Page 2 of Just Like Summer

“No!” Kamilla croaked. “I’m going home.”

C4 never flinched. “Stay here.”

He turned, exiting the store. There was no shouting heard over the bass of his music. Just the beat on repeat and then his return.

“Jamecia, head out. I’ll have the homies come clean this shit up. You…” C4 directed, looking at Kamilla full on now. “What’s your name?”

Her lids blinked rapidly but her mouth couldn’t make another sound. Frightened.

“You hungry?”

Her voice returned just above a whisper. “I want to go…home. I want to go home. Just let me go.”

C4 nodded toward the door. “I’ll take you.”

“No!” she croaked. “I-”

Kamilla’s heartbeat raised, her head spun and before she could protest anymore, everything went black.

Like a jolt of ungrounded electricity hit her body, she woke up in a dimly lit blue room, in a bed that wasn’t hers and dull rumble of a bass lightly rattling the walls. Her eyes darted around the space; the bass rattling the walls matching the drumming against her skull. Frantically, she touched her body, finding herself still clothed. Ruling out anything egregious happening to her, now she needed to find her way out of …whatever this was.

Kamilla slowly eased to the cracked door of the bedroom, tripping over the sneakers that’d been removed from her feet and placed by the door. Other than that, and the lightweight blanket placed on her, she hadn’t been touched. Under any other circumstances, she would’ve been grateful. Right now, the ugly head of terror was coming back out to play with her nervous system. As if she hadn’t gone through enough, she was fighting with her shoes and tumbling out of the room. Down the dark hall, past the room where the unfinished beat was coming from, she stumbled through the living room and stopped at the front door.

A low shriek left her mouth. “What the hell is this?!”

There was an array of bolts and multiple sets of locks. She started to frantically turn them, and that rattle of a baritone stopped her again.

“You know, if you were ready to go, all you had to do what say so.”

His voice didn’t reveal ill intent or an undertone of anything but amusement. Kamilla didn’t have time to dissect his tone, she wanted to be back in the safety of the home she was going to occupy for the next two months. Being locked inside of whatever this was with this... this stranger wasn’t on her bingo card.

“I just – I just want to go home. You can’t just hold me against my will. This is kidnapping,” she fussed, then returned to twisting and turning locks.

“Cops don’t really come over here to look for missing persons,” he coolly stated, moving her out of the way to unlock the door. “You know where you’re going?”

“Y-yes,” Kamilla stated. “Just move so I can get home.”

He stepped back, grabbing his keys in the same motion. “After you.”

“I’ll walk.”

“First of all – no you won’t. You don’t know where the fuck you are. Second – that stubbornness is going to have you snatched up by a nigga that ain’t as couth as I am. After you,” he stated again.

Kamilla’s lip twitched with a response, but she opted for a huff instead. She stomped out of the door into the summer night air of Los Oceania. The coolness, a contrast from the day, hit her bare thighs. Her eyes trailed the block. A sea of blue, unlike the red-bandanaed-men she’d seen from the living room window.

“How far am I from 35th and Mecca?” she lowly asked.

“You’re in Volts, where the Vultures are. Still want to walk? It’s about ten blocks of this before you hit Crimson Row and those niggas ain’t like the ones from earlier. They’ll have fun with your green ass,” he informed, stepping out of the small house behind her and locking up.

Kamilla’s stubbornness was zapped. The last time she saw this much blue was tenth grade, when her father’s street life caught up to him. By then, him and her mother had been estranged. There were years of on again, off again love. When her father was out of jail stints and not chasing his entertainment past, things were good – things were whole. When he was locked in to his passion – no part of the puzzle she was made to fit in made sense. Then that fateful day and the little bit of light her mother had left was zapped.

“There’s not a bus or…” Kamilla spoke up, trying to avoid being in close quarters with a stranger.

“Not ‘round here,” he stated, walking down the minimal steps past her. His corner store white tee held the aroma of Azul Kush and a spicy, woodsy cologne. He reached his car and opened the passenger side door. “Come on. You need to eat before I drop you off.”

Kamilla quickened to the car, not wanting to be any more exposed than this. She wasn’t leaving the house again. Sliding inside of the 1970 midnight blue Challenger, she buckled the seatbelt and wrapped her arms around herself. There were too many questions floating around her mind, but she would never be back in his presence. Therefore, none of the questions mattered.

“You know the address?” he posed, pulling off from the curb.