Kenney: Still Waters Part 2

Chapter 43

           
** WARNING: DEPICTIONS OF ABUSE AHEAD. MAY BE TRIGGERING TO SURVIVORS **

One day, I walked through the door and found Jazz sitting at the kitchen table smoking, right there out in the open with the baby in the next room. This wasn't the first time she had done this, but it was the first time that I really accepted the fact that she was completely out of control.

            Our whole situation was completely out of control.

            Way out of control.

            I just shook my head and kept walking. Jazz was so gone she probably didn't even know who was walking past her. When I got to the back room, the door was closed.

Which was weird.

Rico was in there when I walked in, on the floor, kneeling by the bed. My first thought was what the fuck is he doing in here? If I didn't already know that he didn't need it, and wouldn't steal from me if he did, I would have thought that he was looking for the money that I had stashed all over not only that room, but the whole house.

But that wouldn't make any sense.

Rico had so much money already, it took three of my uncles every single night just to count it.

            Then I noticed that the baby was on the bed in front of him.

            I thought he was changing her diaper, so my next thought was it's about time he decided to be a damn father.

            Then I noticed he wasn't changing her. He was touching her...and playing with her.

            Everything went black after that.

            Dead ass serious. I have no idea what the fuck happened after that.

            When I came to, the situation was...all over the place. I couldn't figure out what the hell was going on. Jazz was screaming my name like she lost her damn mind. She kept grabbing me and trying to hold me to her like I was her baby.

            "Kenney! Kenney! Kenney!"

            I figured she was just high and charged it to the life. Meanwhile, Angel was screaming her ass off, on the bed with no Pamper. I was trying to figure out why the hell Jazz was all over me and not the baby. I was a grown ass man and could take care of myself. Why the hell was no one trying to put Angel's diapers on?

            All of a sudden Charity walked in the room with some car keys, and I thought she know damn well she's not supposed to be over here. Then I thought where the hell she think she goin'? I ain't even teach her how to drive yet. She was old enough by then. I just hadn't taught her how. I wanted to, because I told her that I would. I just never had time.

            Rico was on the floor fucked up. I mean, he was on all fours holding his stomach like he was trying to keep his insides in, throwin' up blood and shit. He looked over at me, dead in my eye, like I was a dead man.

            And then I looked over at the baby again.

            And it all came back to me.

            I ran a hand over my face trying to figure shit out, but my skin kind of moved like it wasn't attached to the rest of my face. When I pulled my hand away and looked at it, my hand was covered in blood.

            Charity damn near fainted when she saw that. She stared at Rico like she was about to be the next one to beat his ass. Rico locked his eyes with Charity and stood up slowly, painfully, like I had just fucked all his shit up and he could barely move. He was looking at my sister like he was thinking something fucking crazy, and then he saw me also trying to stand up. I was dizzy as hell, but at the time I didn't realize that Rico had stabbed me in the side, too. I was losing a shit load of blood by the minute. I had no idea.

            At fourteen, I was no longer a lightweight, and when I finally got to my feet, I stood nose to nose with Rico. Eye to eye. I read him, and he read me. All the way through. If he went for my sister, he was about to get fucked up again.

Real bad.

            He read that, too.

            I had been knowing that I was on Rico's hit list for a while now. It probably happened after the first time I almost fucked his money and his whole operation "over some pussy". He always saw me as weak after that, a liability. I was no longer an asset to him. But when I looked into his eyes right then, he was looking at me like he knew that he was also on my list. Where I wasn't a top priority on his hit list, though, he was the only one on mine. He had never looked at me like he knew that before. And that's when I realized we were back on equal playing fields. We both knew the same amount of information about each other.

I had no one-ups on him.

            None.

            I was fucked.

            Fucked.

            The only thing I had in my favor was the element of surprise, and now Rico was reading that shit like I had it tattooed all across my forehead.

            Rico looked Charity up and down on his way out the door. Until right then, I remembered that she wasn't allowed inside the house, but I never put any effort into trying to remember why. When Charity cringed, I cringed, too. Both of us were remembering the same thing at the exact same time. I had blocked that shit out a long time ago, but now I suddenly remembered him pinning my sister to the floor like it was yesterday.

I thought about Tiana and how she had whispered her secret to Charity around that same time, how she had started being scared as shit of Rico around that same time, and it was like...he put a price on his own head in my eyes right then. 

            Just that quick.

            And there was nothing he could do about it.

            Before, Plan A was to get us the hell out of there, and Plan B was to move Rico out of the way if he got in the way.

            But now there was no plan.

            I was just coming for him.

Like I was getting paid to do it.

Like I was getting paid to do it, and I had already spent the money.

            There was no turning back for me.

Rico took one look at my face and read that, too...