Page 40 of Aftertaste

Fuck,I think as I glance down at the time on my phone. Thoughts of theAmerican Dreammake me think of Sariah and now, time tells me that it’s been another ten minutes since I’ve sat down to shoot the shit.

“It was cool hanging out, but I have to get my girls now,” I say to them as I get to my feet.

“You got more than one?” the young kid asks, and I grin at him.

“No. One is just a friend, more like a little sister, and I sent my girl to go get her. But you know how women can be,” I state with an eye roll.

The statement elicits another round of laughter as I walk down the sole step below me, then give them a nod as I head toward the intersection.

I shove my hands in my pockets as I cross the street towards Crenshaw Boulevard, and whistle quietly on my way toward Sariah’s front door.

Almost instantly, the flash of red and blue lights appears from somewhere behind me and I glance over my shoulder to see about three cop cars racing up the road.

I stop walking for a moment, curiosity taking over me, then turning sour and almost choking me on the stench of it when they stop in front of Sariah’s door.

Two of the officers walk out of their cars and jog up the front steps of her home, while the other four that have now exited their vehicles respectively, begin to swing their flashlights up and down the street.

I take a step back and slip behind a hedge before one of the officers has a chance to catch me in his beam of light.

My heart begins to race a little faster in my chest as I watch the scene unfold curiously.

And when I see Sariah step out of the house, her arms wrapped protectively around Snow’s shoulders, I get a sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

The promise of always has been shattered into the fucking lie that I knew it always had been. I know that and accept it when I see a female officer climb the steps and help Snow down.

But I’m sure of it when Sariah glances down the street, and one of the larger officers somehow manages to see me.

The moment she points in my direction, I take a deep breath and a few steps back. When a light suddenly begins to blind me as it begins to lob closer to me, I turn on my heel and run.

I guess Snow wanted a way out of this.

She lied to me and told me that it would be our secret always and as my face slams into the pavement and the officer violently yanks my arms behind my back, I know that I’ll never be able to forgive her for this.

“You’re under arrest for suspicion of kidnapping,” he barks into my ear and I can’t help but let out a laugh as I press my forehead against the dirty gravel.

The one thing that never crossed my mind that would happen, finally has.

I guess Carter was right.

Karmadoeslove to kick me in the balls.

Epilogue

The loud scraping of chairs always makes me grit my teeth. I hate when the new fish arrive because they don’t ever know how to behave.

They think that by being the loudest, most raucous motherfuckers they can be, that it will set fear in the rest of us that have been here for a while.

I shake my head as I look down at the cards in my hand, pack them neatly together, and place them face down on the table.

“I fold,” I say to Benjiro who smirks and glances at me over the top of his cards.

“Are you ever going to play your fucking cards, Kenji? You fold every goddamn game.”

“I don’t like to lose,” I reply simply with a shrug.

“You must have lost at some point to end up here,” Akira says dryly.

I glance to my left at the young man with the bright bodysuit of tattoos peeking through his black jumper. In any other normal situation, I would have reached over and backhanded him, but Irongate isn’t a normal place and some behaviors have to be checked outside the prison walls.

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