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“Did you hear something.” Gina came barreling out of the guest bedroom and banging on Toya’s bedroom door.
Toya yawned and stretched as she got out of bed. She unlocked her bedroom door, and as she opened it, Gina flew in. “I thought you were sleep. What woke you?”
“I heard something.”
Yawning again, Toya said, “I fell asleep the minute my head hit the pillow. I didn’t hear anything.” But as soon as she said that, there was a loud crash, like a window breaking in the kitchen. “Oh, my God.” Toya turned to Gina. “Call the police.”
She then went into her closet and grabbed the big stick she kept tucked away in there. Toya never liked the idea of keeping a gun in the house for protection... too many things could go wrong. But this stick would help her wail on an intruder.
But when she reached the living room on her way to the kitchen to see why glass was breaking, Gina was standing in the entry between both rooms staring at something that caused her to freeze with the phone in her hand. “Did you call the police?” Toya asked as she turned to look at what Gina was staring at. Marvel was coming through the window.
Toya ran towards him with her stick as she said, “Call the police now!”
As if coming out of a trance, Gina dialed 911. Toya gave a good swing and knocked Marvel back out of the window. “And stay out,” she yelled at him.
“Help, we have an intruder,” Gina said as an operator came on the line. She was in the process of giving them Toya’s address as Marvel banged against the back door so hard that the door jamb broke.
“Get out of here, Gina.”
“I can’t leave you with that monster,” Gina protested.
“You have too. Go get us some help.”
Gina nodded. “Okay, right,” she ran towards the front door.
Marvel burst through the back door and yelled at Gina as she tried to flee. “You get back here. You’re not going anywhere until I say so.”
“She doesn’t answer to you anymore. You don’t scare us.” He laughed at that but stopped laughing when Toya swung that stick and caught him in the chest. She heard the cracking of his ribs as he went down. Toya felt like a champion with the armor of God on. She looked to heaven and silently said, ‘this battle is not mine alone, Lord. It’s yours, so give me the strength to fight.’
“You’ve got some arm there, but I’ve got something better,” he told her.
Toya was about to swing on him again, but he pulled a gun from his back pocket. “You’re evil,” she spat the words at him.
“How is your mother?” He was holding his rib cage with one hand and had the gun pointed at her with his other hand.
“My mother is none of your concern. You need help, Marvel. You had everything a man could want with Gina. But you destroyed that relationship and almost destroyed her all because you can’t stop hating.”
“Yes, I hate. I hate the fact that you have a mother, but mine is dead. Why should your mother live in peace after destroying my family?”
“Your father destroyed your family, and if you weren’t so mental, you’d be able to see that.”
“Shut-up and get over here, or I’ll shoot you where you stand.”
~~~
“Is that You, Lord?” This was Mother Thornton’s normal question whenever she awoke out of her sleep and still felt restless even after using the bathroom.
The Lord had her on prayer assignments. She never knew who or what she would be required to pray for on any given night, she was just thankful that the Lord trusted her with the assignment. Mother Thornton was up in age, almost ninety, so her knees didn’t tolerate bending like they used to.
She couldn’t bend down on the floor and pray, but she had a special prayer chair in her bedroom. Mother Thornton got out of bed and sat in her chair and began praying in her heavenly language. A few minutes after she started praying in tongues, Mother Thornton saw the face of Toya and Gina pass before her. At first, she thought she only saw their faces because she had just been at Bible study with them.
But then she reminded herself that there were no coincidences in the spirit realm. The Lord Jesus wanted her to pray for those two sweet young ladies and she would do just that, even if she had to stay up all night long. “Deliver them, Jesus.”
~~~
As Jarrod drove over to Toya’s place, he chided himself for being a lovesick puppy. Toya was safe. She lived in a great community with a guard and a locked gate. You couldn’t just bust into the Moss.
“You think Toya’s going to be mad at us for coming back a day early?” Jarrod asked Princess.
Princess had been in the back seat minding her own business, but when Jarrod spoke to her, she jumped from the back to the front and barked.
“You want to hang out with me for another night? You think we should just go home and see Toya in the morning?”
Princess barked again, but this time she shook her head.
“Ain’t that about nothing. Well, I have more fun with Toya too. But she did ask for a break.” But hey, if Princess was homesick and wanted to be with Toya, what could he do but comply with the dog.
Jarrod kept driving toward Toya’s place. When he got there and saw the gate wide open, and the guard missing in action. He was immediately fearful that something had happened to Toya. As he drove through the gates, he called his dad and said, “Something’s wrong, Dad. I need you to pray like only you know how.”
“I’m going to pray, Son. But it’s time for you to do the same. Remember what I told you.”
