Free Still Candy Shopping by Kiki Swinson Page B

chance to get him. Tacora, Sabrina, and Jennifer ran to Paris’s limp body and cried over her.
    “She’s dead!” Sabrina yelled while sobbing.
    Jennifer sat down on the curb, lifted Paris’s head, and laid it in her lap. Blood oozed from Paris’s head as Jennifer wrapped her arms around her face.
    “Somebody call the fucking ambulance!” Jennifer screamed. But there was no one in sight except the four of us.
    Slim ran back to where we were standing a few minutes later. He was completely out of breath. “We gotta go before the police come,” he told us.
    Jennifer looked up at Slim like he was crazy. “We can’t just leave her here.” She continued to sob.
    Slim grabbed Jennifer by her arm and lifted her from the ground. Paris’s blood was all over Jennifer’s hands and clothes. “Let’s go now!” he demanded.
    The minute he lifted Jennifer from the ground she became hysterical. She started kicking and screaming. “I can’t believe she is dead, Slim. That man killed her just like that.”
    Slim realized that Jennifer wasn’t going to leave Paris’s body willingly, so he picked her up and threw her over his shoulders. Before he walked off, he looked at me and instructed me to grab Paris’s purse. I looked at him like he was fucking crazy. I mean, who did that? Who tried to rob the dead? I knew I’d done some fucked up shit to people, but I’d never taken anything from a dead person. That was by far the most foul thing any human being could do.
    Frustrated with my lack of cooperation, Slim looked like he was about to spit venom out of his mouth. “Faith, why the fuck are you standing there when I told you to get her purse?”
    “It’s got blood all over it,” I said.
    “Do you think I give a fuck? Pick that shit up before somebody else gets it,” he demanded.
    I reached down, grabbed the strap of Paris’s purse, and I immediately handed it to Slim so I would not have to carry it. Slim clutched the purse in his right hand while he used his left hand to hold Jennifer’s body across his shoulders. Let’s go,” he roared, and then he walked away.
    Sabrina, Tacora, and I walked behind Slim as he led the way back to his apartment. Paris’s blood was all over my hand, and I desperately wanted to wash it off. I had not started crying yet. I was more focused on processing what had just happened.
    In the distance we all heard paramedics and sirens from several police cars blaring loudly. The louder they got, the closer we knew they were. Slim panicked. He took Jennifer off his shoulder and made her run beside him. As a matter of fact, he instructed all of us to do the same.
    We were all out of breath when we arrived back at Slim’s apartment. There were a couple of his neighbors standing outside when we ran up to the building. They looked at all of us and I was sure they wondered why we were running, and why Jennifer and Slim were covered in blood. They didn’t open their mouths to question us, but they watched until we disappeared behind the door of the apartment.
     
     
    The Candy Shop part 2 Kiki Swinson
     
    No Respect 4 Da’ Dead
 
    Jennifer tried to collapse on the living room floor when we entered the apartment, but Slim grabbed her and took her into the bathroom while Sabrina and Tacora took a seat on the sofa. I walked into the kitchen to rinse the blood off my hands. When I was done I joined Tacora and Sabrina in the living room.
    We heard Jennifer crying in the bathroom while the shower water was running. We knew Slim had stripped her down and made her get in the bathtub to wash off all of Paris’s blood.
    We sat in complete silence until Sabrina finally opened her mouth to speak. “I can’t believe Paris is dead! What the fuck happened? Why did that guy kill her like that?” she asked, I guess hoping that someone in the room could answer those questions for her.
    I had to speak up, because I was right there. I heard exactly what the truck driver said. “Right before that man shot