Left Behind

ALIYAH

Casey and I were walking along the sidewalk where the stores were located. Suddenly we were stopped by a couple officers. It turned out that we were too engaged into our own conversations that we hadn’t even noticed that we had came up to a crime scene. As we looked around we saw mostly police officers, ambulances, reporters and newscasters, and a huge crowd of bystanders.

“Oh my gosh, I wonder what happened,” Casey said.

“Let’s ask someone,” I replied as I tapped on someone’s shoulder. “Hey, do you know what’s going on?”

The woman turned to me and nodded. “A little girl was shot right down the street by the beignet shop. Two shots to the back, killed. Went straight through her.”

“How old was she?” I asked curiously.

“‘Round sixteen-ish I think.”

“Do you know her name?” Casey asked standing on side of me.

The woman shrugged. “Do I look like the news to you?”

I rolled my eyes and grabbed Casey’s arm. We began squeezing between the people to get closer. Most of the area was blocked off with yellow caution tape, but the rest of the area was filled with nosy people, Casey and I included. There was blood on the ground, which almost made my boudin come back up. The only reason that I really wanted to know who it was, was because of the simple fact that she could be a student at my school.

Casey shook one of my shoulders as she pointed to a group of people close to the crime scene. There were some officers standing in a group talking to a devastated little girl, around my age. She looked distraught and miserable, and maybe even lost, but she looked like Carter.

“That has to be her,” Casey explained. “That same black hair, and look, the same outfit she wore a couple days ago.”

“We need to get closer,” I said as I pushed through. We somehow made our way right next to the girl that looked like Carter, but we were still blocked by the caution tape. I wondered why she had been crying unless… “Carter!” I yelled over the crowd.

“Carter over here!” Casey helped out.

She looked over at us as we beckoned for her to come over. She held up a finger to one of the police officers and told him a couple things then walked over to us. She was wiping her face and her eyes were red and droopy. “Hey, Carter what’s going on?”

She shook her head.

“Please tell us, we wanna know who it was,” Casey said.

I frowned at her to make her shut up. “Carter, did you know who it was? Like personally or something?”

She rubbed her eyes with her right hand and kept her hand covering her eyes for a while before talking. “Yeah,” she said as her voice shook. I was worried because I never thought that I would see Carter like this in a million years.

“Who was it, Carter?”

“It was… Lucy.” I saw more tears escape from her eyes. “I… I have to go to the police station, so I’ll see y’all later?”

“Wait!” I yelled before she could get away. “If Lucy’s d-gone, then who will you stay with?” I asked concerned.

She threw her hands up like she didn’t know. “Nobody,” she replied.

“You can stay with me,” I offered. She just looked at me for a while.

“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I still have to get to the police station, and plus I don’t want to be treated as a charity case, and-”

“Psh, Charity case? Carter, we’ll drive you there and back to Liyah’s house,” Casey said. “No problem.”

She nodded. “Thanks.”

***

CARTER

I sat in one of those rooms that you get questioned in at the station. A man sat across from me looking straight into my eyes which made me nervous. “I’m detective Scott,” he said. “You’re not in trouble, but we just need you to tell us exactly what happened.”

“Okay.”

“So what’s your name?”

“Um, Carter Deville. I’m fifteen if that makes a difference.”

“Do I need to call your parents down before we start?”

I shook my head. “No my ride’s waiting for me outside.”

“Okay then, let’s begin. So you can just tell us from start to finish what happened,” Scott said.

“Well, Lucy and I were sitting in the alley and we were playing I Spy.”

“Why were you sitting in the alley, Carter?” He asked with an accusing look on his face.

“That’s where we met to hang out. Our parents hated each other and that’s the one place that we could talk without them cutting our throats,” I chuckled.

“Proceed.”

“It was my turn, and I did something green. She said that I obviously meant the grass, but I told her that it was a green car that kept passing back and forth. When I told her that, she looked so scared. We had seen the car before-actually, she had rode in the car like two weeks ago.”

“Why had she been in the car two weeks ago?” he said as he jotted something down.

“Honestly, she owed them money. So, I could only imagine that they were discussing it.”

Detective Scott nodded. “Why did she owe them money?”

“Drugs.”

“Makes sense. Do you know what type of car it was?” I shook my head, so he told me to continue with my story.

“We stood up and she told me that we had to split up because the car was looking for her. She gave me a description of the two guys and told me that I had to remember it then we split up. She went towards the beignet shop while I went the opposite way. I turned to look and then turned back and I heard two gunshots. I saw her fall to the ground and that was it.”

“You say she gave you a description of the two men?”

“Mhm,” I replied. He nodded and told me to go ahead and tell him what they looked like. “She said there was one man named Dee. His real name was like Demarcus and his last name was Thomas. He was tall, thin, black hair, dark brown eyes…”

“Remember anything else? Skin color, tattoos, jewelry?”

I thought for a while. “Oh yeah, he had a cross necklace. It was silver, but rusting, and he was light skinned.”

“Great, and what about the other man?”

“She didn’t know his name, but he was always with Demarcus… Demar… No, it was Demarius Thomas. Not Demarcus. Demarius! And he was white. Um… I think she said that he had a tattoo on his shoulder, but it was faded and she couldn’t read what it said, but he had something that looked like a birthmark on his neck.”

“Which shoulder and which side of his neck?” He asked.

“I don’t remember her telling me,” I replied honestly.

He nodded again. “Okay, that’s fair. Anything else about the second man?”

“God… what did she say? I know he was middle weight; not fat, not skinny. And the tattoo was a skull. I think his hair was black as well and I'm pretty sure his eyes were green. But that's everything I know.”

“Well, you gave us quite a lot to work with, Carter. Do you have a number that we could call you on?”

“Not a specific number. I don’t have a phone.”

“Well take this,” he said jotting down a number on a piece on paper. “Call if you need anything or find out any more information.” He shook my hand and told me that I was free to go.

I walked out and met up with Aliyah and Casey who were standing against Aliyah’s car. They just looked sadly at me and opened the doors to get in. I got into the back seat. It was silent for a while, probably because they didn’t know what to say to me. Aliyah looked at me through her rearview mirror.

“Do you have any clothes that you need to get?”

“Nah.”

“What do you mean? What are you gonna wear?”

“Long story,” I replied avoiding the question.

“We’re almost to my house. When we get there, we’ll have nothing but time.”