Hanging up the phone, Jarrod was so worried that Toya was in danger that he couldn’t do anything else but pray as he kept driving towards her townhouse. “We need You, God. We need You to come through for us. Protect Toya. Don’t let harm come to her, Lord. Yes, I’m talking to You Lord... my Lord. The One I have trusted all these years, and I want to trust You with this situation too. Please come through for us.” Tears bubbled in Jarrod’s eyes, causing him to not be able to see clearly. But he kept driving anyway.
“No Father, I’m not begging You as if you are some stranger and I’m not sure how great You are, or all the marvelous things You have done. So, right now I’m just going to thank You for helping us. Toya will survive this night, and she will not withdraw and hide away ever again, in Jesus name. I count it done, Amen.”
For the first time in Jarrod’s life, he felt a tug in his spirit, like God was listening to him and was working things out. He’d never felt like that before. No prayer, he’d ever prayed had mattered to him as much as this one. Life was breaking him down and causing him to see just how much he needed God... he couldn’t do this by himself.
Princess barked and barked. Then she reached around him and blew the horn several times. Jarrod stopped the car and wiped the tears from his eyes. That’s when he saw Gina running in the street, screaming for help at the top of her lungs.
He blew the horn for her, rolled down his window and waved at her. “Gina, it’s me, Jarrod.”
Gina ran over to the car. “Thank God, it’s you. Marvel has Toya in the house. She held him off so I could run to get help.” Gina jumped in the car with him, and they turned the corner.
As they pulled up to the side of Toya’s townhouse, Jarrod noticed the car that was parked in-between Toya’s place and her neighbors. The headlights were off, but the car was still running. “Have you seen this car before. Do the neighbors have company?”
“I don’t know. I wasn’t paying attention. I just started running.”
Jarrod got out of the car and slowly walked over to the other car. A shotgun was in the front seat, and a man was tied up in the back seat of the car. The man in the back seat, shook his head as if he was just waking up. Jarrod recognized him.
He tried the door, and it opened. The first thing Jarrod did was take the key out of the ignition and put it in his pocket. He then untied the security guard. The man looked like he’d been worked over pretty good.
“Did he hurt her?” The guard asked as he rubbed his arms and legs.
“I hope not. I’m going in the house now.”
“We’re going to need this.” The guard took the shotgun off the front seat. “That man has a hard-right hook.”
~~~
“What’s that?” Marvel said as he grabbed hold of Toya’s arm, getting ready to escort her to his car. But a horn was honking, just like last time. “If that old lady is out there beating on my car again, I’m going to shoot her this time.”
“What old lady? What are you talking about?” Marvel might have a gun on her, but Toya wasn’t afraid of him this time. Instead, she chose to believe God. He could protect her, and if this didn’t end the way she wanted it to, she would be in heaven, so she wins either way.
“Don’t you worry about it. Just know that I’ve got it handled.” He glanced out the window and saw that the guard was being untied. He then saw the guard grab his shotgun. “Why did I leave that,” he mumbled to himself. Then he put a tighter hold on Toya. “Come on.”
“No, let me go.”
“You are going with me. I’m not letting you get away from me this time.” Marvel tried to grip Toya’s arm tighter. But he couldn’t hold both arms since he had the gun in his other hand.
Toya decided that she wasn’t going to let Marvel trample all over her without a fight. She swung on him, connecting her fist with his jaw. It caught him off guard, so he wobbled backward and dropped the gun. Toya dived on the floor towards the gun.
“Oh no you don’t.” Marvel pulled her back as he got down on the floor with her. They tussled. Toya drug her sharp fingernails across Marvel’s pretty boy face. Marvel yelled and then snatched a handful of Toya’s hair as he smacked her.
Toya’s wasn’t fazed, she wanted to fight back. She had the Armor of God on her side and she wasn’t going down like some punk who didn’t know the power they possessed. But Marvel got hold of the gun and put it to her head. “Get up and walked out this door with me, or I will leave your brains splattered all over this floor for your mother to see.”
Toya couldn’t imagine what seeing something like that could do to a mother. She just knew that she couldn’t let it end here, so she did as Marvel instructed. As she stood, he took the electrical tape off one of the loops on his pants. He put a piece across Toya’s mouth and then pulled her out the back door. “What? Whatcha say I can’t understand you.” He mocked her as she tried to scream with the tape on her mouth. He roughly guided her through the back yard and into the woods out back.
Toya’s words could not be heard by the human ear because of the tape on her mouth. But God was hearing every word she uttered as she said, “I trust You, Lord. I know that I will soon see the salvation of the Lord. You will save me from this monster. And I thank You. Come see about me, Jesus!” She was bound and determined to keep her armor on, right now she was holding up her shield of faith, letting the Lord know that she would never doubt Him again, no matter the situation or the circumstance. “Fix it, Jesus!”