Samuel Black

CHAPTER 4

I sat in my office thinking. "of all people, why me?." David walked in and casually relaxed himself on my couch. He raised an eyebrow and asked me what the plan was. I honestly didn't know, but I kindly asked him to stay out of it and leave it to me. I did some supplementary reading on the Vladkins investigation and left for home. I had barely begun to relax when Khelani called me. She wanted to meet at the
café. I dressed and left the house as quietly as I could.

she met me at the café at my usual seat. She was wearing basically the same thing as me. A t-shirt with jeans and Nike sneakers, but she still managed to make me feel underdressed. she greeted me with her usual million dollar smile. I ordered a cappuccino, she ordered an expresso and we just had a normal lengthy conversation with just the tiniest hint of flirting. It was all dreamy until she asked me my full name. I froze momentarily. I was told several times over to never tell anyone my full name. "Samuel Jones" I lied. she nodded her head passively. "Khelani " I cut her off. "Vladkins" I realized my mistake too late. she cocked her head to one side curiously. "how did you know my last name?"

I smiled and said something really wise like..." what?". "oh my God". I was about to defend myself but she said "Caller id right?". I smiled and affirmed awkwardly. For a second, I thought I was screwed over, but out of the corner of my eye I saw David entering the café and heading straight for us. I had about thirty seconds to do what I needed to do. "have to go see you later." Both of us got up and began to make our way to the exit. Sadly, we never made it. David and his cheap acting skills bumped into me and seemed soo surprised to see me. Barely a minute later, all three of us were having a "nice" reunion over crepes and pancakes,

Luckily, divine intervention saved me and I received an email from twitter." aww shit" I said. "we have that thing". Thankfully, David got the message and we left. I took several deep breaths and I was finally able to talk to him calmly. What part of leave it to me don't you understand?." He looked at me with his warm brown eyes as if he was actually sorry and actually understood me. I turned to leave, but David grabbed my arm. I made no effort to liberate myself. " I don't have time for this" I tried to move, but he still wouldn't let me go. I slowly turned back to face him trying hard not to embed my fist into his smug face. "you have a problem Sammy. You never listen to anyone except yourself, because no one else is good enough for you. From our childhood, the only person you ever wanted to listen to was mom, but guess what..., she's not here. you've always had the impression that what you say is always right. You never trusted anyone even those who loved you. Every time someone showed interest in you..."

He didn't finish the sentence. I threw my fist as hard as I could at his face. I felt his blood running down my fist. I expected him to retaliate but he didn't. He got off the floor and looked me in the eyes and said "you will listen to me". Maybe it was the threatening intonation to it or the angry fire burning in his eyes, but whatever it was, it made me sit down. He continued his rant. " Nobody has ever been good enough for you. You were this friendly jovial kid, but I have no idea what happened to you. You just became some antisocial, unfriendly kid who no one wanted to be near.

Whatever he was saying was causing me to relive some suppressed memory and I wasn't going to allow it. I could already hear my fathers voice that night and it was making me angry. I lunged out of my chair and rugby tackled him to the ground. He threw me off and brought his fist upon my incredibly sexy face. I felt my nose break and blood gushing down my face. I headbutted him and stood up. Honestly, I had been waiting for that for a long time. He was on his feet before I knew it with his hands in combat position. Our eyes locked onto each others. The anger and hatred in the room was as pure as you could get. I felt my heart hammering inside my chest and my chest itself heaving in competition. He threw the first punch. I dodged and gave him a punch to his ribs, but before I could get out of the way, his elbow came crashing into my skull, knocking me off balance.

Before I could retaliate and put an end to his miserable meaningless excuse of a life, when my phone started to ring. I couldn't believe it. It was my mothers number. David also froze. I was about to answer it, but the person ended the call and it was switched off when I tried to call back. I stood confused staring at the blank screen silently hoping that it would ring again. I turned to look at David but I realized that he didn't look confused. He just looked like he was hiding something as usual. "Mom just called me" I said. He looked at me like I was really dumb and said it was probably a mistake. "We both saw that right?". He gave me a weird look and walked away, shaking his head.

I dashed off to the office and tried to track the number but it was heavily guarded and no one at the IT department seemed to be able to do so. On my way home I decided to pass by the café to pick up a muffin and a slushy. Khelani and her mother were seated a few booths away from my usual spot. I thought I'd just introduce myself but Khelani gave me a "No way signal before I could try anything. Ivanka Vladkins was right there I could simply call for backup and end everything or I could just kill her but something held me back. As I exited the café, I saw David crouched in a corner out of the corner of my eye. He knew they were there so there was no way I could have left there without doing anything. I recognized Ivanka's bodyguard standing by a jet black Range Rover. On my way past I tripped and whacked my hand hard against the rear bumper of the car. Luckily, I got a mean glare from the bodyguard and nothing more.

I got home thirty minutes later and headed straight to my study. I logged on to the GPS on my computer. Yess. The tracker I had planted on the car was fully operational and was giving me location updates every five seconds. I followed them for about an hour until they took a turn and the signal suddenly went off. I reset the tracking system but there was no signal. I saved their last location and drifted off to sleep still thinking about the mysterious phone call.