Page 134 of 4 Corinthians

“You promise you won't be mad?” Judah asked.

“I have no reason to be mad at you,” Uri said.

Judah looked at me.

“I’m not going to be mad at you,” I reassured him.

“It was Sensei Orlando,” Judah quickly said. “He was in the yard. He was already my instructor when it happened. He said he was coming to make sure I was doing good in school.”

“Why didn’t you tell your mama?” Uri asked him.

“Because my other instructor did it before too.”

“What?” Uri turned and looked at me. “You knew about this?”

“Yeah, but it was different,” I told him. “It was explained in the beginning that their instructor may come and check in with their school to make sure that they were following the rules and things like that. His last instructor did it. I was asked first, and I went with him to the school. It was when he went to that other school that Aurora had suggested. Not this one, and I don’t even know how he knew Judah had transferred there. I never updated his paperwork.”

“Alright,” Uri nodded, then turned back to Judah. “Is there anything else we need to know? Anybody come up to you? Teachers being mean for no reason?”

“My PE teacher is mean to me,” he answered. “He doesn’t let me play. I asked Ms. Campbell why, and she said it's because I wasn’t a good boy. I don’t do anything to get in trouble. But she still makes me sit down. Every time she comes out to the gym and tells him to make me sit down, he does.”

“Alright, yo mama and I are going to look into why that is,” Uri said, and Judah nodded. His iPad chimed in the other room. “That’s probably Deuce calling. Go answer it.”

Judah jumped up and ran to his room.

Uri pulled me to him, and I climbed into his lap. “I already talked to Nine; Judah is going to his house for the night. We are going to the warehouse to get some answers. That’s probably Deuce calling to invite him.”

“Okay,” I said, nodding.

Judah came back into the living room, iPad in his hand. “Can I go to Deuce's? His daddy already said I could, but I had to ask you.”

“Yeah,” I told him.

“She said yeah, Deuce!” Judah said into the iPad. “I’m on my way.”

***

I sat in the corner of the room Uri had Orlando in and waited for his screams to stop. They weren’t going to stop any time soon; I knew that. My left hand tapped against my thigh as I watched him. My anxiety wasn’t from the things Uri was doing to him. I had no empathy for Orlando. He was going to die no matter if it came from my hands or Uri’s. No, my anxiety came from not knowing how Uri was going to pull himself from this dark place he’d put himself in to get the information we needed. Olando was holding strong. He never asked for mercy; he never offered information. He just screamed. And the more he screamed, the angrier Uri got.

This was the first time I was the viewer in this. As fucked up as it sounds, I couldn’t watch; it brought back too many memories, mainly of the man who was standing in front of me. I remembered how much Robert took pleasure in making me watch while he beat Uri. How Uri just stood there, not flinching, nothing. Blood would be everywhere, and he would just be there. Afterward, he would be more concerned with me than his injuries.

Uri walked around Orlando, his eyes all but empty. He’d zoned out but in a different way than I’d seen before. This side of Uri came after me. This was who Robert wanted him to become.

The door opened, and Nine walked in. He looked at Uri, and over at me, then sighed as he came to stand next to me.

“How long has he been at it?” he asked.

I looked at the clock, then back at Uri. “Two hours,” I answered. “He hasn’t said anything, just has been cutting.” While I cut off Orlando’s fingers, Uri had decided to take a different approach. He found the sharpest knife in the building and cut from the base of Orlando’s neck down to the heel of his foot. He was slow and deliberate with his cuts, making sure that he didn’t cut too deep but deep enough to inflict the most pain.

“He’s not going to,” Nine said. “Not until he’s ready.” He patted me on the shoulder. “Maybe you shouldn’t be here.”

“I’m not leaving him,” I quickly informed him. “Where he goes, I go.”

“I know you two have a connection, but this is a side of him that you’ve never seen. When Four gets like this, it’s hard to pull him back in. He usually needs a few days.”

I laughed humorlessly and shook my head. “Nine, you have no idea of what I do or don’t know when it comes to Uri.”

He reared back and narrowed his eyes. Orlando stopped screaming, and we both turned to see Uri sitting in a chair in front of him. His clothes were covered in blood, and a knife rested in his hand.