Chapter 35: Knock Knock Who's There

35

During this time, Bealz found that the suites were warded. He could not venture beyond the vestibule doors. He was essentially a prisoner, despite being well kept and constantly and fastidiously attended to.

He heard and watched the breaking reports play out in the background of his news feeds about the building collapse not far from here, but ultimately, it was meaningless to him. He has miseries of his own.

Bealz had been left to pace the floor, with little more to do than to eat and worry for his mother.

At this point in time, he had decided to dismiss his disappointment of a father.

Bealz hardened himself to the fact that his dad was just another letdown in an endlessly difficult existence. Just another ex-con baby daddy, gone again just as quickly as he had arrived.

Bealz couldn't help but feel sorry for himself because of it, though he tried hard not to show it. He instead looked to toughen himself, to steel himself against an illusory emotional pain that seemed to reach inside and squeeze his heart and lungs.

He didn't know how to express this, of course. Particularly to the strange men and women, some of whom Bealz wasn't quite sure were actually really men or women, who came and went and brought his meals and clothes and cleaned his rooms.

Their attentions were discomforting and they bore the brunt of his fearful displacement because of it.

Alone with his thoughts, Bealz was startled by a knock on the door.

In all the time he'd been here, pacing about, doing nothing much, he'd not heard one knock. When the housekeeping staff came they texted him an hour in advance and face-timed him from the hall before just walking in. None of them were really asking for permission.

What he didn't know was that the same thing which had prevented him from leaving also prevented anyone outside of strictly vetted and authorized personnel from entering. The mere fact that the hotel's wards had allowed someone close enough to knock on the door was proof of failed security protocols.

Bealz, though, was born and raised in the hood. Unexpected knocks at the door were never treated with anything but serious suspicion.

Easing over and taking up position alongside the door, he calls out, “Who is it?”

“Hey, little man,” a rich baritone rumbles from the hallway. “You must be Belozi.”

Bealz hated that name. Now that Ms. Penny was dead, he didn't know anyone outside of his parents and a couple counselors at school who even knew it.

“I said, who is it?”

“Hey, that's cool,” the man outside the door reassures. “I understand. But I'm an old friend of your father's, young blood.”

“Yeah, right,” Bealz thinks, remembering Dakari's sugary sweet words.

“My Dad just stepped out. Probably to go get some ice or something. I'll tell him you came by.”

An intense purple light stabs through the crack in the doorjamb and the doorknob jiggles open. Bealz jumps back, scared and ready to fight.

Stepping through the door, a tall, well dressed, dark skinned man presents Bealz with a blinding, easy and disarming smile.

“No need for that, young blood. I'll just wait for him over by the bar.”