Murderville 2: The Epidemic Read Online Free PDF Page A

close to his exit to let a major setback like this put him back at square one.
    *    *    *
    Liberty’s entire body went numb as she stared down at the elaborate headstone that decorated A’shai’s grave. She knewthat it was foolish to be there. Her actions right now were reckless and completely predictable, but she couldn’t leave town without visiting him one last time. His absence in her life was so surreal. Even when they had been apart she could still feel him. His presence had always been prevalent in her life. Their spirits were always connected. This was the first time she had ever felt separated from him. She could no longer feel A’shai. She was so blinded by the pain of his death that there was no room to feel the love that he had left behind. A part of Liberty was mad at A’shai for deciding his own fate. His act was so selfless that in the end it had backfired, leaving her bitter and lonely without any hope for love in her future.
    “I wanted you to live for both of us, Shai, not die with me,” she whispered. “I will love you forever, A’shai Montgomery. You gave me life.”
    She kissed her fingertips and traced the letters in his name before walking away, her heart grieving, but her face silently solemn.
    She got into the cab that awaited curbside and gave the driver directions to the home she once shared with A’shai. She hadn’t been back since the dreadful night that A’shai had taken his own life. She was too afraid of what she may see or the way that she would feel when she stepped inside. Liberty had avoided their home, but now she couldn’t any longer. She needed A’shai’s money to survive.
    “That’ll be forty bucks even,” the cabdriver announced as the car came to a halt.
    Liberty looked up but quickly ducked back down when she saw the familiar faces walking out of the house.
    “Please drive away,” she instructed. “Now! Hurry!” she urged as she slumped low in her seat.
    “Look, lady, I don’t need no shit. Do you have my $40 or not?”
    Liberty reached into her handbag and pulled out two twenty-dollar bills and tossed them in the front seat. “Now drive this car!” she whispered harshly.
    The cabdriver eased away from the curb reluctantly while Liberty lay concealed in the backseat. She peeked out of the rearview mirror carefully and fear gripped her as she saw Samad’s goons carrying bags out of the house in which A’shai had stored his hard-hustled cash. Everything that she needed was in those bags. She may as well have been dead, because being broke was the next best thing. She couldn’t hide for long in her current predicament. Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God. He’s going to find me, she thought frantically. Liberty went into her hobo bag and pulled out the small wad of money that she had on her. She flipped through the small bills frantically, realizing that she only had a few hundred bucks. The rest of her financial worth had been inside of that house, which was now under surveillance by Samad. Her hope sank as her eyes met the cabdriver’s in the rearview mirror.
    “You want to tell me where I’m driving to?” he asked obnoxiously.
    Liberty wiped the tears from her face. She was tired of wallowing in her own weakness. For as long as she couldremember she had been the victim. Victim to the rebels, victim to Ezekiel, to the drug cartels, to Abia, then Samad . . . It was time to say enough. She wouldn’t be a victim anymore. If I give up then Shai died for nothing . . . all of this is for nothing. I have to live for him, she thought. Liberty took a deep breath and held her head up high. She was a fighter, and she was going to use everything she had to survive.
    “The bus station.”
    Liberty was about to start her life over as a hunted woman, but she would make Samad chase her to the ends of the earth to catch her. She was just trying to live.

TWO
    PO PACED BACK AND FORTH AS HE clenched his jaws tightly, obviously outraged. Rocko sat on the couch