Niko’s Eye

Chapter 17.

"The Sweet Escape."

Alejandro.

This girl, she still hasn’t called me.

I didn’t even think of asking her for her numbers. What will it take for her to give me a call?

Alejandro pondered as he ran his fifth lap on the treadmill.

He had an indoor gym, situated on the second floor of his Mayweather-styled home.

He paused his treadmill to take a sip of his water.

He stared down at his hands.

They’d been on Isis’ body.

He closed his eyes and ran a hand over his face.

His skin was glistening with sweat and the nape of his neck was damp.

He suddenly began to overheat.

Not because he was exercising, but because his mind started to wander off into the crevices of Isis’ body.

He thought of the feel of Isis’ lips against his.

With his eyes still closed, he licked his lips and ran a finger across his bottom lip.

He began to travel down towards his core, as he thought of her breasts.

They sat a bit lower, more natural, less close together, each so perfect and moulded to her form.

He rested his hand on his chest and went down even further, remembering what her sweet mound looked like.

Bare and ready for the taking.

He could’ve betted that she was already wet.

Fuck...

He caught himself just in time before he reached his stiff rod.

He jumped as his phone rang, startled at the thought of what he was about to do.

Alejandro? Masturbate? To a woman? Never.

Bro, this is the second time you’re about to masturbate to Isis. You might as well just do it.

He let that thought resonate as he walked over to where his phone was.

He prayed it was Isis. He really wanted to talk to her.

Oh so now you talk? And how are you praying when you don’t believe there’s a God?

He slowly put the phone to his ear, mind-boggled by his own thoughts.

Isis.

"Mami, slow down. What are you saying?"

Isis felt a pinch of conviction in her heart but she needed to hear those words again.

Her mother is evil? Well, no s**t hey.

"You have to trust me, mi amor. I’m trying to protect you. I was unable to do this same thing for your father but I promised him that I’d take care of you, to the best of my ability. And I’m proud of the young lady you’ve become. Take this, get out of here and carry on your father’s legacy. And make sure your mother knows nothing of this and doesn’t see you. It would be best to leave tonight, if you can, as she’s aware that you know of her filth."

Isis’ father was a phenomenal parent.

The kind that should have had a hundred kids because he was just so darn good at it.

She didn’t understand why she was the only child.

But it made sense to her when she thought of how there was probably no love between her father and her mother, enough to have another baby.

Her father had this gift for turning any ordinary event into a teaching point.

Maybe he knew he wasn’t going to win his fight so he chose to leave her with as much counsel as he could in the time he had left, or maybe that’s just the way he was.

But as Isis stood there and quickly gathered her thoughts and tried to register what her Mami was telling her, she saw the light.

She didn’t ask any more further questions or act dumb.

She simply placed the box onto the ground and gave her grandmother one of the most profound embraces she had ever given her.

"I hope to see you again, birdie."

Isis’ Mami called her birdie since she was a baby, because Isis never put her arms down.

She always wanted to be lifted up.

She imagined herself as a toddler, running after everyone and anyone who would’ve cared enough to pick her up.

She smiled into her Mami’s shoulder, squeezed her tighter and said, "Thank you so much for taking care of me. For never judging me or pointing out my flaws at every chance you might have had. If I were to make receipts for every good thing you had ever given me, there would be not a tree left standing on earth, nor oil in the ground from which to make ink. And so, in this love that we both have for each other, there is a deep gratitude. A sense that what has been given to me, is sacred and transient, passing in time into the eternal cycles of my generation to come. I love you so much Belvia Giselle Arismendi. You’re the best grandmother anyone could ever ask for. I promise to never forget you, to always honour your words, and to make sure I call you every day."

She broke the embrace to look at her grandmother, who was now flooded with tears.

She took her grandmother’s aging hands into hers, and kissed them.

She picked up the box from the ground and opened the door, with one more look at her grandmother, she blew her a kiss, which her grandmother pretended to catch.

She smiled, and walked out.

Belvia.

She watched the door as her little grandchild walked out, possibly for good.

She felt weak at the knees and slowly backed up into her bed, and sat down.

Belvia thought of her evil daughter and all of the many atrocities that she had committed.

She hadn’t found the time to tell Isis about all of her mother’s crimes but she knew that someday, Isis would come to know of it.

She always wanted to give Isis the opportunity to discover things on her own, and decide on how to feel about them because she knew what it was like to have a voice in the background, always telling you what to do and how to feel.

That is the most part of the reason why she always found the time to listen to Isis and never told her how to be a child, a teenager or a young adult.

She believed that allowing children to make their own mistakes, with you as their anchor to fall back on, would bring them closer to you.

