Never Satisfied: A New Orleans Tale

Somebody Gon' Die Tonight!

"What the fuck man? I thought you was my nigga." Nique confronted Ace.

Kyrielle sat up and covered herself with the comforter. "Baby!"

"Don't fucking 'baby' me now!" He brandished his pistol and aimed it in her direction.

"Ay man chill out. It ain't what you think," Ace tried to assure him.

Nique chuckled ominously. "It ain't what I think? Then nigga, tell me what it is then." He pointed the gun at him.

"Baby, just calm down and put the gun away so we can talk about it." Kyrielle tried to reason with him.

"Naw, fuck all that shit. I'ma let this pistol talk for me."

Ace caught Nique off guard and flung his naked ass out of bed, tackled him to the ground and wrestled with him for the weapon.

Fighting for his life Ace got on top of Nique and tried to pry the gun from his grasp. In the struggle, Nique dropped it and Ace slid it across the room.

Nique knocked Ace off of him and crawled to the gun, but Ace pulled him back and punched him in the face. The weak blow only served to further piss Nique off and he clocked the fuck out of him and crawled back in the direction of the gun. Just when Nique made it to the gun, Ace jumped back on top of him and, while they both tussled for the pistol, it went off.

A bullet ripped straight through Ace's chest and Kyrielle released a gut-wrenching scream.

Everything was now moving twice as fast as Nique pushed the dead weight off of him and got up.

"Baby, I'm so sorry. I was drunk. I didn't know what I was doing. He took advantage of me," Kyrielle rambled on as Nique sat beside her on the bed. "Please don't do this baby. I love you," she cried.

Tears formed in Nique's eyes and he choked back the urge to cry as he used the weight of his body to force her to lie down. "I love you too Kyrielle," he said, soothing her with a long, heartfelt kiss. Kyrielle kissed the moisture from his cheek before smacking her lips back on to his. Then, right after their lips parted from each other, he sat up and placed a pillow over her face. She started kicking and screaming, but when Nique pressed the pistol into the pillow and squeezed the trigger, her body became still. "I love you too..."

The scenario played over and over in my mind as I waited for Nique to come back home and after several hours passed by, he still hadn't returned. With worry weighing so heavily on my heart, sleeping was not an option so I clambered out of bed and dragged myself into the living room. To clear my mind, I sat down, turned on the TV and flipped through a few channels. Of course at three in the morning nothing was on so I got the telephone off the arm of the couch and tried calling Kyrielle's cell.

I must have tried that number about a million times and every single time the voicemail would greet me.

I tried her house phone next, but she wasn't answering that one either.

Panic began to set in and I closed my eyes and took a deep breath to relax, but as soon as I did that an image of Kyrielle's lifeless body lying in a dumpster in some obscure alley haunted my thoughts.

Then I heard the door unlocking and the knob turning. When I saw Nique coming through the door I shouted his name in relief and jumped up.

I ran into his arms and told him how worried I had been.

He stood stiff and in an eerie tone uttered, "I had to go handle some business."

I placed my head on his shoulder and noticed a red stain on the sleeve of his shirt.

"You're bleeding."

"Oh." He looked down at the spot. "Yeah, that ain't nothing. I just cut myself on the fence."

Feeling a little uneasy, I stepped back and looked in his face, but he refused to make eye contact with me.

"C'mon let's go to bed ma, I'm tired." He walked off and headed into the bedroom.

Instead of following him, I made a bed out of the couch to lie down.

I know something's not right. I can feel it.

For a minute I thought about praying that my friend was okay, but something in my heart was telling me that it was already too late.