Heartless

by Al-Saadiq Banks

  AL-SAADIQ BANKS

  HEARTLESS

  THE GAME WILL NEVER LOVE YOU BACK

  True 2 Life Publications Presents:

  Heartless

  All rights reserved © 2016 by Al-Saadiq Banks

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher.

  This novel is a work of fiction. Any resemblances to real people, living or dead, actual events, establishments, organizations, or locales are intended to give the fiction a sense of reality. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Author: Al-Saadiq Banks

  True 2 Life Publications

  P. O. Box 8722

  Newark NJ 07108

  Email: alsaadiqbanks@aol.com

  Twitter: @alsaadiq

  Instagram: @alsaadiqbanks

  www.True2LifeProductions.com

  In the game of life, we can’t win them all and we won’t win them all.

  What separates us from losers is our mindset. Losers fear losing and they play with doubt. We play to win, determined to win, but if by chance we don’t, we learn. You win like a man, and you lose like a man. The best part of falling like a man is the ability to stand back up like a man and still have the respect and honor of the people. More important, to still have respect for yourself. Honestly, I don’t even pay attention to the scoreboard. I just play the game. Let the people on the sideline keep score. That’s what they’re there for.

  —Attorney Tony Austin

  PROLOGUE

  “Young lady, you have been labeled a monster, in more states than one. You sit back with no sign of emotion, no sign of remorse. How do you feel? Don’t you feel any remorse for the victims that you have slain and the families that were left behind as a result of your actions?”

  She gathers her thoughts before speaking. “Yes, I can honestly say that I felt remorse for a few of them after the fact, but while the acts were taking place…” She pauses for a few seconds. “I’m ashamed to admit that I didn’t feel a bit of it.”

  “But, if you felt any remorse, how could you have murdered repeatedly?”

  Angelica shakes her head with sadness. “That I can’t answer. Murder is something that I never set out to do, but it’s like something gets into me, and I can’t control myself from that point on. I black out, and minutes later, I wake up standing over dead, bloody bodies, sometimes not even remembering or understanding how I got there.”

  “As civilized creatures, we should be able to control our actions and emotions,” the man says with very little compassion.

  “It’s not in my heart to commit the heinous crimes that I’ve committed, but shamefully while committing them, I felt a great deal of satisfaction. I just wish I could be judged on my intentions and not my actions because I never intended to do any of the things that I’ve done,” she claims as she shakes her head from side to side with sadness on her face and sincerity in her eyes.

  “Young lady, in the world, man and woman are judged by their actions.”

  “But God says He judges you by your intentions, correct?”

  The man nods his head one solid time. As much as he hates to agree with her, he has no choice. “Correct.”

  “Well, in that case, I have no worries because God knows my intentions and my heart, and that is all that matters to me. For mankind, I point out Mathew 7: 3-5: ‘Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? First, take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye,’” she quotes the New Living Translation loudly and clearly.

  The man sits back, quite shocked at the words that have come out of her mouth. He sits there for seconds without saying a word. They stare into each other’s eyes without blinking. “Young lady, is there anything I can help you with? Maybe any questions that I can answer for you?”

  “I sit here, confused. I understand that I have to pay for my actions, but I need to know what it is that turned me into the monster that society has labeled me. Please just hear me out, and maybe you can give me the clarity that I need. Maybe you can tell me where I went wrong in life?”

  1

  Newark, New Jersey

  July 16, 2003

  The abandoned house is barely standing. It is only a skeleton with beams throughout. In the kitchen area, there are what appear to be four young boys and an older teen-age boy. The three young boys stand around one boy, who is sitting on a milk crate in the middle of the floor.

  To the naked eye, one would think it’s a boy sitting on the crate, but it is twelve-year-old Angelica Hill. Quite naturally, she’s been nicknamed Angel, simplifying her name, but that’s always been one of her biggest pet peeves in life. One, she hates that she has a biblical name to start with, but two, for some reason, she’s never wanted to be thought of as anybody’s angel. Everyone, outside of family and friends of family, only know her as Quiet Storm, Storm for short. The nickname is one that she’s given herself. She feels that name is the perfect comparison to her silent but violent wrath.

  Her hair is in two long Pocahontas braids and is always tucked neatly inside a baseball cap for two reasons. The first reason is to keep fitting right in with the rest of the boys. The second reason is because she despises her hair. For some strange reason, her hair color has changed gradually over the past year. At one time, she had long and healthy brown hair that flourished over her head. Then, almost out of nowhere, the color as well as the texture of her hair changed. She has yet to get used to it.

  Her hair is the color of a reddish-wheat and equally as dry and course. Her oatmeal-colored skin tone and freckles give her quite a complex. Being a freckle-faced red-head she always feels like an eye sore in a room of strangers. Despite the unique characteristics that she looks at as imperfections, she’s beautiful, but she can’t see the beauty. The coldness in her heart can be spotted in her eyes. What would be bright and beautiful brown eyes are really windows of a saddened soul. One of her best assets is her bright, white, Colgate smile. She rarely smiles, though, so it goes unseen.

