War Angel Preview-What Eyes Don't See...

Welcome to the 2nd sample of my upcoming novel, "War Angel." In the previous excerpt I introduced you to Lenox. It's only right that I follow up by giving you a glimpse of Jahaira. Enjoy and as always, feel free to leave comments.

War Angel (Preview)

by Keith Kareem Williams

Chapter 1 - What Eyes Don't See...

I

f one more guy calls me Mami today I swear I’ll scream, Jahaira thought while embarking on her daily trek to her father’s bodega with the food her mother had sent for him in a brown paper bag. She was annoyed, almost to the point of rage by the men who had tried to flirt with her. She could feel their filthy thoughts crawl all over her skin as they undressed her with their eyes. She hated it. The only person she wanted looking at her like that was her man. She never desired or sought those types of stares from strangers. She couldn’t help how curvy her hips were any more than she could do anything about how big her butt was. Dark jeans were supposed to be slimming according to the fashionistas but in truth, they didn’t do much to hide her shape. Her short, black leather jacket stopped just above her waist and felt like a corset the way it hugged her and compressed her large breasts. It made her look at least a cup smaller but her thighs were still enough to catch most men’s eyes. It also didn’t help that she had a naturally sexy walk that had been turning heads since ever since she hit puberty. Over the course of the ten years since her fourteenth birthday, she’d heard every crude remark as well as every polite, pick-up line imaginable.

With a well-practiced scowl, she cautiously continued on her way with confidence but avoided all of their eyes because she knew too well the nature of men. If she looked directly in their faces or even worse, dared to smile politely, they would assume that it was an invitation to become more aggressive. To avoid the problems she turned her eyes to the ground.

The city was much cleaner than it had been when she was growing up but it was still filthy enough. Its discarded things and garbage told its ugly truth. The glitzy, glamorous images that seduced droves of tourists annually was actually the beautiful lie. Every person that had lived long enough within the confines of the decadent metropolis could see through all of the illusions. When she was little, her father walked her back and forth to school every day to make sure that his baby, his only child, got there safely. However, he couldn’t protect her from everything. There had always been an air of unwholesome corruption that crept through the streets like a living thing. Jahaira remembered stepping over dirty, discarded needles that had been used to pump heroin into the veins of people enslaved by the liquid demon’s embrace. In her teens, when her daddy had grudgingly allowed her to walk home alone daily, the needles had become scarce, replaced by tiny, empty vials that once contained crack-cocaine. During that era, there seemed to be even more drug addicts than before but these preferred to smoothly suck their heaven into their lungs through glass pipes. Now that she was all grown up, she often walked over the crushed, brown trash of gutted cigars that had been used to roll weed, the gateway drug, as they called it on the news. Apparently, it opened the doors for more dangerous vices for individuals already inclined to addiction. Most recently, those doors had opened up a Pandora’s Box that unleashed a plethora of pills, all seductively named, that granted many different kinds of highs. There were no traces of those to be found in the gutters or streets.

It suddenly started to drizzle which killed any chance of her mood improving. She hadn’t brought an umbrella with her when she left the house, even though the dark grey faces on the clouds had all suggested that they would weep heavily. She had already traveled too far to turn back so all she could do was pick up her pace and try to walk in-between the droplets. Fortunately for her, she reached her father’s store right as the light rain became a heavy downpour.

“Hey sexy,” Hector called out in Spanish from behind the front counter as Jahaira stepped inside, wet and grouchy.

“How many times I have to tell you not to talk to me like that? I don’t like it,” she told him through gritted teeth.

“You should let me take you out sometime,” he suggested as he tried to reach across the counter and touch her chin before she slapped his hand away. “Ouch,” he shouted before he pulled it back. He shook it as if it was hot and then ran it across his thick, slick, black hair tied up in a bun that almost made him look feminine. Jahaira thought that he could have passed for a girl if it wasn’t for his dark beard. He calmly subdued whatever anger he felt but she thought she saw a hint of it flash momentarily in the green of his eyes.

“No, and my answer ain’t changing so stop asking! For one, you work for my father. Secondly, I have a man already and I’m really tired of reminding you. Are you slow?”

“Yeah, whatever. You have a boyfriend that nobody has ever seen. You sure you ain’t a lesbiana?”

“You know what Hector? A woman has a better chance with me than you. Where’s my father?” she asked impatiently.

“He’s in the back with a client.”

“Client huh?” she repeated sarcastically. “Well, my mother sent his lunch. Since he’s busy, I’ll just leave it here with you then.”

Just as Jahaira put the damp, brown paper bag on the counter, her father’s client walked out from the back room of the bodega but she didn’t look like one of his regular customers. She was way too young and way too pretty; a sharp contrast to the old harpies that usually sought out his unique services. The girl tried to smooth her sandy-blonde hair back into place and straightened her blouse as she scurried past Jahaira who looked on in disgust. The girl’s brilliantly blue eyes never connected with Jahaira’s dark-brown eyes but she felt the venomous look of disdain which made her pale-as-snow skin flush pink. (Jahaira might have been cute but she was terribly intimidating when she wanted to be.) She was so used to her father’s infidelities and indiscretions that it hardly bothered her any more, or at least that’s what she told herself. She was more disappointed in her mother who was also aware of them and passively pretended that she didn’t. In her opinion, her father only did what her mother allowed him to. Before she left, the young girl stopped at the counter and collected a stack of singles wrapped in a rubber band from Hector. He grinned and held onto her hand until she pulled her fingers from his clammy grip. He blew her a kiss before she switched her hips as she sauntered away and left.

“Blankitas now too?” Jahaira asked, surprised to find out that her father’s taste now seemed to include young white girls.

“Every flavor sexy,” Hector answered.

“Disgusting,” Jahaira mumbled.

Hey Pumpkin!” Mr. Caesar Ruiz called out to his daughter as he appeared from the back room of the store with his belt unbuckled. His roundish belly, the result of too much beer-drinking, hung slightly over the front of his pants.

“Fix your pants,” she told him, handing him his soggy lunch. He took the food and opened his arms wide to hug her but she backed away. Her father was a handsome, incredibly charismatic man. They grey that was mixed in with his black, low-cropped hair and sprinkled in his perfect goatee didn’t diminish his looks in any way. She imagined how the women must have lusted for him in his prime. Even now, they seemed to have a hard time resisting him.

“What? No kiss for papi?” he asked.

“Hell no! God only knows where your mouth has been today,” she told him and moved the side of her face away from his lips. Without another word she turned to leave.

“You’re not gonna say anything, right Pumpkin? I mean, you don’t have to tell your mother,” he started to say.

“Of course not. I never do,” she answered. “Besides, I’m sure there’s nothing I could tell her that she doesn’t already know.” The bells above the door jingled as she pulled the handle and left.

Thanks for reading. In the meantime, while I finish up and prepare to release "War Angel" very soon, take a moment to read my previous release, "GLASS GODDESSES, CONCRETE WALLS," now available on Amazon for your Kindle or paperback.

http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=glass+goddesses%2C+concrete+walls