I'd Kill You First: when bad meets bad

Chap. 42

KEENON:

I dialed Brody's number with trembling hands and put it up to my ear with baited breath.

One ring. Two. Three. Four-

"I swear you motherfucker you better have my baby sister and she better be fine without a hair gone from her head-"

"B-Br-Brody," I croaked out, getting him to stop, "I didn't take her. She came looking for me."

It was deathly silent for a minute before he growled, "Why the fuck would she do that?"

"She said she dreams about me," I said softly, then remembered my problem and prayed that I would live through this long enough to explain myself. "But Brody, that isn't why I called."

"My traumatized sister left to find a man she doesn't remember and you're telling me that's not why you called?!" he screeched. "This better be good. Where is Soda?!"

I took a breath, hoping he wouldn't kill me for this. "Look man, I took her for breakfast because she was a little out of it and she... She's gone."

Another tense pause, then I heard a crashing sound over the phone. "What do you mean, she's gone?" he bit out slowly.

I gulped and dodged a mail bin as I continued my searches down the streets. "She uh, got upset and stormed out of the cafe and I tried to catch her but she- she just disappeared, man! I can't find her anywhere and I've been looking for hours-"

"WHAT?! You called me to tell me you let my baby sister run off in a place she doesn't remember while people are obviously still trying to kill her and you waited hours to even inform me that she was with you at all?! We've been going crazy looking for her and you just let her get lost! What is wrong with you?!" he screamed in hysterics, cursing and smashing things as I just winced and took what I knew I deserved.

"I know I know, Brody, I'm sorry! Okay? I know I screwed up, I know! Just come to Brooks Street and help me!"

"Brooks Street, are you kidding me?!" he yelled in disbelief, making me stop in my tracks and frown. "Matt tracked the location of the goons that attacked her to just west of Brooksville! Fuck!" He let out a long string of curses before suddenly growling, "Keenon, you better hope you have nine lives because when I find you, I'm going to take ten of them."

The line clicked dead and I just stared at my phone like it would explode. I led her right to them? So there's a large possibility she's back in the hands of the monsters who almost killed her?

I turned and slammed my fist into the nearest wall and yelled out in frustration at myself and my current situation. Why did I have to be so stupid? Why couldn't I have just answered her dumb questions so she wouldn't run out on me? Why couldn't I catch her before she got lost? Why did I have to be careless enough to drop her right in the lion's paws? Just add it to your list of things you're at fault for.

I took deep breaths and tried to clear my head. Where would she be? Where would she have gone? Then I stopped that line of thought and considered everything. No, where would they go if they found her?

No no no, think about it harder.

Okay, if I was an evil devil person, who also happened to be some type of devious crime lord, I would know where my victim was at all times. I would have tabs on their whereabouts, know where they stayed, know who they cared about or... Who they lived with...

No. It was me. They knew who and where I was, and all they had to do was follow me because I had her.

Then I wrapped my brain around the fact that if they knew we lived together, then they were tracking Soda before the attack. These people weren't just her attackers... they were her job. Was this what she was always being so jumpy about? All those meetings she said she had? The gun she had in her trunk? The gun beneath her bed? Her fighting skills and street smarts? Her unusual wealth for an almost twenty year old?