Just look at how distant she is with her mother. But that’s not her fault either way.

Aisha is a treacherous woman. I cannot believe I gave birth to such a dragon.

Belvia was catholic, and therefore there was already an existing rift between her daughter and herself.

She kept her Mexican roots and honored her ancestors on every ’Day of the Dead’.

This appalled Aisha.

But she had never wanted to get entangled with Aisha’s faith because for the most part, she knew that her daughter was an imposter, and that didn’t encourage her to attend any of the church services that were being held at the church or to even want to convert to Christianity.

Aisha had punished her own mother for that, by restricting her to the ground level of the house only and had instructed her never to leave the house, especially to attend any of her Catholic masses.

That was also why she had no cellphone.

Another prohibition, by her own daughter.

Inside the box she gave to Isis, was some incriminating evidence of Aisha’s crimes. She never exposed her daughter on her own because it was never in her place to do so. Isis was best disposed to do whatever she wished with what she would discover.

It was time, time that Isis found out the truth. Even if she decided not to act on what she’d find, it was still necessary that she knew everything about her mother.

She wiped her tears and prepared to go back to bed, but first she wanted to smoke a cigar and drink a bottle of malt.

It was going to be a long night.

Isis.

Isis had half-ran up the stairs, trying to be as quite as possible and also trying not to drop the wooden box.

It was pretty heavy and it weighed down her petite stature.

As soon as she got into her room and had closed the door behind her, she carefully placed the box in front of the door, ran to her cupboard and started to rip her neatly stacked clothes out.

She started to panic as she whispered to herself.

"Clothes, shoes, hair stuff, makeup, toiletries, books, bomber jackets, uhhhm... Oh yeah!"

She dashed into her bathroom and grabbed her towels.

She would even take her blankets if she could.

She crouched and looked under the bed to see if she had missed anything.

God, I hope I took everything. Well, everything that I NEEED.

With trembling hands and a shortened breath, she scratched through her backpack, looking for Alejandro’s card.

She couldn’t call Zainab right now because it was too late at night and it wasn’t the weekend yet, so she couldn’t just rock up at her house.

Zainab’s mom would definitely call her mother to check with her, if she had showed up, unannounced.

She found the little black card and darted her eyes where she could see numbers written. She didn’t have time to read the whole thing.

She frantically dialed the numbers on the card and almost slapped the phone to her ear.

She was really in a hurry.

"...Alejandro Dominic speaking, and you are?..."

She took a deep breath and then answered, "It’s Isis, Alex. I’m in trouble. I need you to please come and get me."

"Isis?" she heard him ask, almost excitedly.

"Tell me where you are, I’ll be there in 5 minutes."

"I’m at home Alex. Please hurr.."

Before she could finish her sentence, Alejandro had already dropped the phone on her.

She creased her forehead and wondered if he was even going to come.

Nevertheless, she saved his numbers.

All she could do was pray, while she waited.

She knelt down in front of her bed and prayed silently.

Heavenly father, I believe in Psalm 23.

I confess with my mouth that you are the great shepherd. The one who leads me through the valley of death. Lord, I fear no evil, for you are with me and your rod and your support are my comfor...

Just as she was about to conclude her prayer, her phone rang.

She looked at her screen.

Alejandro.

"Diversion."

Alejandro.

Isis was on the other end.

God, is that you?

He was excited, something which came as a shock, even to himself.

But then she sounded like she was hurt, and had told him to come and get her.

He swallowed his anger and had felt it burning in his belly.

If that Sergio toad of a man had hurt her, I swear...

He didn’t need Isis to finish her sentence after she had already told him where she was.

He hurriedly pressed the ’end call’ button and sprinted to the elevator, forgetting to put his t-shirt on.

And he had no time to take the stairs.

It took him straight to his garage.

He spared 10 seconds to check for the keys to the fastest car that he owned.

This was a matter of life and death. Isis could be badly hurt right now. I don’t even have any time to spare.

He didn’t take any time to examine his own thoughts. He just decided to let himself feel whatever he was feeling.

He welcomed his thoughts, and basked in all their glory.

He hastily grabbed the keys to his Hennessey Venom F5, and hit the gas as soon as his door clicked shut.

He went from 0 to 80 in 2.4 seconds and reached the car’s maximum speed of 301 miles per hour.

He was glad that it was quite late, hence there were hardly any other cars on the road.

In 5 minutes, Alejandro had arrived.

He hurried out of his car, holding his phone to his ear, with Isis’ number already dialed.

Come on Isis, pick up the phone.

He broke out in a sweat as he desperately kept his gaze on her balcony, hoping she’d atleast come out and prove that she was still alive.

After a few seconds, she appeared on her balcony and motioned for him to go to her.