  The three young boys stand huddled around her, all watching in shock, as Snap, the older teenager, shoves an old .38 revolver into Angelica’s best friend’s hand. His hands tremble as he grips it loosely. “Go ahead,” Snap demands. “Pull the trigger.”

  “I already thought I was in,” Angelica mumbles with fear.

  “This is the most fear that I ever felt in my life. Just a week ago, I had linked up with this group. I was brought in by my best friend at the time. I was somewhat of a tomboy with no real interest in boys. The only fun I saw in boys was roughhousing and sports.

  “I was honored to be propositioned to be in their secret group. The leader of the group, Snap, would tell me how special I was to be among them, with me being the only girl allowed. I didn’t see anything special about it because I saw myself as one of the guys. It was obvious that Snap didn’t see me as one of the guys, though. I could tell by the way he looked at me.

  “I was quite familiar with that look because I had been noticing it for the past year and a half. At eleven, I started developing, and by twelve, I had the body of a well-proportioned woman. I would wear extra baggy clothes just to hide my body and tuck my hair under baseball hats. The way Snap looked at me let me know that he could see my body underneath the garments. It was like he looked at me with X-ray vision.

  “One day, while i
n our secret clubhouse alone with Snap, he told me that I had to be officially initiated. To my surprise, my initiation consisted of a sacrifice, and of course, it was my body which had to be sacrificed. I declined, but he took it anyway. He made me promise that I would never utter a word of what happened and even threatened to kill me if I did. My initiation lasted all of twenty minutes, and I hated every second of it. Once it was over, neither one of us spoke about it. It wasn’t until this day that he ever spoke about anything of the sort. He told me the final phase of initiation was due, and that was to either indulge in this game of Russian Roulette or I had to allow the other three members of the group to have sex with me. I thought I was making the best decision at the time.”

  “Go ahead!” Snap shouts.

  Angelica stares into the barrel of the revolver as her best friend aims it at her face. She closes her eyes tightly. She clenches her fists tightly with fear. The clicking of the trigger sounds off but no boom. She opens her eyes with surprise.

  “OK, your turn,” Snap says, looking downward at Angelica. The kid passes the gun over to Angelica as she gets up from the crate. She’s hesitant to grab it. Snap snatches it and shoves it into her hand.

  “Ain’t no room for scared motherfuckers in this crew,” Snap says. “Now go!”

  Angelica stands up with the gun glued to her side as her best friend in the world takes his place on the milk crate. Snap grabs Angelica’s wrist, raising the gun in the air. He aims the nose of the gun at the kid’s head while still holding her wrist.

  “Go ahead and spin the barrel.”

  Angelica stands there, petrified. She shakes her head. She can’t do it.

  Snap uses his free hand to spin the barrel of the gun. “OK, now go. You get two chances.”

  The kid closes his eyes tightly. Angelica trembles with fear. Snap grabs her wrist tighter to stop her trembling. He rests the nose of the gun on the kid’s head. “On the count of three,” Snap says. “One, two…” Angelica closes her eyes tightly. “Three.”

  She mashes the trigger slowly.

  Click.

  She opens her eyes with a look of relief. The kid opens his eyes with the same amount of relief in them.

  “See, I told you it was easy. Now you get one more try. This time, you spin the barrel yourself.”

  Angelica looks at the gun closely before spinning the barrel. She slowly raises the gun in the air, bringing it closer to the kid’s head.

  “Three!”

  The sound of gunfire echoes throughout the house, shocking them all.

  Angelica opens her eyes and drops the gun from her hand. She stares at her dangling hand for seconds before looking to her friend who is squirming on the floor, fighting to breathe. Blood seeps from his head. His eyes are wide open as he stares up at Angelica helplessly.

  She watches in shock as the kid rolls around, extending his hand toward her to be rescued. His arm drops to the floor, his eyes close shut, and he stops moving.

  “A strange feeling was in my heart at that moment. I was afraid, but deep in my heart, I felt so many other emotions. My best friend lying there, dead, dead by my hands. I felt a sense of power that I can’t describe, a sense of dominance. All the years of his bossing and bullying now finally caught up with him. The adrenaline rush was a feeling that I had never experienced, and shamefully, I loved it.

  “Surprisingly, the memory of my actions never haunted me. It was a secret that we all kept, and it was, like, forgotten. I was able to charge it off as I got older, but I was never able to charge off that adrenaline rush or the sense of dominance I felt. I had no idea that I would be spending my whole life chasing that rush.”

  2

  July 4, 2006

  10:38 a.m.

  A few years have passed and Angelica has matured, not just mentally and physically, but mischievously as well. Her young life is just one big adventure, with not a boring moment. It’s chaotic at times, but she wouldn’t choose to live it any other way. The mischief that she finds herself in feeds the rush that she’s grown to love. She’s a magnet for action, and the fast life is the only life she feels is for her.

