“No,” Chantal says, calm. Too calm. “He’s not here to talk, Donna. Kasim must’ve had some of Dray’s other boys with him and they got away. Dray knows exactly what went down. We need a plan.”
“Why the fuck are you talking about a plan?” Pri shouts. “He sees the car. He’s staring right at us!”
“Call Ma, then,” Donna says.
“She hasn’t been picking up all night. I bet Q got something to do with that.”
“Q? What did he do to her?” These are the first words I speak since leaving Grosse Pointe. They almost choke me.
“He won’t hurt her, but he’ll keep her out of the way.”
“Turn back up Joy,” Pri says. “Let’s get the fuck outta here!”
“No,” I say, and open the door to the car.
“Fabiola!” Chantal calls out.
But I’m already in front of the house. The car doors slam behind me as my cousins join me. I step right in front of Dray with my fists clenched, my body aching, and my heart broken.
He’s not wearing his eye patch, and for the first time, I see that there’s a balled-up scar and a narrow sliver of white where an eye is supposed to be—as if someone had dug it out and left only a ghost of an eye.
I start to say something, but he cuts me off.
“’Cause of you, my cuzz is dead. How? Tell me something now! I wanna hear it from your mouth,” he hisses.
“Dray, baby . . . ,” Donna starts to say as she walks up next to me.
Dray puts his hand up to Donna’s face but keeps staring at me. “This has nothing to do with Donna. Nothing to do with Pri or Chant. This is between me and you. Talk. Now!”
“Dray, I . . . you . . .” The words are stuck in my throat.
“She ain’t got nothing to do with this!” Pri shouts. She pushes me out of the way and I bump into Chantal. “Whatever beef you got, you deal with us.”
“Go inside,” Chantal whispers to me, handing me her keys. “Go inside!”
“She ain’t going nowhere, son. Stay the fuck out here,” Dray says. He opens his coat, but I can’t see what he’s showing them from where I’m standing.
“Nah, bro. Deal with me, nigga! I’m right here. I’m right here!” Pri shouts in his face.
Chantal shoves me out of the way and I stumble toward the steps. My cousins have surrounded Dray and are yelling in his face, telling him to leave me alone and deal with them, all of them, instead. As I watch him from behind, he is calm like Baron Samedi.
Baron Samedi. Ezili. Ezili-Danto. Ogu. Les Marassa Jumeaux. Papa Legba.
These are my guides. I need them now. I have to call on them. If there ever was a time that I needed to pray, to pour libation, to ring the bell, to rattle the asson, to sing a song so all my ancestors and my lwas, so God can hear me, it is now!
I rush into the house, up the stairs, and into Chantal’s room. My hands are trembling. My whole body shakes. With only the streetlight from outside pouring through the window, I search for my lighter and tea candle. I’ve added more things to the altar over the past couple of months—candy for Ezili and the Marassa, a Scotch bonnet pepper for Ezili-Danto, a razor blade for Ogu, and since I haven’t been able to find cigars, a cigarette taken from Mantant Jo’s room for Papa Legba. These are all offerings to the spirits, and in return, they will help me.
But a loud banging makes me drop the asson. My heart jumps when I hear loud footsteps coming up the stairs.
Dray.
I don’t even have time to close the door and lock it before he bursts in and pulls me out of the room by my hair, then the hood of my coat, then my arms. I scream. I kick. I fight. I scream louder. My cousins have come up the stairs, too, and they’re pulling my body in the other direction. Crying. Screaming.
“Let her go! Please, let her go!”
“Fuck outta my way!” Dray shouts.
I cry and scream from the very bottom of everything that makes me alive. I pull from life itself and dig for the loudest, most painful cry in the whole world, because my body is being dragged down the stairs and the skin on my back burns from scraping against the carpet. I dig my fingernails into his hands and arms. I dig for flesh and bone and maybe, if there is one, for a soul. Then I grab the banister while my body is stretched out on the stairs. Chantal is above me, pulling my leg, trying to keep me upstairs. My head burns. He’s ripped out my hair, maybe. I don’t let go of the banister. But he pulls my fingers off, bends them back so that they almost break.
And still, I make that sound from the God place. I beg for my life because it must be Death that awaits me at the bottom of the steps, in the living room, in this house.
“Fabiola, Fabiola. Don’t fight, Fabiola. Don’t fight,” someone says through tears. Donna. Her voice is worn now, as if it’s been stretched too thin.