On the Run by Nisa Santiago

Author:Nisa Santiago
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Urban, Women, Fiction
ISBN: 9781620780534
Publisher: Brooklyn Books
Published: 2015-09-21T16:00:00+00:00

SIXTEEN

Kola was going crazy. Ten days in Buen Pastor women’s prison felt like ten years. The days were long, hot, and awful, and the people around her were foul. The guards were ravenous perverts preying on the young girls inside. Though she made friends with Marisol and Maria, Kola still felt in jeopardy. She tried to pick up on her Spanish. Brenda was teaching her. It’s what ate up most of her day. She regretted not learning to speak Spanish earlier, but her days beforehand were busied with shopping, having sex, going out to the clubs, taking care of her niece, and being Eduardo’s trophy piece. She never had time to learn anything new. Now, she had all the time in the world.

Looking at Maria, Kola realized she wasn’t pregnant anymore. She looked at Maria, tapped her own stomach and asked, “The baby, what happened?”

Maria put her eyes to the ground, looking saddened and said, “Eduardo.”

“Eduardo?” Kola asked.

Tears building in her eyes, Maria looked at Kola. In her best English, she replied, “He got angry. He beat me, and I lost baby.”

Kola was shocked to hear it, but at the same time she felt conflicted. She learned that Eduardo had become so angry when the sisters came into his home and disrespected Kola, he beat them so severely that Maria had a miscarriage.

Kola wondered if Eduardo beat on the sisters for disrespecting her or him. For the past weeks, she hadn’t felt loved.

Maria was in tears telling her story to Kola.

Kola put their past behind them and did the unthinkable. She consoled Maria in front of everyone, placing her arms around the woman and saying to her in Spanish, “Lo siento,” meaning, “I’m sorry.” She was learning fast.

Kola and the sisters talked about their children regularly. Talking and thinking about their kids made the time go by easier, but it also made Kola’s heart heavy. Not being able to speak or see Peaches was daunting. Every night, Kola cried thinking about the horrors Peaches could be going through. She didn’t know if the five-year-old was dead or alive, or being prepared for a life in the sex trade.

On the twelfth day, tensions in the prison were high. Kola and the sisters were on extra alert. Eduardo’s name was in the papers constantly. He had pissed off a lot of powerful folks, and they wanted him dead and everything connected to his empire destroyed. There was fallout after Eduardo’s arrest. Guerrilla forces were mobilizing, with widespread massacre of people who sympathized with the drug lord. Many were calling for his execution, and many were calling for his release. In many villages, Eduardo was well liked. In one northern village, as many as 190 unarmed people were killed, gunned down and butchered like animals.

Kola and the sisters found themselves caught up in the political madness. Eyes were on them, and Kola knew the inevitable was going to happen. The wolves were lurking, and they were becoming restless. Kola was ready. She still had her shank.

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