Free Pink Lips by Andre D. Jones

for tonight,” he walked toward the curb, “and, I would love to spend it with you.”
    â€œI don’t even know you.” She opened the door to the car.
    â€œYou can get to know me.” He smiled at her.
    â€œIf it were any other time, then maybe.” She closed the door as she climbed into the car.
    â€œNo number?” he asked as she rolled the window down.
    â€œI’ll make a deal with you; if I ever see you again in life, it’s a date,” she said through the window as the car sped off down the street.
    Craig stood there captivated by Willow’s beauty. He had never seen a woman so beautiful in his whole twenty-three years of life.He had a main shorty back home, but for a woman as breathtaking as Willow, he would have replaced her. He wondered if he would ever see her again.
    A ripple of screams escaping the doors of the building grabbed Craig’s attention. People running from a mass hysteria, falling and being crushed by others stampeded out of the door. Craig pushed through the crowd as expressions of panic filled the room.
    Craig stepped into the room that he saw waitresses point toward as he felt its icy gesture as the air adjusted around him. Sprawled on the ground, covered in blood, was Melee. He looked around the room and eyed the other dead bodies covering the floor.
    Ring-Ring-Ring!
    The realization struck him like a bullet as his phone started to ring and Rock’s name appeared on the screen. He couldn’t tell him that his attention was focused elsewhere and as a result, his baby girl was murdered. There was no way he could mouth those words to Rock without digging his grave.
    He ignored the call as he reached down and picked up Melee’s lifeless body. He needed to get her out of sight before the police showed up and discovered the massacre. The last thing he needed was to be caught on the scene of a bloodbath.
    He looked down at Melee’s face as he walked through the emergency exit doors that led to an alleyway. The blood from her wounds stained his white shirt as he walked and thought of a plan. He had to figure out what to do by morning. If he stepped one foot on Philly soil without Melee, he would be killed immediately.

Nine
    â€œY ou know the plan for Philly, right?” Willow asked Kail as they walked through the double doors of Honolulu International Airport.
    â€œWe lay low for some months,” Kail opened her Louis Vuitton luggage to grab their tickets, “then we resurrect The Pink Lip Bandits, and start making some crazy dough again.”
    â€œI mean lay the fuck low, Kail,” Willow warned as they approached the terminal. “We don’t need to make our presence known until shit here cools down.”
    â€œI know.” Kail nodded in agreement. “So are we going to meet up with Nicole, Choice, and everybody else we use to fuck with when we were kids?”
    â€œIn due time,” Willow assured.
    Kail nodded her head as they stood in the long, bustling terminal. Willow could sense the excitement of tourists and vacationers waiting to be flown to their far-flung dream destinations. But, she couldn’t share that excitement because she was saying goodbye to a place that she had called home for the past fourteen years of her life.
    They queued at check-in desks. Willow could see groups of people all with their suitcases talking about the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to travel and what they would do while they werestaying in Hawaii. Their faces brimmed with happiness, grinning like Cheshire cats.
    As they approached the check-in agent to retrieve their boarding passes and check in their luggage, Willow could feel her stomach pulsating as a piece of her didn’t want to go. She was thinking of all ways possible to tell Kail that they should stay. She wanted to make a scene and scream that she had a bomb just so they wouldn’t board the plane. But, she knew there was nothing left for them in Hawaii, and