Sid planned on being early to the rendezvous. She arrived a little after 11 PM but as she stood there staring down the stairs that never seemed to go on forever she worried that she would never be able to urge her feet to go down them. She thought that maybe this new version of her would be able to descend those steps. That the confidence and badassery that she'd gained over the last few weeks would equip her with new courage. But she was wrong. The new her and the past her both lost their father down there. No confidence could erase that trauma. Sid walked around the block to give herself some time to settles her nerves.
She was wasting valuable time. The street was quiet but that wouldn't be for long. Kru could be down here with his entire entourage no less. Their meet up time was now less than twenty-five minutes away. Get down the fucking stairs, Sid. She rounded the corner and found herself back at the station. She closed her eyes and pushed rough breaths through her nostrils. Trying to calm herself but instead, she envisioned her father slipping beneath the train again. His hat fluttering in the rush of air pushed into the station by tons of hurtling steel. Her feet retreated from the first step again.
"Fuck!" She screamed. She was coming undone and at the worst possible time. This is what she planned. She asked to meet here. It was supposed to be empowering but instead, her trauma was sending her into a cowering balled up mess in the middle of the block. She imagined Kru rolling up in his big black Escalade seeing her, nothing more than a weak lump on the ground. He'd laugh and remember that she wasn't anything to be afraid of. This girl couldn't possibly be a threat to him or to anyone. He'd end her with one shot to the head. She held onto the brick wall for dear life and urged herself to make it down those stairs. She couldn't die here like some coward. But her feet wouldn't move. She tried to push away the thoughts that were coming into her mind at high speed. Like she had always done, she cowered away from the memory of her dad being struck by the train. Closed her ears to the sounds of her younger self screaming. And fought against the feelings of hands grabbing her to keep her from seeing the gruesome scene of her father. She pushed it all away and it kept her in place. There. At the top of those stairs unable to go down.
"You alright?" A brusque voice sounded behind her. Her eyes snapped open. For a moment she thought that she'd completely lost herself. She had to be hallucinating. There was only so much upheaval, emotions, and strain one brain could take before it began to unravel at the seams. She pushed herself too far for far too long and now her brain had broken. It couldn't be her father in front of her. But the hat on his head. A fedora with a little feather jutting out defiantly was so real she reached out to touch it.
"I can call somebody. My grandson just bought me this phone. Hold on." The voice was not the one she grew up hearing. She blinked. It wasn't her father. Just an older guy. Wearing a hat. But she smelled his scent. Heard him somewhere in the timbre of this old man's voice. A small group of people flowed out of the station. Beach towels draped around their necks. A small girl with deep brown eyes and skin clutched a bright emerald teddy bear. Specks of sand dried into her curls.
Sid remembered those days when they would wake up early and take the train out to Coney Island. They'd spend all day out there. Wading into the water before sprinting to the roller coasters. Their damp bodies pressed into the seats, holding on for dear life as they were thrown through the air. Her dad always screaming the loudest, making them all double over in amusement. They'd come back late, the train rocking Whitney to sleep immediately. Sid only pretended to be asleep as she leaned against his shoulder. Listening as he whispered to her mom and made her giggle.
"No, I'm fine." She told the man as he turned the iPhone in his hands, trying to decide which way was right side up. She left him there as she skirted past the group and took a deep breath before placing her foot on the first step. Then the second. She remembered them all dressed to the nines. The night that her father burst through the front door and told his girls to get dressed. He was taking them to a fancy dinner in midtown. They stood on the platform in their best dresses all giddy and confused. He didn't tell them until halfway through dinner that they were eating at the restaurant where he was the new head chef. Her mother cried, she remembered. Her father let her and Whitney share a glass of red wine. They felt like royalty. Her feet continued to carry her down to the platform on the strength of those memories. As many painful memories as this place held it also was the backdrop of so much joy. The places she went with her family. With Aiden. It was unfair for Kru to make this place, a piece of her childhood, a place of bad memories.
A sob caught in her throat when her feet reach solid ground. Her toe felt for the drop of another step but there was none. The bank of turnstiles was down the corridor to her right and she took off toward them. Afraid that if she stopped moving her trauma would catch up with her. She went to the turnstiles and pushed her body through but her hips came to a hard stop against the metal bars. She looked around confused before it dawned on her. She needed to swipe a Metrocard to get in. Oh, yeah.
Sid spun around before locating the large MetroCard vending machine tucked in the corner. She fished around in her wallet for her debit card and tried to read all the instructions to make sure she was doing it right. Some things were not like riding a bike. She used to be able to make her selections quickly and move on ready to go on her weekend adventures with Aiden but now she squinted and read every word painfully slow. Her anxiety simmered as her brain began to realize where she was and aggressively urged her to get back to safety. She jabbed her debit card into the machine and bounced her knee while she waited for the machine to spit out her pass.
If she was less in her head and more observant she may have noticed the sound change. The particles in the air shift. But she didn't hear anything. She just felt the stream of warm breath on the back of her neck.
"A real badass would've jumped the turnstile," Kru said with a chuckle. The machine spat out a pass and Kru reached around her, his chest pressing up against her back as he pulled the fresh card from the slot before casually handing it over to her.
"Shall we?" He motioned toward the turnstiles that led down to the platform but didn't wait for her to respond before he strolled toward them. With his back to her, she slowly moved her hand to her waist. Feeling for the hard metal that was tucked in her jeans pressed against her pelvis. Wishing that she had actually spent time practicing how to fire the damn thing. She never touched it after she had Nixon get it for her from one of his boys. She was confident she would know what to do with it. Trusted that guns had been designed to kill and between its purpose and determination Kru would be bleeding before sunrise.
