RED PARALLEL

Chapter 40: VIP Hostage

Song: That's My N****, by Meek Mill, YG, and Snoop Dog.

The wood crashed and his feet dived in it.

"What the fuck-"

The floor was hollow, a huge fucking hole beneath it. With half his body hanging down and half his mind stung by curiosity, Traviz threw himself down the shit. As he landed, raising dust and coughing, he saw an immense arsenal of...

"Sacs?"

Was that food?

"Gosh."

He drew near the piles and piles of white sacs. Traviz poked them with his feet. The sacs contained a thin white powder, white dust. Disappointment hit him, yet not that hard. Of course there would be no cheeseburger or lasagna down there. Any eatable shit. And flour was not an eatable shit. Snorting, Traviz climbed up, glad that a piece of wood had ripped from the floor. One more object to play with.

Well, shit.

Two fat guys were pointing guns at him, but wait.

They weren't cops. What cop wore a b-ball's tee? Traviz raised his hands and thought. The window was just behind him, all he had to do was throw himself back, pray for half glass to crash and not kill him, and grab the edge of the wall in time, and then climb in an ultra-speed and vanish. Without getting shot.

Well, shit.

He didn't get to put his plan into action because he thought hard but not fast. Both guys had their guns glued at his neck like two motherfucking pit-bulls about to strike.

This is where I die. Bye, stupid world, I won't miss ya.

Well, he didn't die. Instead, both guys started shoving questions - not bullets -, like who he was, what was he doing there, did he call the cops, did he know about the 'kitten' stuff, etc, etc. Traviz didn't say a word, drifting his mind about what the hell did 'kitten' mean - did they breed kittens in that hollow? Poor cats.

"I think you should kill me." Because no way he would manage to escape from two choppers on his neck, plus he wasn't up to start chatting with strange niggas. Or with any niggas. With anyone. Maybe just a cat. Did they have cats? Haha... "Kill me, I don't mind."

Phone rang and one of the blokes answered it. Maybe that would be a chance to esca-

"Don't move." He heard the click of both guns. "Yeah, I got the stuff, but we got a situation here, man." The dude stared at Traviz. "There's a white kid here. He found the 'kittens'."

Did I? Wheere? Okay, so it's the flour...

"We kill him? Ah. 'Kay. Did you talk to Gretta about the- Fine."

The next minute, Traviz was on the backseat of some damn big car - not a van, not a truck, maybe an SUV -, wearing a tight hood around his face, blocking view. Not to worry, he could still hear and smell. The car had a nice scent, just like one of dad's black sedans. He touched the seat. Hm, leather. Then, he felt a breeze hitting his arms, and the scent was gone, and now he smelled a lot of stuff from oil gas to food and- He heard loud traffic noises and-

"Cobe, shut the window, you imbecile," one of the guys hissed.

"But it's stinking!"

"Shut it!"

The leather scent was back. Okay, he was stinking, but he was stinking for so long that he had learned not to consider it too much, otherwise he'd puke. So whenever he had to smell a new smell, he'd just think 'Okay, apart from the shit I'm stinking, what else?' What a pro.

The two guys shared no words. They would cough and turn the music up. Traviz appreciated that. After centuries, he was listening to something that was not a bunch of annoying bullshit. It didn't last for too long, though, not because they turned it off, no. Maybe because he received, out of a sudden, a hard punch on his head, and he fell, knocked out.

He woke up with the two guys gaping at him, arms crossed with a huge fat black woman sitting in the middle. The woman had heavy makeup on her eyes, something blue with silver, and that didn't help because she was way too ugly. Eyes wide, ginormous eyelashes, super tall wig or something. All golden yellow dressed, like ew... Traviz stared at the two niggas, disgusted and asking for some help maybe. Dozen punches later, he gave up and the woman drew near with a horrendous smile. Her boobs were popping out of her dress and they were not sexy. She whispered something in his ear, smoke swirling around him. She said she'd never let them kill such a pretty boy, so the guys left the room, and Traviz almost screamed in pain, the lady rubbing his hands on his tighs. Next thing he knew, he was half-naked, a gun in her cleavage and a pointy nail playing over his body. He threw some loud curses, from pork bitch to drag whore, but she would laugh as if he had said a joke. Jeez...

He was kept hostage in the pork bitch's room, a what the hell red and golden place with fur, pink stuff, excessive perfume, silk all over the place, chains hanging at the wall, roses and other flowers stuffed in every corner, everything but space. The room was big and with no space to walk, except for her way to the bed and the spot where the gangsta niggas appeared every fucking minute to give her some code words.

Her name was Gretta. She was the boss, and the gangstas were so respectful that Traviz couldn't wait to see them bowing and kissing her fat hands full of fat rings. And it happened. He was about to laugh but then he remembered he was a hostage and that his hands were still tied, and that whenever he had to go pee he'd have to struggle through the roses and chairs and fluffy couches and beg her to unchain him, then run to the toilet like a monkey. He couldn't shout, yell, curse, beat her, destroy that fucking hot red shit of a place, kill that bitch with her gun, because well, she would hold it every time as if it were a mascot.

Not everything sucked. He had been allowed to take baths. On the first night he had tried to find a spot in the bathroom where he could climb and find a way out, but there was nothing. The roof was sealed, there was no window, no access to anything, there was nothing it could be used to threaten her and pick her gun - like, how, really - so he decided to crash the mirror with a metal from the bottom of the sink. After telling the gangsta guy five times he'd like to take that shot, he received a kick on his back and was ordered to shower. The other detail was the random out of nowhere clothes that fit him perfectly. Gretta said she wanted her boy to be up the beat, to the next level. Well, that was okay, but what about the food?

Well. The food. This made him lose his mind and drop all the 'maybe it's fine' shit that Gretta had provided. Gretta's breakfast was a banquet of five different types of tarts and a couple of bread, omelets, and cheese. Traviz's breakfast was no food. Gretta's lunch was a massive amount of pasta in all sauces possible, beef, pork, pizzas, rice, beans, like Owen's delicious food. Never mind. Traviz's lunch was a lock of grapes. A tiny lock of grapes. Gretta's dinner was out. She'd turn off the lights and he'd stay in the pitch dark. Tied.