by Brick
My heart beat heavy in my chest and my dick hardened at the thought of bloodshed. I lived for that shit. Palm got sweaty but that didn’t loosen the grip on my gun. That monster inside of me needed to be fed. “Talk is cheap, motherfucker. Let’s make it happen,” I said then laughed as I moved from behind the Hummer.
A movement out the corner of my eye caught my attention. I saw Trigga just as he saw me. Making as quick roll down the steep hill, I avoided the heat of his bullets and returned the favor. As soon as I did, that young pussy they called Ray-Ray bucked the system. Lithe little bitch jumped up and slid over the hood of the Hummer guns blazing like she was in the Wild Wild West. Yeah, I saw Anika all in her. There was a frown on her faced that was etched in pure hatred. Her hair flew wild around her face as her feet hit the ground. This wild bitch had no regard for her own life and I intended to make her pay for it. She had two Sig Sauers which were no match for my Mack 11. I let go with a round in her direction, sprayed that shit like a street sweeper to catch her little boyfriend, too.
“Okay, you two on some Bonnie and Clyde shit I see,” I roared. “Come harder or go the fuck home as you motherfuckers in America say,” I yelled with a laugh.
She wasn’t stupid and took cover underneath the Hummer, quickly sliding out on the other side. Phenom was coming for me from the other side of the hill. I looked up and saw that Anika was flanking him. Hey, I was a lot of things, but stupid wasn’t one of them. I only wanted one motherfucker anyway. As bullets chased me, I chased Trigga through the wooded area. I could hear running feet crunching the brush behind me. I made zigzag patterns as I ran. A bullet grazed my left ear to let me know that time was of the essence. I kept Trigga in my vision as the young killer ran like he was on a mission. He knew this land so I knew wherever he was leading me, I didn’t want to go.
I dropped my gun and pulled out another one. My pace never slowed down as I aimed the tranquilizer and hit my target between the shoulders. His body hit the ground seconds later like a lump of coal. I slid to a halt as I looked down at him. I believed if he could have he would have tried to swing up at me as I turned him over. I could see the light draining from his eyes slowly.
“There is always more than one way to skin a cat,” I told him with glee on my face. “And you, my li’l nigga, are about to get skinned alive.”
Chapter 26
Ray-Ray
Everything in me was trembling as I stood outside the room they had Trigga in. The door was cracked just enough for me to see inside. They had him sitting the chair in the middle of a massive room with no windows. It reminded me of what a big stock room in a warehouse would look like minus the crates of merchandise. Only a pendant light hung from the ceiling as Valentino, Stiff, Kim, and Dante surrounded Trigga. I gritted my teeth at the sight of his bloodied face. His hands were tied behind his back as they each took turns taking a pound of flesh in the one-sided ass whooping they were giving him.
He coughed then spit up blood. “This some real lame shit. Four of you for a li’l nigga such as I? I would be impressed, but the way my fucks are set up is I don’t give ’em to pussy niggas like y’all,” Trigga spoke in a deep voice.
Even with the odds stacked against him, he was fucking with them. But my boy was hurt. I could see in the way he could barely hold up his head. The fact that he was coughing up blood made my soul cry. I have to take y’all back to the moments right after Dante had snatched him.
My heart was beating a mile a second as I watched Trigga being thrown in the back of a trunk. I didn’t know if he was dead or alive and that ate my insides up. I saw Stiff and Valentino hop back in the car with Dante in the back and speed away. I ran full speed ahead, my gun aimed perfectly as I tried my best to shoot and hit at least one target in the black car as it sped away from the scene.
“They’re gone,” sounded next to me.
I didn’t readily recognize a nigga’s voice so my gun turned on Mirror who stood emotionless as he gazed down at me. Just like his cousin, he had light eyes, only his were so gray they looked silver, which was a stark contrast to his dark skin. My gun was right at his head and he didn’t move. I was pissed at him for stating the obvious and even angrier that Trigga was gone. My hands trembled and teeth grinded as I dropped my hand and ran past Phenom, Anika, and Chyna.
“They got him,” was all I said as I made my way back toward the vehicles we’d had to abandon because of the tire strips in the road.
The keys were still in the ignition of the Honda. Big Jake and Gina were finishing off one of the goons who had attacked us. People were calling me but I wasn’t listening to them. I hopped in the driver’s seat of the Honda.
“Diamond, wait,” Anika called at me to no avail.
Her pleas for me not to go on some Rambo-style mission fell on deaf ears. I backed the car in reverse like I was a part of the Indy 500. I didn’t even remember how Chyna, Speedy, and Gina had jumped in the car. I peeled out and burned rubber in the direction that I’d seen them take Trigga.
“Do you even know where you’re going?” Chyna asked me.
“Trig got a tracker on his phone, Ray-Ray,” Gina chimed in.
Speedy asked, “How’d they catch the blimey bastard, eh?”