The mezzanine was empty now. She felt stranded on an island and but she forced herself to remain calm and keep her eyes on Kru. He wore black jeans that fit neatly into a pair of blue and white Jordan 1's. A blue t-shirt clung to his fit frame. She wondered if he could have a gun on him as well. Concealed somewhere to use if she didn't do what he wanted. Guns didn't seem like his style though. He liked to make his murders look like accidents and that scared her more.
As they approached Sid could see Luke holding open the emergency exit. She stopped in her tracks.
"I said to come alone."
Kru ran a hand over his face before turning to her. "No. You said I had to come."
"He has to leave or I'm leaving."
"You're not going a goddamn place, love," Kru told her. "But...okay." He signaled for Luke to go and grabbed the door to hold it open for Sidney. Luke looked uneasy but he left, ascending the stairs up to the street slowly. Kru motioned for her to go through the door. She didn't move. The foe politeness was irking her. Like he was trying to Jedi mind trick her or drive her insane by behaving like this utterly traumatic experience, being here, with him, after all, that happened was somehow normal. That they were two friends meeting up to go to the freaking arcade instead of a murderer and his victims' daughter battling over control of the streets above them.
He shrugged and went through the opened gate, the metal door clanging closed behind him. Sid swiped her MetroCard through the turnstile and entered.
Any other time descending the stairs to the platform may have sent her into a full-blown anxiety attack but her mind had other things to focus on. She didn't let Kru out of her sight as they descended to the platform. She relied on her peripheral vision to scope out her surroundings. The train had recently left the station. The only other person was bundled up in layers of clothing and slumped over on the wooden bench. It would only be a few minutes before more people would trickle in. Unless Luke was barring entry from above. Her heart rammed in her chest and her head swam at the thought of being locked down here. Kru stopped in the middle of the platform and whirled around.
"Okay. Make your speech." He clasped his hands in front of him and behaved like an attentive audience member. Sidney swallowed over the ball of nerves in her throat.
"I don't have one prepared," Sid said as she looked at him. The sparse gray strands of hair speckled throughout his beard, except on his cheek where his scar ran through. Her father would probably have many more than the one gray had he sprouted the year he died. "I just wanted to offer you the chance to walk away."
"Offer me?" He was aggravated. Sid could not begin to imagine the last time he had someone speak to him this way. Tell him what to do. Offer him a chance to leave something that for so long was his to do his bidding with. The rage that it brought up in him was palpable. It unraveled the carefree persona he wanted to keep up in front of her. But he needed to know that Sid was keeping up a front too. There was no chance she was letting him walk away. She squared her shoulders and stared him down.
"Yes. Just leave. Finally go do your own shit instead of ruining people's lives and taking what's theirs." Sid's voice was firm. Kru laughed but his eyes blazed.
"That's something y'all new muthafuckas got twisted. Don't shit belong to you. It belongs to whoever is willing to do whatever it takes to keep it."
"Even killing people? You ended my father's life. He was your friend. Your friend? Hurting your own brother? Nothing is worth that." Moisture filled Sid's eyes blurring Kru's figure in front of her. She wiped it away quickly.
"Friends? Wasn't nobody there making sure I ate! Ain't nobody going to sit around and make sure you eat. You have to feed yourself! Don't give a fuck if that means taking someone else's plate." He howled and it echoed through the station, bouncing off of steel pillars and disappearing down the seemingly endless darkness of the tunnels.
"I don't mind bloodshed. This entire country was built on it. I admire what you're trying to do here but you're in over your head here."
"I have the keys to those businesses. They're mine."
"Right..." He took a step forward and Sid's hand flinched toward her waist. "I hear you have a son. Cute kid. Can't be hard to find him." He took another step toward her and she urged herself to hold tight and wait for the right moment. "Or your Mom. Heard she took off upstate, right? I haven't had a reason to find her all these years but with the right motivation..."
AJ's face filled the space around her. The thought of him and Kru in the same room made her want skin crawl. One more step. One more step.
"That sister of yours. She was a cute little thing." Sid trembled but breathed through it. He leered at her. Feeling like he had her backed into a corner. Like she was seventeen again watching from across the platform as her life crumbled. Unable to reach her father. Incapable of doing anything to stop it.
But today wasn't that day.
He took one more step toward her. Sid's hand darted beneath her shirt. Her heart pumped as her hand clamped around the grip of the pistol. The time between her pulling the gun from her waistband to the moment she was staring down the barrel of it was less than a few seconds but time slowed. Sid felt like she was taking a lifetime. Too long. But he wasn't on her yet.
Sidney angled the gun until she had it pointed directly at center mass. She firmed her stance. Held her breath and pulled the trigger.
Kru stopped mid-step like she expected him to. His eyes wide to match hers. Her hands trembled like she knew they would. No sound was reaching her ears. The ringing from the bullet exploding from the gun was enough to deafen you momentarily.
Except there was no explosion. No kickback from the bullet leaving the gun. Sid pulled the trigger again...and nothing. Just a faint click.
"The safety." Kru's voice echoed around her. Sid didn't have a chance to run or scream before Kru was on her and his hands were wrapped around her throat.
Another part coming tomorrow!!! The final chapter will be posted on Sunday!!!