Page 101 of Juliet's Echo

I raised my hands slightly.

“Easy.”

“Psalm!” Juliet screamed. “He's crazy!”

“Shut up!” He whipped around and yelled at her. Then he lifted his hand like he was about to strike her.

“Aye, nigga, chill!” The scream ripped from my chest.

Everything inside me wanted to kill him right then and there, but he had a gun and my baby was tied to a chair entirely too close to this psycho.

“I got it, Lucky. Everything is going to be okay,” I assured her, keeping my voice calm.

Then I shifted my attention back to him.

“Alonse,” I said carefully. “Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”

Slowly, I began moving closer.

“Don't come any closer!” he yelled, shaking the gun in my direction.

I kept moving.

“You know I got to, Alonse. That's my world you got tied to that chair. I can't let you hurt her.”

My voice remained calm and my eyes never left him.

His eyes appeared as two black tunnels.

“Hurt her?” he repeated.

Spit flew from his mouth.

“Hurt her?”

His breathing became erratic.

“I didn't do shit! It was her! Her and that bum Echo Everette!”

He pointed the gun at Juliet’s abdomen and looked at me almost pleadingly. Fear cooked in my stomach because the truth was, he could shoot her at any second.

“Once again, this bitch Simone got my family turning against me. Y’all gonna lock me away too, Psalm? Huh? Stuff pills down my throat and let a doctor raise me as one of his experiments until I’m eighteen?”

What the fuck? This nigga was nuts.

“Huh, Psalm?” he continued. “Then what? Hmm? Put millions in a bank account and drop me back off into society and expect me to function normally?”

Normal and this nigga had probably never existed in the same sentence.

I cut off his rant.

“Man, I don’t know who Simone is, but that”—I pointed at Lucky—“but that is Juliet. We can talk about all that other stuff you mentioned, just you and I. You’re my family and I wouldn’t hurt you, but you can’t hurt her either.”

For a brief second, he looked like he understood. The gun lowered and some of the tension left Juliet’s shoulders.

Then his face twisted.

“No. No. No. No.”