Pariah ✔

11 - Nowhere To Go

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Her whole body was shaking. Alesia had no idea how she had gotten home. Everything had gone by in a blur. She was sitting on the couch, her arms wrapped around herself. Numb, she stared forward. 

Esai was gone. 

Dead. Murdered by his own father. 

The words kept repeating themselves as if they were trying to dig a way through her skull to reach her brain. Some sort of shield was deflecting them for she failed to understand what had happened. 

With her hand, she rubbed her belly. Something inside it was aching. Was it their baby? Would she lose it because of this horrible pain? How could she move on from here? 

Esai had been her new life. Her friend since the moment he stuck up for her in high school. His family had been hers and now she had lost them. She couldn't find solace with the man who had taken her loved one from her. He probably wouldn't even let her come close.

She was a witness. 

He would want her to die too, for she could tell the other Mayans what she had seen. That their president had killed his own son. Or did they already know? Had they agreed with his death? 

The pain in her stomach increased and she started to sob again. 

Where would she go? Where was she safe? 

Her parents were dead. Her brother was a drug addict. Her two best friends were part of the club that had destroyed her life again. She couldn't stay and there was nowhere to go. The room spun around her and she bent her head and pushed her fists against her temples. 

I have to protect my baby. 

But how? Esai had earned most of their money. She had been working as a graphic designer for three years and she found her customers online. Marcus would find her in a minute. Finding another job was anything but easy, especially because of the giant scar across her face. 

She rubbed her belly again, knowing it would take months before she could hold the little one. 

"I don't know what to do," she whispered.

Was there a place where homeless pregnant women could go to? At least when she would be in her last trimester? She took a deep breath. Should she contact Gilly and Angel anyway? She didn't dare to. They'd patched in years ago. They would be more loyal to the club than to her. Their heart beat for the club and not for her.

She got up and started to pace the room, which was better than sitting defeated on the couch. What should she take with her? After walking up and down the room a few times, she went to her bedroom. Opening the doors of her wardrobe, she took out the sports bag on the bottom of it and tossed it on the bed. 

She stared at it. 

It was the one Esai used to take with him when he was on a run. Tears stung in her eyes again, but she shoved her grief aside. 

Not now. 

Later, she would have lots of time to grieve. She filled the bag with clothes and an extra pair of shoes. Indecisively she looked around. What did one take with him when on the run? When there was only a slight chance that she would ever return and when she wasn't sure where to go to either? She grabbed an extra sweater and headed to the bathroom. 

In the end, she left the house with a sports bag and a backpack. At the cash machine around the corner she withdrew as much money as possible, not knowing when she dared to do it again. For all she knew, Marcus would follow her money trail, although she feared she wouldn't have a choice eventually. Maybe he would just let her leave, now that she had left the city and had no intention telling anyone what she had seen. 

Sitting down on the bench of the bus stop, she stared down the street. She still hadn't decided where she wanted to go. Traveling around randomly and searching for a homeless shelter was the best strategy she could think of; and preferably finding a shelter that wasn't located too near Oakland. 

Folding her hands between her knees, she stared down. Images flashed before her eyes. The hot dog seller who stabbed her boyfriend. Her father-in-law giving him an envelope. She clenched her hands into fists, her nails cutting her flesh. 

Don't cry. You won't achieve anything with it.

If she hadn't been pregnant, she might have avenged her boyfriend. Now, she had to cherish the last thing left of Esai and protect it at any cost. She didn't want their child to grow up without parents, just like her. To have no one to go to at the age of 23, just like her. To feel tortured by every heartbeat, just like her. 

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