Oh thank God.

His thoughts were scattered and he didn’t pay any mind to any of them but it was inevitable for him to carefully go over them again, at a later stage.

He jumped over their white picket fence, just like the day he had found her talking to Ignatius, and ran towards her balcony, standing under it and looking up towards Isis.

"Are you okay?", he asked, half-shouting.

She motioned for him to keep his voice down.

"I’m fine. But I’m going to drop my suitcase and you’ll have to catch it, okay? I’ll explain later."

He nodded and readily raised both of his arms.

She disappeared into her bedroom.

You should’ve raised your arms once she had came back with the suitcase you moron. Now you’re standing here like a priest who’s waiting to recieve his blessings.

He quickly put his arms down, embarrassed at his own haste.

Now he had to quickly put them back up again because Isis had emerged from her room with the suitcase.

For f**k sakes, is that a coffin?

He prepared himself, as if he was about to engage in a street fight with a guy who was suspended in the air.

Isis dropped her suitcase and he caught it, almost toppling him over.

He dropped it to the ground with force, accidently placing the suitcase onto his left foot.

"f**k!"

Alejandro scrunched up his face in pain and started to attempt to move the suitcase to his car.

As soon as that was done, he ran back to see if Isis needed to drop anything else but she was already outside, trying to close the door as quietly as she possibly could.

Atleast she looks like she’s okay.

He saw a wooden box next to her feet and bent over to help her with it.

"Thank you," she said, looking down at him.

Why was she even more beautiful at night?

And when the hell did I notice that she was beautiful?

He limped to his car, with the box in his hands and looked back to see Isis staring after him.

"It’s the suitcase. Right here. On my left foot."

He motioned towards his foot.

She mouthed an ’ohhh’, "I’m sorry about that."

"Yeah, well you can say you’re sorry by driving again."

He passively kissed her forehead and proceeded to the passenger’s side, not giving her a chance for a debate.

Isis.

Just to be sure, and not to waste any time, Isis had ran to her balcony to check if Alejandro had arrived.

And indeed, there he was.

God, thank you.

She have dropped her suitcase to Alejandro, from her balcony, and gathered the last of the little things that she thought she would need, and shoved them into her backpack.

She took her bible and placed it in the front pouch of her backpack.

After one last look at her bedroom, she carefully opened the door and picked up the box.

She wanted to go and say goodbye to her Mami one last time, but something held her back.

I love you Mami.

With that, she opened the door and was careful not to make any noise as she closed it shut.

Alejandro had already taken her suitcase to his car and that made her a bit nervous.

Why was he in such a hurry to take me with him?

But then she remembered that she had inspired that haste in him.

She just couldn’t believe that he actually came. And that she was actually leaving the only place she had ever known, and called home.

She was going to miss her grandmother.

She didn’t know what the future held for her and her mother.

But she didn’t plan on planning for that part of her life yet, let alone even thinking about it.

As she walked behind Alejandro, towards his car, she thought of her thoughts. What exactly were they?

They were simply but a screenplay in invisible space, a safe place to experiment with the ideas she wrestled with, before speaking.

They were a ballroom for unseen dances, a race track for cars that sped without worry for the next turn.

They were freedom to roam without the fear of getting lost, for all it took was for Isis to notice Alejandro’s limp, to bring her home.

He turned back just in time to see her glaring at his legs.

He had gotten hurt, while trying to help her to get her s**t together.

I’d kiss your feet right now. You’re such an angel.

Well, maybe not kiss your feet but I’d massage your feet rather.

She was snapped out of her thoughts and told to drive.

Come on.

Aisha.

Aisha had heard random sounds and noises in her sleep.

She thought she was dreaming. But as she slowly opened her eyes, she heard the raving of a car engine.

She got out of bed and placed her ear to the door, straining to hear something that would give her more reason to get out of bed.

Something inside of her told her to go out and make sure that everything was as it should be.

She slowly opened her door, total darkness.

The closer she crept to Isis’ room, the more she was able to hear the creaking of her opened door.

She never sleeps with her door open.

She peeked through her door and found Isis’ room... Empty.

She decided to maintain her stillness, for fear that she might bump into Isis, after their last encounter.

After a while, it dawned on her that Isis was not in her room. In fact, she wasn’t in the house at all because her cupboards were almost void.

She frantically checked the bathroom and saw that even her toiletries were gone.

Shit. You little pest.

She put on the lights and took one last scan at Isis’ room before she barged out, ran down the hall, and flew down the stairs.

She knew that only one person could inspire the escape of Isis.

She put on all of the lights in the house and stormed over to her mother’s room.

You’ve lived long enough now mother, it’s time for you to join father.