“Y…yes.”
Bradshaw takes his hands off of her and backs up slowly. Her view is partially blocked because of his muscular chest and broad shoulders. The further he steps back, the better her view becomes until finally, she can confirm that there are no signs of Gabriella.
“She here?” he asks hopefully.
“No,” she says looking behind her and around the room. “She’s not here.”
In this moment she isn’t the tough girl she usually was. But out of the darkness, she gains light. Bradshaw was right. She went against everything she knew and trusted him and he was right.
He smiles. “See, you got this shit.”
She’s falling for him and decides to talk to him seriously about her disorder. She wants to be open about everything before putting the rest of her heart into him. Because history showed that love was not her friend and unless he was Father Time, she didn’t see how now would be any different. The vibration of her phone in her purse breaks her attention. She walks toward it and picks it up. Bradshaw jumps back in bed.
“Who is it?”
“Penny. She callin’ from the house.”
“Why so many times?”
“I don’t know.’
She presses ignore. And with the screen clear, she’s able to scroll through twenty missed numbers from Penny. It made no sense. Had she found Treyana in the basement of her home? One thing was certain, she couldn’t wait around there to find out.
I’m Not Trying To Be
Yvonna creeps up the steps of Penny’s home carefully. She wants to avoid her until she finds out much she knows. She loved Penny. In fact, they spent many days talking about Penny’s life and the details Yvonna felt comfortable sharing about her past. Penny was quickly becoming the mother she always wanted despite not baring one physical resemblance. But when it came to her privacy, and the protection of it, Yvonna didn’t fuck around.
Fuck does this greasy black bitch want anyway? She thinks. “Calling my phone like she lost her mind!”
After peeking into the front window briefly she decides to go inside when she doesn’t see her anywhere. It is important that she remains as silent as possible. Once inside, she looks around again.
Penny, please don’t say you went downstairs after I asked you not to. She says to herself. Please. I don’t want to hurt you.
She moves cautiously toward the basement. Once she arrives at the basement door, she removes the small key to unlock it. She opens the door and is about to go downstairs until she sees Penny in the kitchen. She is so preoccupied with chopping a small object that she doesn’t notice Yvonna about ten feet away from her.
Taking one more step, Yvonna can see the object is a pill. What are you doing? She says to herself. When the item is small enough, she scoops it off the counter with her hand and dusts it into the teacup that Yvonna uses regularly. Her mouth drops. You wretched bitch. She thinks. When the powder makes it within the cup, Penny stirs the potion.
Yvonna’s conflicted. The tea Penny told her was made with love was made with poison. Not wanting Penny to know she was on to her black ass, she backs up carefully and makes her way to the basement. She is hurt and tears roll down her face. She loves Penny and here she is betraying her. She’d deal with her later and in her own way. For sure.
“When are you going to let me go? I been here for months.” Treyana asks as she sits on the floor with her arms tied behind her back against an old radiator. She is wearing a red shirt and is naked from the waist down. Her hair is all over her head and she looks like the dusty bitch she was before Yvonna cleaned her up years earlier. “My husband is going to come looking for me. Please let me go.”
“I can’t do that. So don’t ask me, sweetheart.” Yvonna stands over her and looks down at her. “And don’t worry about your husband coming for you. I sent him a little message on your behalf. If anything, you’ll be lucky if he doesn’t come through that door and help me kill you. Seeing as though you cheated on him with my dead boyfriend and all. It seems Bilal had a thing for nasty bitches.”
“What did you tell Avante?” Treyana tries to sit up straight. “I told him to look into the eyes of his children,” Yvonna sits on her bed. “I’m sure he’ll realize after reading it, that they look nothing like him. He probably already knows. I can’t even believe I missed it.”
Treyana’s head drops. “Why are you doing this to me? And my family? Why don’t you just leave us alone?”
“Because I warned you about messing with me, and you didn’t listen.”
