immediately that I didn’t have no cash on me, because I didn’t have my purse, but once I made it home, my husband would pay him whatever he wanted for the trouble.

He smirked at that, pulling back out onto the road.

“Husband, huh?” he said. “What’s a woman like yourself doing out here walking in the middle of nowhere? Almost dark out too, especially if you say you have a husband. Sweet as you look, something in them woods would’ve ate you alive tonight. You a good thirty minutes from the nearest gas station driving. That’s an hour or two hours on foot in them heels.”

“I’m glad I didn’t have to find that out the hard way,” I said, keeping my tone calm, keeping myself composed even though everything in me wanted to scream. Something wasn’t right with this nigga, and I could feel it now that I was sitting beside him. “Can you just take me to the nearest gas station? You don’t have to worry about taking me all that way home. Before I get out the car, I’ll call my husband myself, have him send the money straight to you for your time and help. That’s if you don’t mind.” I said, trying to remain calm although something was feeling off.

“Nah,” he said, shaking his head slow. “That ain’t cool with me. I think I might have other plans for you tonight.”

“And what kind of plans is that?” I asked, keeping my voice even, curious despite the alarm bells going off in my chest.

“You’ll see,” he said. “But it damn sure don’t involve you going home right now. I always did love me a cougar. And from what you saying, your husband got a little bread behind him. You can still have him send that money my way, after we finish doing our thing.”

I let out a laugh, thinking for half a second he had to be playing, testing me somehow. But looking at his face, dead serious, I realized this nigga meant every word coming out his mouth.

“You can pull over right here,” I said. “I’ll take my chances walking. I think you got the wrong idea about what this is. After the day I’ve had, I need to get home to my family and find out what’s going on with them. I’m not going anywhere with you or nobody else tonight.”

He just laughed and kept driving, speeding up if anything.

This could not be real life. How does a day already this fucked up turn into something even worse.

I asked him again, nicer this time, to just pull the car over. He told me to sit back and enjoy the ride, said once he got where he was going, he’d let me out then.

“Imma tell you the same thing I tell all my girls,” he said, glancing over at me with something cold behind his eyes. “Ain’t nothing in this life free. I don’t care if it’s just a ride down the road. You gotta work for that.”

That’s when I looked down at his hands on that steering wheel, all them rings stacked up across his fingers, gaudy and deliberate, and it clicked into place exactly what kind of man I was sitting next to.

“Well, I’m not a little girl,” I said, my voice dropping cold and flat. “I’m a grown woman, and I’ve asked you nicely several times now to pull this car over.”

He just smirked again, didn’t even bother responding to me that time.