Today is the day. Zeniqua thinks as she peeks her head out of her room door into the silence of the hallway. The bodyguards by her door to ensure she doesn’t escape again are knocked out cold on the carpeted floor. She closes her door quietly, locking it and starts packing up her things. She has to get outta here, she has to get away from this life that has corrupted her other siblings and father. The life of killing or be killed. The life of expensive things at the expense of others. She has too much heart to see another senseless killing.
“She is too weak, sir. We must kill her, Caleb. Err...sir,” Zeniqua overhears one of her father’s right hand men telling him.
“She is my daughter. You don’t kill blood. But, she is too soft for this life and I do agree that something must be done about her. I just don’t know what to do.” He sighs.
‘You don’t kill blood?’ She thought, ‘Like how you killed my cousin Acqwon Mathis because you thought he was stealing crack from you? Like how you killed Auntie Acqwon because you thought she was a police informant? That was actually true, but still. ‘You don’t kill blood?’
She snaps out of it, knowing she only has a few hours before everyone wakes up. She stuffs shirts, underwear, shoes, and pants into a medium sized duffle bag as quickly as she could. A flutter grows in her stomach when she sees the sun light beginning to shine in her room, “Shit!” tears form in her eyes as she opens the window to her room. She climbs out and looks at her room once more, she will miss her things severely. Her muscles tighten when she hears the jingle of her room door, she locked it to give herself more time to escape. She inhales and jumps from the two story window and lands on her feet, but sprains her left ankle.
She hears her bodyguards bust open her door, ignoring the pain that is shooting up her leg, she throws herself against the right wall to avoid the security cameras her father installed when his rivals came for him a few years back. She silently slinks along the wall and stops when she sees one of the bodyguards looking out the window for her. Her breathing slows and she creeps along the wall and to the main gate of the house. She flinches when the sirens are activated and she climbs the four foot gate and jumps down with a grunt. She shields her eyes from the bright security lights and she takes off running down the street. Though, her muscles tense and ache from running, she doesn’t look back. She couldn’t look back.
She stops running once she comes to the Central Illinois Regional Airport. She pants and walks in as calmly as possible. She goes to the counter and the lady looks up, “How may I help you?” she smiles.
Zeniqua slows her breathing enough to answer, “I need a plane ticket to New York, please. One way. I have cash,” Zeniqua digs in her back pockets and pull out some hundreds.
The lady’s eyes widen at the money, “Alright.” She types away at her computer and says, “that’s 278.10.”
Zeniqua straightens up the dollar bills and hands the lady the money, she prints her ticket, Zeniqua takes it and thanks the lady. She walks quickly to her terminal, throws her bag on the belt, and walks through the detector; thankfully it doesn’t go off and her bag is clear. The lady at the entrance of the terminal tears Zeniqua’s ticket and sends her on her way.
Zeniqua finds her seat by the window and by another female with blonde hair and blue eyes. She puts her bag in the overhead and sits down, puffing out a sigh of relief.
“Hey, I am Patricia Hodges.” The blonde introduces herself.
“Zeniqua Robertson.” Zeniqua didn’t want to be rude just because she is going through a tough time right now. She looks down at her empty hands, wishing she had her cell phone. But, she purposely left it at home because she knew her father would be able to track her.
Patricia stretches and smiles, “Isn’t this exciting? This is my first time on a plane, what about you?”
Zeniqua isn’t up for any type of conversation, she needed to think about her plans once she gets to New York. “No.”
“Oh,” Patricia looks away.
The pilot announces that take off is beginning and the stewardess is showing them how to buckle their seat belts along with how to use the floatation devices in case they crash. Zeniqua heard Patricia gasp in fear at the crashing part, but settles down when the plane takes off.
With a few bouts of turbulence, Patricia is snoring lightly with her head on Zeniqua’s shoulder. She tries to push her back to her seat, but she kept leaning to the side. Zeniqua let’s her stay there as long as she doesn’t start drooling, Zeniqua is fine.
There isn’t a bunch of people on the plane, Zeniqua was sure to scan the plane to see if any of her father’s men had beat her there. But, there wasn’t anyone. This allowed her to relax. She’d planned this escape for months, even though she has tried to escape before, this one was fool proof, because this time she had everything sketched out. From the time she woke up to the time everyone went to bed. Though, her older brother; Dallevante ‘Vante’ wanted to talk to Zeniqua about their father’s wishes in Zeniqua being more tough skinned. Zeniqua cut that short by fake yawning and pretending to go to bed, knowing what she was going to do in the morning. There was nothing anyone could say to make her change her mind.
Right now, her mind is mush due to actually being able to pull it off and wonders if her father made it easy for her. She squints when the plane starts to rock a little and Patricia snorts and shifts, but stays asleep. Zeniqua rolls her eyes, she could already tell Patricia is a dramatic youngin’.
She shakes her head and looks out the window at the clouds and the small cities below her. Where am I going to go when I get there? Who can I turn to that won’t turn me into my father? She has family all over New York, but they are all loyal to her father. Tears form in her eyes due to fear of not planning this out all the way, she sniffles.
“Tissue?” The stewardess offers a box to Zeniqua.
Zeniqua looks at her, “Thanks.” she takes a few and daps at her eyes. The stewardess nods and strolls off. Sighing, she goes back to looking out the window. The only people I can turn to are the ones on my mother’s side. I smile, they will be happy to see me.
The pilot announces that the plane ride is over and they will be landing at the JFK John F. Kennedy Intl Airport in the next five to ten minutes and thanks everyone for flying with him.
They unbuckle their seat belts as the plane comes to a rocky but safe landing. Everyone stands up and gets their bags and file off the plane. Once she gets off, she runs into Patricia again.
“Hey,” She says and she stops.
“Yes?”
“It was nice meeting you,” She smiles.
“You too.” Zeniqua moves on and exits the airport.
She is ready to embark on a new adventure, but she still has to be very careful of who she befriends and who she trusts. As far as she knows, her father is a very powerful man and has people everywhere, watching everything.
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