She is quiet before saying, “You’re so unhappy you don’t even realize it. But I know one day, things are going to change for you. And when they do, they’re going to be for the worst. One day you’ll get exactly what you deserve.”
“I have no doubt I will. But…you’re first.”
Yvonna changes into her comfortable clothing and walks back upstairs, locking the door behind her. She must deal with Penny and her actions would depend on Penny’s response.
“Yvonna. How are you sweetheart?”
Yvonna sits on the couch angry with Penny for putting her in this situation.
“I’m fine,” Penny places a hot cup of tea next to her.
“That’s good, sweetheart. ‘Cause when I knocked on your door, and you aint’ ansa this morning old Penny got worried.”
“And why would old ass Penny worry and call my phone twenty million times?”
“I wasn’t trying to be a bother. Just worried about you that’s all.”
Yvonna lifts the tea and holds it to her mouth like she is about to drink it. She sees her bushy eyebrows rise in the hope that she’d down the poison so she decides to fuck with her a little bit.
“So, you worry about me, huh?” she places the cup down and Penny’s breath releases from her body in disappointment. She wants Yvonna to drink the tea so badly it’s showing in her actions.
“Drink your tea, baby. It’s good for you.”
“I will. But what’s wrong? Are you okay?”
“Oh…uh…yes. I am.”
“You don’t look it. Have some tea.”
“I can’t!” she yells standing up.
“Why not? I’ll just make myself another cup.”
“That’s okay. I’ll make some later.”
“If you let this bitch get by without handling her, I’m gonna take care of her myself tonight.”
Yvonna tries to ignore Gabriella’s voice. And because it is more difficult now to block her out than it was the night before, she is starting to realize that the medicine Penny gave her might have been working and she wondered how long she’d been giving it to her. It was also evident that without it, she became more emotional causing the Gabriella personality to take over totally.
“I know you hear me, Yvonna. Don’t fuck wit’ me! I’m not going to allow you to ignore me much longer. I’m the only one who cares about you.”
“Are you okay?” Penny asks witnessing the blank expression on Yvonna’s face. “You don’t look to good, chile.”
“Yvonna, kill this bitch right now! She been druggin’ you and you gonna let her get away with it?”
Yvonna trying to protect Penny, gets up from the sofa and moves hurriedly toward the basement.
“Yvonna, are you okay?” she asks walking behind her.
Silence.
“Yvonna, …talk to me.”
Yvonna felt around in her pockets for the key to unlock the door. She is nervous and sweat begoms to form on her forehead. She has to get away. If she doesn’t she will most certainly hurt her.
“Yvonna, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to deal wit’ this kinda pressha alone. I’m here for you. But you got to let me do for you what I can.”
“Kill her, Yvonna! Kill her now! She’s violating. She’s in to our space! Take care of her! I don’t trust her!”
“Baby,” Penny says touching her shoulder.
Yvonna grabs Penny’s hand and squeezes it so hard, her knuckles sound as if
they would crack.
“Keep your hands off me bitch,” she tells her before opening the door and closing the door behind her. “Stay the fuck away from me!”
When Yvonna makes it downstairs, she muscles up for another problem when she doesn’t see Treyana tied against the rusted radiator anymore. Panic immediately sets in and she hustles toward the back of the basement, toward the back entrance.
“Where are you, bitch?” she asks looking everywhere.
Silence.
“I know you in here somewhere. If I have to come get you, I’m not going to be nice. I’m serious. Don’t fuck with me.”
Yvonna picks up the rusted weed clippers from a worktable and walks softly toward the back door. Once at the door, she sees the red shirt. Treyana is on the floor crawling until Yvonna grabs her back into the house closing the door locking the door behind her.
“You thought you were gonna get away from me that easy? She asks pulling her hair.
“Let me go! I wanna see my kids. I miss my family!”
“You gonna miss more than that! I told you I couldn’t let you go until my plan was done. But you just had to be a busy body, bitch. Now you’re going to pay. Big time for this shit! You hear me?”
