To Live or To Die II

"Andrew, would you come here for a second?" Jamika yelled from her room. 1

"Sure," I answered as I got up off of the couch. 2

I walked up the stairs and into Jamika's room where I saw her sitting on her bed with a sad expression on her face. 3

"What's wrong Jamika?" I asked as I sat down next to her. 4

"Nothing much. It's just that I keep thinking about what happened with Marcus last month and I can't get that image of Marcus getting shot out of my head." 5

I had tried to forget about that whole incident but now it was all coming back to me. 6

I said, "Jamika, I'm not saying that Marcus deserved to die, but he was the one who started all of this. We had nothing else to do." 7

Jamika sighed and said, "Yeah, I guess you're right."8

I then got up and said, "Good. Now let's go downstairs and watch some TV." 9

Jamika got up and said, "Okay."10

The two of us walked downstairs and into the living room where we sat down on the couch. We were just beginning to watch My Wife and Kids when we heard a knock at the door. We both got up and walked towards the door. 11

I opened it and saw a boy of about 15 years with blond hair and blue eyes standing there. 12

"Yes?" I asked. 13

"Is Andrew here?" he asked. 14

"Yeah... I'm Andrew. What do you need?" 15

He stood there for a moment looking as if he were a little surprised, stuck out his hand, which was holding a note, and said, "Here." 16

I got the note and said, "Thanks. Um... Who is this from?" 17

He smirked and said, "Oh, you don't know him, but you soon will. That's all that I can say right now." Then he turned around and began walking away. 18

As he was walking, I could see that the name Mark Holms III was on his backpack. I thought nothing of it and closed the door. 19

I looked at the note in my hand and then at Jamika and said, "I wonder what this could be." 20

"Well, open it and see!" Jamika said excitedly.21

I slowly began to open the note as a sudden thought came into my mind. Marcus' real name was Mark Holms Jr. (everyone called him Marcus) so maybe this is his brother coming for revenge. 22

I wanted to be sure of this so I said, "Jamika, I hate to bring this up again, but do you remember what Marcus' real name was?" 23

"Yeah, it was ummm... it was... oh! It was Mark Holms...." 24

Jamika's voice began to trail off which gave me the impression that she was thinking the same thing as I was. 25

"Jamika, as much as it frightens me to say it, I think that that was Marcus' little brother coming for us," I said. 26

Jamika began to look very frightened and said, "Well, w-w-what does the n-n-note say?" 27

"Let's see," I murmured as I opened the note completely. I began to read aloud:28

Andrew and Jamika,
To those who murdered the brother whom I kept dearest to myself, I tell you now that I will find you. No matter what it takes, I will end you. I will make you suffer by torturing the one's you love and letting you see them die before your very eyes. Take this as no joke, you will die very soon, so enjoy your lives while you still can because you will soon see what I am capable of. Mark Holms III29

Jamika and I both stood in place shocked until I finally gathered the courage to say, "What do we do?" 30

Jamika looked at me and said, "I don't know. There's nothing to do! Our lives are over! Two months ago we were two ordinary teenagers and now we're being threatened to this degree! What did we do to deserve this?" 31

Jamika then began to cry.32

I thought to myself for a moment and said, "Jamika... they're not going to do anything. I will not let anything happen to you. I'd rather have Mark drain every pint of blood from my body than lay a hand on you!" 33

I truly meant this. 34

Jamika slowly began to get up and said, "I don't want to die, but I don't want to see you get hurt either. Please Andrew, don't risk your life for me. You have so much to live for." 35

"And so do you," I began, "I'm not going to let him lay a hand on you! I'd rather be up in heaven looking down on you rather than be down on Earth without you by my side." 36

Even under these circumstances, it felt nice to be able to show Jamika how much I cared for her. 37

After a brief moment of silence, Jamika said, "I have to go get something. Wait for me down here." 38

"Okay," I answered. 39

Jamika then walked upstairs and went into her mother’s room. 40

A few minutes later, she came out with her hands behind her back. 41

Jamika came back down the stairs and said, "We can use this." 42

She brought her hands from behind her back and I saw that they were cradling a handgun with the word FORCE on it. 43

I jumped back and said, "What the heck are you doing with a gun?!" 44

"My mother keeps a gun in a chest in her closet. She doesn't know that I know about it. I heard her talking about it on the phone." 45

"Well, what am I supposed to do with it?" I asked, still recovering from the shock of first seeing the gun. 46

"Use it," Jamika answered. 47

"On whom?" 48

"You can use it on Mark and anyone else who tries to hurt us." 49

I didn't want to do it, but because of my love for Jamika, I reluctantly grabbed the handgun and tucked it into the back of my pants. 50

"Okay, so what now?" I asked. 51

"Well, the safest thing to do now would be to just stay here and come up with some plan. I'm thinking that maybe we should call the cops." 52

"No, we shouldn't call the police yet. Mark would just do something crazy with them and end up killing himself and others. Uh-uh, we don't need that. We need to come up with a plan to stop this with the least of harm to anyone." 53

So the two of us began to devise a plan. 54

"Okay, how about we do this," Jamika began, "we can lure Mark back here and leave the door open and try to lure him into the house. And when he starts to walk through the front door you can take my baseball bat and hit him in the face." 55

I thought on it for a moment and said, "That's actually a pretty good idea. But only one problem, how are we going to lure him here?" 56

"That's a tough one," Jamika said. 57

After a few minutes of thinking, I finally said, "Perfect! We can use you!" 58

"WHAT?! ME?!" Jamika asked. 59

"Look, it really simple. As I'm standing inside of the house with the bat, you go outside and start insulting Mark's brother. Then you run into the front door without closing it and Mark will surely follow you. And as he walks into the front door, WHAM! I knock the Holy Spirit out of him!" 60

