Dark Beauty

chapter 2: DownLow

A Few Hours Later.

  When Kodeniˊ first stormed out the house, she did have a definite plan to go to the nearest hotel and check-in, but the weather outside made that nearly impossible. The weather was getting worse by the second with no chance of easing up any time soon. At the time, she wasn't thinking about the weather; she wanted to get away from her husband. Once the dust settled, and she calmed down, Kodeni realized she had bit off more than she could chew. The nearest hotel was over forty miles away, and the flooding from the storm was horrible and made driving an impossible task. To top it off, she wasn't an experienced driver when it came to the rain, but she refused to stop. Kodeni′ just prayed that it would ease up, but when it didn't, she put on her blinkers and pulled over to the side of the road.

   Kodeni′ had two options: call someone from Jeremiah's crew to pick her up, or wait out the storm. The frustration was evident in her tone as she blew her breath. She looked behind her and checked on her daughter in the backseat, who was sound asleep. A faint smile appeared on her face as she watched her sleep quietly. The smile disappeared as she felt disappointment creep into her mind. She felt horrible that she had to drag her daughter out into this messy weather. "I wish we coulda' communicated better for you," she whispered.

  Kodi knew that the primary way to make Jeremiah suffer was to take his daughter away from him, and because he had won the argument taking Layla away made her feel like she had won the war.

  The plan was to go to a hotel for a night or two, but the way the weather was set up, that wasn't going to happen. Even though she had been gone for hours, it didn't stop her husband from calling. Every-time her phone lit up, she looked at it, saw his name flash across the screen, and set it back down. "Can't he get it through his head?" she questioned. It stopped ringing, but less than a second later, it rang again. The simple ringtone of the Nokia 7110 was agitating her. She picked up the phone and had all intent on cursing her abusive husband out. "What the fuck do you want, Jeremiah?" she yelled.

"This ain't Jeremiah," he said.

"James?" she questioned surprisingly.

"Yeah," he answered. "Wassup, where you at shorty?" he asked.

  Static from the terrible connection due to the storm made answering his questions hard. "I'm stuck on the side of the road, James," she said. "Why?" she asked. "I hope 'Miah didn't prompt you to call me?" she asked. She took the phone away from her ear and noticed that he was calling from a different number. "Whose number is this, anyway?"

"Don't worry about all that, and Nah, he ain't put me up to shit," he said. "He did call me and tell me what went down though, but I took it upon myself to check up on you," Changing the subject, he asked, "What highway?"

  She disregarded his question. "How I know you ain't lyin'?" she asked. "You could be right there with him, waitin' for me to tell you my location so that you and Miah could come and scoop me and take me back to that hell hole." she accused.

"You got a wild imagination shorty." James laughed. "I'm nowhere near ya' husband," he assured her.

  Kodeniˊ blew her breath. She still didn't believe him, but at this point, she had nothing to lose. Subconsciously she was hoping 'Miah was with him or that James would relay the message back to her husband so that he could send someone from the crew to come to pick her up. It was time for her to end this crazy war. She needed to get her daughter inside and out of this rain.