Treyana turns around kicking and swinging wildly. She stands up and is about to run when Yvonna runs after her. The edge of a metal worktable digs into her stomach because Treyana is not in her grip. When Treyana stumbles and falls, Yvonna dives after her. Then she grabs her right hand, and jabs the clippers into her fingers over and over again.
“Awwwwww!!!! You’re hurting me! Please stop! Somebody help me!!!!”
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Penny hears the commotion from upstairs and bangs on the door with the force of six men. Still, the reinforced door she built about five years earlier doesn’t budge. She made it secure in case she ever had to live there for shelter in an emergency situation. Now she wishes she hadn’t.
“Now you did it! Now I’m gonna fuck you up for this!”
Yvonna digs the weed clippers deeper into Treyana’s hand. Blood splatters everywhere and all kinds of thoughts enter her mind. What was she going to do with her now? How was she going to explain to Penny where the commotion came from? And most of all, how was she going to dispose of the body?
After the fifth stab Treyana appears to be going out of consciousness and for some reason, Yvonna is growing weaker also. Perhaps it was all the energy she exerted into restraining and assaulting her.
No…something else was definitely going on. Treyana passes out, and Yvonna is suddenly consumed with pain. She believes Treyana must’ve stabbed her and she didn’t realize it.
“What did you do to me?” Yvonna asks weakly.
Right before she gets her answer, Penny kicks in the back door and sees Yvonna laying in a puddle of her own blood, with her fingers mutilated. And most importantly, she was all alone.
A Packed Decision
The cafeteria at FCI Fairton Federal Prison was crowded with hungry inmates. Everybody is either talking about the jail time they had left, or what they’d do as free men. Tree sits at the table with four others, while Swoopes talked about his life prior to being incarcerated.
Tree knew Swoopes from the past but Swoopes didn’t recognize him. Tree was glad he didn’t. Their past was not worth remembering. And it wouldn’t prevent Tree from doing what needed to be done. At first he wasn’t going to carry out his part of the deal even after she murdered the Correctional officer. But after she murdered Bernice, he knew not following through on the plan would cause him more problems than one body was worth. Especially after learning that the woman he thought was Treyana, was actually Yvonna Harris, the woman he’d read about in the paper years earlier.
The discovery came while looking at some old photos Swoopes had in his room of Bilal and his friends. Although Swoopes was not happy about her being in any of his photos, he didn’t trash them because a few of the pictures were taken during parties he wanted to remember.
It was easy for Tree to be fooled by Yvonna’s disguise because she always wore a wig in the pictures she sent. But what Yvonna didn’t know was that he was also famiiar with her.
“Yo, Swoopes, tell me about that crazy bitch you were talking about again.”
“Who? Yvonna?” he asks. His left eye is still covered by a black eye patch and his right hand is missing three fingers the men he owed money chopped off for a debt he paid late.
“Yeah. You neva got through tellin’ me cuz that bitch ass nigga Jake started talkin’ bout that broad and shit.”
“Oh yeah,” he says remembering their conversation in the TV room earlier. “So look, this bitch was crazy as shit. She was slicin’ niggas dicks off, cuttin’ up people’s kids and rapin’ other girls and shit.” He lies.
“Man how the fuck did she do all that and it took them all that time to catch her?”
“You actin’ like the police are smart or somethin’. It’s easy to get ova on them mothafuckas.”
“Well if it’s so easy, how come you in here?” Corn, another inmate asks after laughing. Inmates at the table chuckle. Corn has huge arms and large knuckles but most thought his bark was worse than his bite. He sees Swoopes’ eye patch and missing fingers as weaknesses.
“Dis nigga crazy,” he responds pointing at him while looking at Tree. “First off, do you even know me?” The question is rhetorical because he knew he didn’t. “I didn’t think so, so stay the fuck out of my business.”
“I don’t need to know you. If you talkin’ at the table, you talkin’ to everybody.” Corn cracks his knuckles and looks at him. He is clearly mad about something and decides to take it out on who he perceives to be the weakest man in the room.