I saw a look of fear come into Jamika's eyes which had become too common the past month and she said, "Okay, I'll do it. But where do I find him?" 61

"Well, I know for a fact that he works at the Quiero Comida Buena restaurant down the street so after it closes and he's leaving, you can start taunting him then." 62

"But if he's at work, how was he able to come here?" Jamika asked. 63

"He must've been on lunch break. He's surely back at work now. And those Latino restaurants in town close early on Mondays at 6 o'clock, I believe. And it's 5:45 right now. You better gets to steppin!" 64

About five minutes later, Jamika came out of her room and said, "Okay, I'm ready to do this." 65

She had a knife, running shoes, and a whistle. 66

I looked and said, "Great. You remember what to do, right?" 67

"Yes, I do," Jamika said confidently. 68

"Okay, so get going." I said. 69

Jamika walked to the door and said, "Be ready to do your part." 70

"I will be, don't worry!" I answered. 71

Jamika then walked out of the door and began to jog towards the restaurant. 72

"Wait!" I yelled as she got to the sidewalk. 73

"What is it?" Jamika asked. 74

"I love you," I said to her. 75

She smiled and continued walking. 76

Operation Lure and Whack was officially under way. 77

***************78

I stood at the window nervously, waiting to see Jamika running towards the house. I looked at the clock and saw that it said 6:10. I began to worry that something had gone wrong when I heard screaming coming from the direction of the restaurant. 79

I looked out of the window and saw Jamika running to the house with Mark behind her. Jamika was almost at the mailbox of the house when she tripped in a pothole in the street and fell onto the ground. 80

"Get up! Get up!" I kept saying to myself, hoping that Jamika would somehow hear me saying it telepathically or something. But she didn't get up. 81

She began to crawl towards the house yelling for help. 82

Judging from the distance that Jamika was from the house and the distance Mark was from Jamika, I thought that Jamika would make it into the house with a few seconds to spare if she continued to crawl at the same rate. But my hopes were shattered when I saw Mark catching up with something silver and shiny in his hand. I looked closely at the object and saw that it was a gun. 83

"Holy Crap!" I said to myself as I bolted outside to save Jamika. 84

"Well, well, well," Mark began as he approached Jamika and I, "if it isn't Mr. and Mrs. Smith." 85

"Shut up Mark!" I yelled to him. 86

"Listen you little punk!" Mark began, "you don't tell me to do a damn thing! You killed my brother and you know what? I'm about to kill you and your little girlfriend!" 87

This was all beginning to sound too familiar. 88

"You touch her, and I'll make you suffer!" 89

"Now that's where you're wrong. I've suffered enough by your hands. I can't possibly go through any more pain." 90

Mark then pointed the gun to Jamika and said, "Now I will kill her and then you!" 91

I began shaking and said, "NOOOO!!! Please don't hurt her. I don't want anyone getting hurt. But if you have to shoot someone, don't shoot her...shoot me." 92

Marcus looked a little surprised and said, "So be it!" 93

He pointed the gun to me and BOOM! 94

A thumb-sized bullet went straight through my shoulder causing me to lose my balance, fall down, and nearly lose consciousness. 95

He then said, "Now that he's out of the way, I'm going to kill you!" 96

Mark pointed the gun at Jamika but I heard no gunshot. Instead, I heard Mark yelling in pain. I had lost nearly all of my strength but had enough to roll over and see that Jamika had thrown a knife strait into his left eye socket. And it was stuck, too. 97

Jamika then ran to me and said, "Use the force, Andrew." 98

I weakly said, "What force? This isn't Star Wars." 99

"Jamika looked confused and said, "No, not that! The gun! It's called a FORCE! Where is it?" 100

"It's in the back of my pants." 101

Jamika lifted the back of my shirt and pulled the gun from my pants. 102

She then pointed it at Mark and yelled, "Get on the ground!" 103

Mark slowly got on the ground and began to try and pull the knife from his eyes. Having him cornered, Jamika decided to let him continue. After a few minutes of apparently very painful attempts at removing the knife, Mark finally pulled it out and yelled very loudly. He put his hand over his eye and began to roll around. Mark was down for good. Jamika took advantage of this and ran over to Mark, taking the gun from him and tossing it into the grass near me. 104

Jamika then pulled her cell phone from her pocket and dialed 911. 105

After answering a few questions, Jamika said, "Thank you so much," and hung up the phone. 106

For about ten minutes, I laid on the ground bleeding from my wound as Jamika stood and pointed the gun at Mark to prevent his escape. That's when we both saw a much-needed sight. The sight of police cars and an ambulance coming down the street. 107

When they got to us, they got out of their cars and put Mark in handcuffs. They read him the Miranda Warning (his rights) and put him into the back of a waiting ambulance. 108

All the while, Jamika and I had been giving the paramedics needed information. 109

About a minute later, the paramedics put me onto a stretcher and loaded me onto an ambulance with the doors open. 110

With Jamika at my side, I began to say, "Jamika, the past month has been horrible for the both of us. But it's all worth knowing that in the end, you're okay. I may be hurt, but you're what matters to me. I love you." 111

Jamika began to respond but the paramedics came and said, "We have to get moving now!"112

Jamika quickly got out of the ambulance and waved at me as the ambulance sped off. I waved back at her, but it took nearly all of my strength to do so.113

Now in the end, as said before, we were given the decision of either to live or to die. Out of love, I made the decision for myself to die and for the one I love to live. But in the end, we both made it. And that's what matters. And hopefully, never again will we have to make the decision of whether to live or to die.