Caught Up

Chapter 9

An unknown amount of time passed when Taj slowly opened her eyes, rubbing her head in the process. She had a banging headache and she felt the cool sting of a fresh cut on her chin from the shattered glass hitting her face. The car was on its side as gravity forced her into the corner of the back seat. Rob, who luckily had his seatbelt on, was hanging like a ragdoll unconscious in the driver seat. Taj tried to move but her body ached from the impact.

“Chris?” Taj called for her brother. Getting no response, she painfully reached forward to get her brothers attention. Sirens could be heard in the distance as Taj struggled to move toward the front of the car.

“Chris?” she repeated, hoping for an answer. As she lifted herself forward, she stared in shock as she looked at her brother’s lifeless body. A huge gash rested in his forehead and broken glass lay all around him.

“No, no, no, no, no” was all that managed to escape her lips as tears fell from her eyes. The sirens got louder. Taj wrapped her arms around her brother in the seat his body rested in.

“Wake up, please wake up” Taj cried, slightly shaking his limp body. As the lights flashed around her and the sirens stopped, Taj could hear the voices of the rescue crew surrounding the car. Taj closed her eyes as she held on to her brother praying with everything she had that he would be okay.

Within minutes the car was pushed from its side to a neutral position. Rob and Chris were both cut out of their seatbelts and placed on stretchers. Surprisingly, Taj, the only one not wearing her seatbelt, suffered the least damage. She climbed out of the backseat as medics surrounded her, bombarding her with questions. Her headache grew as she tried to stay near her brother.

“What’s goin on with my brother?! Is he going to be aight?” Taj worriedly asked as the EMT strapped him to the stretcher.

“Ma’am I’m going to need you to back up!” the angry little brunette yelled at her.

“That’s my fuckin brother! Somebody gone tell me what the fuck is goin on with him! Is he at least alive?” Taj felt her anger growing at the fact that nobody was answering her questions. The EMTs continued frantically talking to each other, ignoring Taj while a police officer desperately tried to get her attention. Within minutes, the back doors of the ambulance were closed and it was driving off, leaving Taj worried with unanswered questions.

“Ma’am, your brother will be transported to the local hospital but imma need you to tell me what happened?” the officer asked Taj.  Taj couldn’t help but think that the officer looked exactly like Carl Winslow from one of her favorite TV shows Family Matters.

Annoyed, Taj answered, “We were sitting at the light, then a car came out of nowhere and hit us. That’s it.”

“And where were u on your way to?” Officer Winslow asked.

Before she could answer, another officer shouted from behind the car “Sir, we found something!” Taj stared in awe as she watched the officer hold up 2 solid white bricks of cocaine. Her eyes widened as time seemed to exist in slow motion. She already knew how this was going to play out if she stayed. There was only one thing that she could do at this point.

Run.

Taj darted in the opposite direction of the commotion. Officer Winslow chased after her as he struggled to keep up. All those hours in the gym paid off when Taj put all her power into her legs and jetted down the street.

“We gotta runner!” Winslow huffed between breaths. For a moment, Taj’s thoughts were emptied. As she ran, her mind began to go to a better place. Thoughts of neighborhood wide games of “Manhunt” entered her head. She thought of the fresh, cool, end of summer air as she ran from her peers throughout the neighborhood. The laughter, the fun, the carefree atmosphere, she loved every moment. She so desperately wanted to be in that moment when nothing mattered but coming in the house before the street lights came on.