  Right now she sits in the passenger’s seat of the brand spanking new convertible BMW 6 Series. The beautiful paint is as thick and white as the clouds. The butter soft upholstery feels like soft biscuits under her. Her butt sinks into the seat, feeling like she’s floating on clouds. The sound of Neyo’s, “So Sick”, seeps through the speakers at a soothing level.

  She has an oversized hood on her head, along with her baseball cap, which serves the purpose of a security blanket for her. Most dudes see her as the perfect little gangster chick, not knowing that the hat and hood is to hide her hair. She has a huge self-esteem issue because of it, along with the freckles. Those qualities, along with a few other issues she has, affect her confidence in so many ways.

  The slow music she sees as an attempt of the driver to create the perfect romantic ambiance. What the driver doesn’t know is she is in no way a romantic. Truly she finds the music quite pathetic. The music, coupled with the huge droplets of rain banging onto the windshield, is surprisingly relaxing to her though. The driver whips through the rain, showing off the car’s speed and agility. Little does he know that speed turns her on more than his choice of music.

  At a couple weeks short of fifteen years of age, she’s jail bait for the driver, who is ten years her senior. He’s only known her for a few days now, but he has big plans for her. It’s her tough edge that he likes the most about her. He sees her as the rose that grew from the concrete. He plans to take her under his wing to raise and groom her.

  The driver pulls up to the gas pump of the Exxon station. He cracks the door and holds it open with his foot as he looks over at her. “You want something out of here?” he questions.

  “Get some Swedish Fish,” she replies.

  The attendant appears at the door.

  “Fill it up with unleaded,” the driver says, looking at the attendant. He looks over at Angelica. He’s hesitant to speak. “I’m gonna get the blunts. Should I get condoms, too?” he asks with uncertainty in his eyes.

  Disgust fills her. Sex is on his mind, just as she figured. She realizes that all men and boys want is sex and that infuriates her. Foolishly, she was expecting a breakfast date out of him. Her first time being around him, and already sex is on his mind. Typical nigga, she thinks to herself.

  “Yeah, if you plan on getting some,” she says with attitude.

  “Bet,” he says with a spark of cheer in his eyes. “My lil Quiet Storm,” he sings as he gets out of the car and slams the door behind him.

  By this time in her life, she has done away with Angelica all together. Everyone calls her by her nickname. Calling her Angelica could end in a fist fight because she sees it as disrespect, if she’s already warned a person. With a straight face, she tells people that Angelica died some years ago and that Quiet Storm was born to take her place.

  She peeks over her shoulder as the man walks toward the convenience store. She looks to her right where the man is pumping the gas. She watches the gas pump closely as the numbers switch quickly. Her eyes go from the pump to the store where customers are in and out with no seconds in between.

  Her heart pounds harder as the numbers flick slower. She sits on the edge of her seat, quite fidgety. She watches as the attendant walks away from the car to serve another customer. The numbers are still ticking as she spots the driver coming out of the store. With her adrenaline racing, she jumps into the driver’s seat and before her butt can land in the seat and her foot can touch the pedal, she slams the gear into drive. She mashes the gas pedal and the tires screech loudly. The gas nozzle is snatched out of the pump as the car speeds away.

  The man watches as his car races away. He stands in shock for a few seconds, not able to move. Finally he chases behind the car as Storm is steering out of the station and ont
o the street. He cuts across the sidewalk as if to cut her off.

  She’s on a super high right now, laughing to herself as she sees the look on the man’s face. Running straight at the car, he draws a gun. She leans to the left, eyes on the road and on him.

  Boc! Boc! Boc!

  Storm swerves the BMW onto the opposite side of the street and bends the corner, watching in the rearview mirror as the man stands in rage. She speeds up the block like a bat out of hell.

  Minutes later, the BMW fishtails through the narrow block, swerving from side to side, barely missing the mirrors and bumpers of the parked cars. Storm slams on the brakes and the car stops short, damn near throwing her through the windshield. She honks the horn like a crazy woman.

  In less than a minute, a young girl appears on the porch. This girl is her childhood friend, Latoya, Toy for short. The name Toy fits her perfectly because she looks just like a cute doll baby. She stands at five feet, three inches tall and looks soft, squeezable, and lovable. They are the best of friends, but Storm is secretly jealous and envious of her. Compared to Toy, she feels like an ugly duckling.

  Toy doesn’t act like a girl who is stuck on herself, but it’s Storm and her own insecurities that breed the envy. Toy’s flawless yellow skin tone and long silky hair make Storm have more hatred for her own coarse hair and dull complexion. It’s not just Toy that she has this deep-rooted hatred for. It’s any woman that has those physical attributes. The only difference with Toy is that Storm hides her hatred toward her friend. For the rest of the women who look like Toy, she can’t hide the jealousy. She hates them openly.

  Storm, for some reason, can’t accept that she is just as beautiful as Toy. She can’t see it for herself. As beautiful as she is on the outside, it’s her dark spirit and nasty attitude that have a way of shining outward and making her look ugly. She accepts her ugly attitude just as she has accepted all of the other flaws that she sees in herself. That doesn’t take away her bitterness though. It only enhances it. At just fifteen years of age, she’s already a cold bitch.