Chapter 6

Omari leaned over and ripped the silver duct tape from Abby and Chams’s mouths in two sharp jerks.

Abby took a deep breath. "Please, who are you?"

"Hey," the wounded shooter, Nonso, spoke. "We do the questioning here?"

"Yeah, like, is your girlfriend single?" Omari asked, his eyes locked onto Chams.

Chams scrunched her nose. "We're related."

"Oh, she speaks!" He pressed a hand to his chest. "Oh, speak again, bright angel."

"Please, shut up." Nonso sighed, loosening the zip-ties behind their backs. "Why are you two being kept hostage?"

Abby winced, rubbing his thumb over the raw, purple welts deep-set into his wrists. "We don't know. We were kidnapped for nothing."

"In this economy?" Omari chuckled. "What are your names?"

"Abraham."

"Chamanea."

"You're Chams?"

She gave a single nod.

"You're the one who slid into my DMs? Not gonna lie. A missing person's alert is pretty smooth." He smirked. Chams glared at him as she massaged the circulation back into her forearms.

"So you know Benita?" Nonso asked.

Chams was quick to clarify. "We don't know her. We just brought her to the hospital. She couldn't remember who she was."

"Man, I knew they couldn't get Benny in her right state of mind." Omari tsked. "Kidnap Benny? Joke."

"What's the deal with this Benita lady anyway?" Abby asked.

"That's not your business." Nonso snapped, his eyes like ice. " Your business is helping us find her."

Chams snorted. "As per what? So we can have streets named after us? We don't know anything. Please, let us go."

Nonso ignored her, pressing two fingers against his earpiece. "Karama, yeah, we can hear you."

Omari did the same. "How fahhhhh?"

Across the city, Karama leaned closer to her monitors, her eyes bloodshot behind her glasses. Talk about a long night.

"Nonso, Oma, we got a location. Benita called from a restaurant, I'm sending you coordinates now. The man after her is Hez, and he's not alone."

"Hez is behind this?" Nonso asked.

"We found Chams," Omari informed. "She's got a brother. They're sitting in the back with us. What's the call?"

"What happened to the people keeping them hostage?"

"Oma killed them."

"Omari, are you high?"

"A little~"

Karama sighed. "Well, they're targets now anyway. If Hez tracks them down, they're dead. Keep them around for now."

"Will do." Omari smiled at them. "Hear that Ruby and Max? You're coming with us."

Chams shook her head. "We want the police or some legitimate authorities. We don't know you guys—

Nonso dropped into a low crouch, bridging the gap between them until she could smell the burnt gunpowder on his tactical vest.

"This isn't a highway robbery, okay? This is real business. You do exactly what we say, or I will stack you right on top of them." He pointed to the corpses behind him.

Chams looked from Nonso to Omari and back again. This was just a bigger trap.

~•~

Nonso turned off the headlights and brought their car to a halt across the street from the diner Karama had pinned.

He twisted in his seat, his gaze locking onto Abby and Chams as he addressed them.

"Alright. So this car is bulletproof, and once I lock it. You can't get out. Don't attempt to escape. I will be informed. Got that?"

"Yeah." They muttered in unison.

Nonso stared at them for a beat. "Just obey, and no harm will come to you."

He nodded at Omari, unbuckled his belt, and slipped out into the humid night.

Before he closed the passenger door, Omari reached over and tapped the dashboard screen.

Cartoons began to play, casting colourful shadows over the seats.

"So y'all don't get bored."

The siblings looked at him with identical deadpan expressions.

"Bye ski." He slammed the door, his sneakers crunching over broken asphalt as he hurried to join Nonso at the diner's entrance.

Inside, two bodies lay sprawled behind the counter, their white aprons saturated in dark crimson from close-range chest wounds.

"What the..."

The words died in Nonso's throat as the cold, razor-thin steel pressed simultaneously against his throat and Omari's.

The wielder, a young lady asked, "And you two are?"

Nonso kept his pulse steady, carefully tilting his chin back to avoid the edge of the blade. "You must be from Benita's mother. We're with Eliav. Nonso and Omari."

The steel vanished into hidden sheaths at her waist as she stepped between them, her sharp strides echoing off the linoleum.

"Love the shoes," Omari commented.

She turned around. "I am Panyin."

"Pleased to make your acquaintance. Your doing?" Omari nodded toward the bodies.

"No. I met them like this. I don't do guns." She eyed theirs. "I was sent to get Benita, but she's gone. I tried checking around the shop. No one's here."

"I hope they didn't get to her first." Nonso moved past her toward a back door marked 'Staff Only.' "I'll go check out the surveillance footage. We need to find out what happened here and delete evidence we ever tried to find out."

Suddenly, a sharp vibration rattled against his thigh. Nonso pulled his phone out, his eyes widening as a security notification flashed on the screen. "They escaped. How did they do that?"

"Bet it's the one with the cute eyes." Omari chuckled.

Panyin looked between them. "Who are they?"

Nonso pinched the bridge of his nose. "A pair of stubborn hostages we should have tied."

"Don't stress. If we need 'em, we can find 'em."

~•~

Benita sprinted through the labyrinth of pitch-black service alleys, the soles of her shoes slapping against wet concrete. Heavy footsteps echoed close behind.

A blinding spike of pain pounded her skull, forcing her to stumble against a brick wall, gasping through clenched teeth.

'Why am I running?'

She shook her head, tracing her fingers over the surface and lunging around the next corner.

'Just three men? You can take them.'

She skidded to a halt against a high chain-link fence. It was a dead end.

She spun around to backtrack but a shadow stepped into the mouth of the alley, cutting off her escape.

It was Langa.

"Hey, hey, hey, relax. We really are on your side." He lifted his hands. "Your husband is looking for you. I'm a policeman, remember?"

"No. You're a liar!"

"D@mn it, come here." He charged at her

Benita dodged and tried to run away.

He grabbed her. "Get back here, b!tch!"

She yelped and reeled back, driving her thumb deep into the soft tissue beneath his inner elbow, crushing the ulnar nerve against the bone.

He bellowed, his fingers spasming open instantly as his entire forearm went dead and began to twitch violently.

Before he could recover, her heel whipped upward, catching him squarely at the chin.

SNAP!

The sound from his neck echoed off the brick walls.

His legs buckled, dropping him face-first onto the gravel.

Benita froze. She gulped.

'Is he dead?'

Hez's voice came from a distance. "Langa, where are you?"

Benita turned quickly and vanished into the darkness of an intersecting alleyway.