“Ay braces, why you going so fast! Slow up! Where you going?”
“Let me walk you home lil mama! I can walk you all the way to your room. We can play doctor, whatever!”
“I said leave me alone!”
I’d had every intention of ignoring the loud ass street harassment happening in front of the shop next to mine - not the boutique, but on the other side. There was nothing there, and people often took to using it as a hangout spot no one would complain about.
I wasn’t about to listen to what sounded like a young woman getting hassled though.
I stepped out of the candle shop door as the whole group turned a corner - with Kiara of all people leading the crowd.
Or rather, being stalked.
Her face was pulled into a scowl, earbuds pushed deep in her ears - both defense mechanisms. Anger to mask the fear the young men following her were causing, earbuds to drown them out as they surrounded her, impeding her from getting home.
At the sight of me, more than one let out a wolf-whistle, but I wasn’t with that shit.
“Y’all heard her say to leave her alone, right?” I snapped, stepping between her and the four older boys - one of whom wasn’t a boy at all, but a grown ass man - and a familiar one, at that.
The same motherfucker from my first night out in the Heights.
“This don’t concern you, bitch,” he spat in my direction, pulling a smile to my lips.
“Kiara… go inside,” I told her, gesturing inside the shop.
She didn’t hesitate, just slipped past me into the safety of the shop.
Smart girl.
“Do y’all know how old she is?” I asked, mostly addressing the one who was way too old to be bothering Kiara, even though they all were, really.
“That ass looks full-grown to me,” he sneered.
“You stay the fuck away from her,” I lobbed right back at him, stepping fully into his face, not giving a shit about a size or height difference. “She’s thirteen years old. I will kill you myself.”
“You won’t do sh--AYY, what the fuck!” He shrieked, backing up as I brandished a blade in his face. “Yo, what’s your problem?”
“You, and niggas like you are my problem,” I explained, looking at the others too. “Maybe if you’re worried about getting your dick filleted, you’ll learn how to leave people alone.”
“You ain’t gone do nothing with that,” the ringleader claimed, boldly taking a step back in my direction. I didn’t hesitate - I sliced through the front of his tee shirt, giving just enough pressure to touch his skin.
To prove a point.
The peanut gallery all started shouting, two of them taking off running at the sight of the tiny bit of blood I’d drawn.
Pussies.
“You really fucking cut me!”
I shrugged, frowning at the soiled blade. “I really fucking did. You may wanna find some fucking business before I take another slice.”
To emphasize my point, I fake lunged at him, and just like the bitch I knew he was, he flinched, then he and the other fool took off running too.
Predictable.
I turned back to the store to find Kiara staring out the window, having watched the whole exchange.
“Wow. You’re such a badass,” she gushed as I entered the shop, locking the door behind me. “You really are an assassin, aren’t you?”
“Do those guys always bother you like that?” I asked, avoiding the question.
“Not always. I take a different way home every day, so nobody can figure out my routine.”
Smart girl.
“Do you know them?”
“Not really, besides seeing them around the neighborhood sometimes. They’re always saying stuff to me,” she admitted, in a clearly uncomfortable tone as she gripped the straps of the hot pink backpack that matched her braces.
Which really pissed me off.
There was no way to mistake this little girl for anything other than exactly that - a little girl.
Not that “looking older” than her age would make the behavior okay, but the headband, hot pink everything, and obvious youth in her face made it feel so much more insidious.
“Have you said anything to your parents? To…your father?” I asked, propping a hip against a display as I waited for her answer.
“Daddy would kill him. All of them,” she answered, her tone so matter of fact that it almost felt like “duh bitch are you stupid?”
And maybe I was, for asking that question at all, when the answer was far from surprising.
“Well yeah…he’d try to make sure they didn’t bother you anymore.”
Kiara shook her head, taking it upon herself to remove her backpack and take a seat on an empty counter. “He wouldn’t try. He’d make sure.”
“Okay, so what’s the problem?”
“He’d have to go away again, and I like it a lot better when he’s here. When I can see him.”
Oh.
Right.
I’d only known Tristan a short time, so had no experience coping with him being deployed - Kiara and her mother had been the ones managing the care packages and video calls and all that - assuming he’d even been allowed any of those.
They’d definitely had to manage the fear that he might not actually make it back home.
“So you just…take it? Because you’re scared of what might happen if you tell somebody?”
She shrugged. “What else can I really do? They never touch me or anything, and I’ve always been able to get away from them so they can’t follow me all the way home.”
“So you think.”
Her eyes went wide over my correct - but likely terrifying - input. “I didn’t think they were smart enough for something like that.”
“Probably not,” I assured her. “But diligence is important either way. You can’t be too careful. And you should definitely say something to someone. Maybe your mom?”
“You met my mom. She’s more likely to wind up in jail than daddy.”
Yeah, that tracks.
“I get it, Kiara. But… You have to tell someone. In case - God forbid - something happens.”
Her big brown eyes came to me, blinking