Swoopes gives him a once over and ignores him. This embarrasses Corn and induces a surge of anger through his body. “And like I said before I was interrupted by this sucka ass nigga. So this broad runnin’ around the city merkin’ niggas left and right. I think some of the cops knew and was lettin’ her get away wit’ that shit.” As Swoopes continues with his conversation, Corn is breathing in and out heavily. He is building himself up to take some kind of action. “She killed ‘bout two of the niggas I use to roll wit’,” he is in midsentence when Corn takes his milk carton and smacks it up against his face. Splash!
Swoopes’ patch moves and exposes his damaged eye. He moves it back in place and hits him with blow after blow. Corn quickly finds out that Swoopes’ handicap, is not a handicap after all. Finally with one last blow, Corn is knocked to the floor. His legs fly up in the air and his black boot comes off his foot smacking him in the face. Niggas are heckling his ass and making the situation worse.
“Damn, that nigga fuckin’ his shit up!” someone yells.
“Dude ain’t get one in since he smacked him in the face with the carton.”
The CO’s don’t see what was going on at first because their attention is drawn to another argument that happens across the way. Swoopes is just about to punish his ass for more points until he sees two inmates rush toward him. Tree decides to give him a hand when he hits the first dude up to bat fracturing his nose on impact.
When Babble Mouth Johnson, a snitching ass white inmate, decides to increase his kiss ass points by alerting the Co’s of the fight, Swoopes and Tree take their seats.Everyone at the table sits down to avoid being pointed out and asked to give an account on what happened. Swoopes grabs his food and acts natural while Tree tosses his meal around in his trey. The inmates look like a well-behaved group of punk bitches.
“What happened?” An officer asks Tree.
“I don’t know,” Tree tells him, swallowing his food. “You gotta ask them niggas down there.”
“What happened, Roberts?” He asks Corn who was now on his feet.
He wipes the blood off the corner of his mouth, grabs his boot and looks at Swoopes. “Nothin’. I fell.”
“You fell huh?” he asks with an inquisitors glare. He nods. “Well fall your ass out of here be
fore you get locked down.”
Corn walks away but not without looking at Swoopes and Tree again. The CO’s looked at everyone at the table and follow Corn away from the scene. When they are gone, Swoopes and Tree laugh.
“Fuck was wrong wit’ that nigga?”
“He mad ‘cause that bitch he dealin’ wit’ fuckin’ wit’ his roommate. He took pictures of that nigga’s girl and her address and started writing her. That slut wrote back.”
“Are you serious?”
“Fuck yeah! She used to visit Corn and his roommate would find somebody to see him on the same day. The whole time they’d be in each otha’s face and shit.”
“Conversatin’?!”
“Naw. Just lookin’ at each otha ‘cross the room and shit. But a week later the broad sends a letter and forgets who she was sendin’ it to. She meant to send it to his roommate but Corn got it instead and flipped. They locked his ass down for 90 days because he went crazy. Tearin’ shit down in his room,” Tree laughs. “He did all that shit and that nigga that took his bitch was right in his cell with him. They said this nigga was cryin’ and askin’ him why he broke his heart.” Everyone chuckles. “I’m surprised you ain’t hear that shit.”
“Man I neva even looked at that nigga in my life.”
“I feel you. But anyway his roommate got out a day later. He went on parole and my man Shawn D from northwest, said he moved in wit’ that bitch and they getting’ married.”
“Damn…that’s some foul shit!”
“That’s how niggas be. You gotta watch what’s yours.”
“On that note, I’m out. I got some shit to take care of back in the cell,” he gives Tree a pound. “One.”
“One.” Tree responds.
When he leaves, Stevie who is sitting right next to him, as if they aren’t in cahoots, speaks through tightened lips.
“So when you want me to do that?” he asks grabbing a milk carton to cover his lips.
“Tonight. His celly in the infirmary so he’ll be by himself.”
Shyt List 2 (The Cartel Publications Presents) Page 10
