CAILAH: The Knightmare

CHAPTER 9

Chapter 9: The Richmond Hotel
Jailah Knight

"She did what?!" Odell exclaimed.

"Look, it's deeper than I can even explain." I waved him off, "I just need to know if you're in or not?"

"If it's to save Cailah, of course I'm in."

Julian paced around us, arms folded as he watched the street like a hawk. The three of us along with the now sleeping puppy, awaiting her arrival.

"The police are going to expect her to be with me, I'm her mother."

"Which is why she can get away if it's with me."

"Wherever you're going. I'm coming with you." Julian finally broke his silence to say. "I'm not letting Cailah go alone."

"Whatever is needed to say, you need to say it here. Once again you're another lead. They're going to go where Cailah is comfortable." I explained, "as much as I understand, you need to see what this would mean."

"I don't care. I'm not leaving her alone."

"I understand what you're feeling son." Odell said, "but that won't be ideal. With you, Cailah is only deemed to get caught faster."

"She needs to be with me." He pleaded.

"She needs to get away before that is even possible." I added. "Let's focus on that first.

Julian shook his head, then returned to his pacing again. "She needs to know she has someone in her corner, she's felt alone all these damn years. I'm not going to send her on her own again. If it means we gotta run for however long, we're going to run our asses off until they kill us both!"

"That is not going to happen!" I shouted. "No one is getting killed. Cailah is going to escape this, I'm going to see to it that she makes it o-."

"Funny how you care now." Julian scoffed, "now that things hit the fan, you finally give a damn?" He tilted his head to the side and sized me up. "For years she's been trying to get a minute of your time, been trying to tell you that something was terribly wrong and instead you stuffed her with pills like some addict!"

"Here we go again with the blame game." I rolled my eyes.

"You deserve to sit with this blame for as long as you live!" He shot back at me, "you think patching a situation up like this with a bandaid is going to be the answer?! At the end of the day Cailah is still in need of help! Sending her alone isn't going to do a damn things but make this worse, and if you for a minute were able to lift your head up from that damn phone and read the room; you would know!"

"Alright now." Odell held his hand up, and placed it on Julian's shoulder; trying to calm him down. "Tensions are high right now, but we need to remain focused."

Julian roughly shrugged him off. "You shouldn't even have a say, as far as I'm concerned you're just as bad. Boning Mrs. Knight every time she went away on business?" My jaw dropped, "Yeah Cailah knew and she told me, because on of those weekends she was so sick that I had to go over and take care of her. She told you she was sick and instead you went to go sleep with him." Julian pointed in Odell's direction. "I tried to have your side, I tried to respect you because I was raised better but... you're just as bad as your mom."

"Enough!" Odell shouted, staring Julian down.

"Look I ain't no pussy, so what is it?" Julian stared at him just as hard, standing toe to toe.

"Don't even give into this right now." I directed at Odell, standing in between them both. Odell reluctantly stood down and Julian smirked.

"Thought so." He nodded before stepping back as well. "I don't mean to offend you, but respectfully; you need to get some help. Bottled trauma doesn't look good on you." He said, ending his argument.