All She Can Take

F I F T Y - F O U R

Sidney didn't leave the condo until they ran out of food. They spent their days cycling in and out of sleep. Phil trying to restore his body and Sidney trying to restore her mind. Sid was on edge waiting for the other shoe to drop. It had been eerily quiet. Sidney knew that Kru had been back in town for a few days and yet there had been no tornado. The earth had not quaked. Her phone wasn't ringing off the hook. Fort Greene wasn't up in flames. The only disaster that she had experienced was unsettling quiet. It was like waiting for a bomb to detonate. Sid was becoming anxious and it was taking everything in her not to storm back into her hood and call Kru out into the streets for a public duel. But she couldn't. She had put a plan in action and in order for Kru not to kill her on sight, she needed him to know that she had possession of something that he needed. She had to wait.

Now, as she strolled the aisles of the supermarket pulling down ingredients for chili, she dialed Chante.

"Hey, Sid." Chante answer halfway through the first ring. If anyone was on edge as much as Sidney, it was Chante. She was hiding out in an Airbnb in New Jersey with her daughter, sisters, and her mother while she waited for Nixon to call her with any news.

"Hey, how are you guys holding up out there?" Sid asked as she pulled paprika from a shelf and tossed it into her cart.

"We'd be fine if Tina would stop trying to schedule a dick appointment! We're in hiding. Are you dumb?" Chante shouted into the background. Sid heard angry shouting come back through the phone but couldn't make out what was said. "These bitches are driving me crazy." Chante sounded exasperated and Sid could relate.

"Any word on Kru?"

"No. Nixon said that Frenchie told him that Kru asked her to search people's houses but when she went back to his office to tell him they were gone he wasn't there and no one has seen him since," Chante whispered into the phone. Sid felt a chill run down her spine and she whipped around the see if anyone was watching her. Following her at this very moment. But all she saw was an elderly woman behind her holding a jar of pickles less than an inch from her face trying to read the label.

"Are all the businesses still closed?"

"Yeah. Everybody took off like you asked."

He'd definitely come looking for her. Sid just had to remind herself to be patient and let things play out. Jumping the gun could be detrimental to everyone at this point. She waited six long years to get him in her sights. She could wait another few days if she had to. For Kru, he had to be hemorrhaging money at this point. With all that drug money rolling in and nowhere to clean it he was undoubtedly in a tight a spot. She was squeezing him where it hurt most and she just had to keep applying the pressure.

"Call me if you need anything?" Sid was about to hang up but Chante kept on talking.

"How's Phil doing?" Sid made her way to the registers and began putting her items on the belt. She threw a smile at the cashier as she thought of her and Phil's time over the past few days. They were really in their own little cocoon of safety where nothing could hurt them. They knew they wouldn't be able to stay there forever but for the time being, they reveled in it. Sid nursing Phil back to health as he tried to regain his strength between long stretches of sleep. He constantly apologized for dozing off but Sid didn't mind it at all. She could spend hours next to him, just listening to the steady drawing in and pushing out of his breath. Watching his peaceful face. She was trying to etch that one into her psyche to replace the damaged one. The bruised one that had haunted her for so many nights. Both Tomi and Aiden had made sure she could take some time off of work to handle all of this and while she was grateful she did miss the kitchen. But she made up for it by being Phil's personal chef in their little bubble of protection. When he awoke, she fed him any cuisine that popped into her mind and he gobbled it all up.