I knew about the tracker on his phone, which was why I grabbed the Honda and sped off after them. I hit the GPS touch screen, tapped his name and number and listened as it told me where to go. They were headed to Southlake Parkway in Morrow. I drove like I was the only one on the road. I ignored every traffic sign and traffic light until I made my way my destination. I made a sharp turn onto Southlake Parkway off of Mt. Zion, passing the Shell gas station and sped down the narrow two-way street. Chyna screamed out as I almost made a head-on collision with a big rig coming the opposite way. I’d sped around another car that was going too slow.
“Bloody fucking hell, Diamond. The fuck you learn how to drive, blood?” Speedy squeaked. “Got her bloody license from a Cracker Jack box, yeah?”
“Slow down, Ray-Ray. You gon’ kill us,” Gina whined.
I whipped the Honda into a skid as I turned down another one-way road.
“Your destination is on the right,” the GPS told me.
I hit the brakes hard as my hands gripped the steering wheel to the point my knuckles were turning white. Chyna jerked forward on the front seat and I could see that the sudden stop had caused Gina and Speedy to do the same in the back. I knew I was too upset to think rationally or clearly but all I could think about was Trigga never coming back. The limp way his body had fallen into that trunk didn’t give me any indication of whether he was dead or alive. He couldn’t be dead my mind kept chanting over and over as tears fell rapidly down my face. I stared straight ahead at the car I’d seen speed off with him. The doors were all opened and so was the trunk.
“We gon’ sit here or we gon’ go get him?” Gina spoke up.
I wasn’t talking to nobody. I was in my own head, trying to figure out what my life would be like with no Trigga and I just couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t handle the thought that I would never see that nigga again. Crazy as it sounded, I wanted to be back at the crib with him threatening to choke the shit out of me. At least I’d know he was alive and breathing.
It wasn’t until I saw a black Navigator make a quick turn in behind me that I got out of the truck. Jake had jumped out of the Navi before it even stopped, rushing up behind me.
“Yo, my nigga in there?” he called out to ask me.
I didn’t answer him either. Just made my way down the concrete stairs toward the steel doors.
“Diamond, get the fuck away from in front of the doors,” Phenom yelled at me.
My anger had blinded me. Trigga’s first rule of thumb was to never stand directly in front of the enemy’s door. They had the advantage because you couldn’t see what they were preparing to do. And sure enough a second after I moved, shotgun shells blew the doors off the hinges. We all dived for cover as gunmen filed out of the doors like a horde of rats. The br
oken pieces of glass on the ground tore into my elbows as I rolled. I flipped onto my back and let my burners loose. While most people would have aimed for head and chest shots, all I could hear was Trigga in my head.
“Never do what a nigga expects you to do. Do the opposite and catch them off their game every time, li’l shawty.”
I started busting niggas in the knee caps and watched them crumble where they stood. That move allowed the rest of my team to come in and do what they did best. When I saw the trunk to the Honda pop open and little feet take off running toward an open window, I smiled. I’d been so hell bent on getting to Trigga that it never crossed my mind Ghost would pull something as such. But that was how Trigga had built her. I prayed I didn’t live to regret my lapse in judgment. Then, I turned my attention back to the fight.
“Nothing like getting ya hands dirty with fresh kills, my nigga. The snapping of a nigga’s neck will forever give me pleasure,” Big Jake boomed.
“That was a sticky wicket wouldn’t ya say, bruv?” Speedy asked as he started crip walking over his fresh kill.
That nigga was forever dancing and grabbing his nuts after filleting a ma’fucker.
Gina frowned as she looked up at Jake then took a baseball bat to a nigga’s skull. “Ew, Jake. Don’t be talking ’bout snapping niggas’ necks and talking ’bout shit giving you pleasure that ain’t me. That’s my job, nigga.”
Although Big Jake chuckled, judging by the glance he gave me, we both knew she was serious, which was why he picked the woman he loved up and kissed her passionately like he really just hadn’t twisted a man’s neck almost clear off. To my left Chyna was going through the same window I’d saw little Pastry shoes–clad feet go through no more than five minutes earlier. Mirror and Phenom were taking on incoming firefight as more men from the Italian Cartel and the Black Sicilians rolled in.
When I saw that no more men were exiting the building, I jumped up and made a run for it. Once inside the warehouse type building, I caught my breath but stayed on guard. The halls were empty and shit was too quiet for my liking. The buzzing sounds of industrial fans serenaded my ears until I turned to walk down a set of stairs that led to a corridor that had one hall before you got to the door at the end. I quickly trotted down the long walkway. I saw Ghost cut the corner with Chyna in tow. They’d found a way into the building before I’d gotten in. My cousin turned to look at me and the look in her eyes was the same look I had just moments before I got to exact some revenge on the nigga who had stolen and raped me. Only hers was a deeper look of loathing. Not only had Dante stolen her innocence but he’d stolen her womb as well.
Two months after we’d rescued her from that nigga’s house, Chyna found out she was pregnant. The days that followed were the hardest times in our camp. Phenom almost lost his grip with humanity as Anika and her daughter decided if she would keep Dante’s demon spawn or abort it. In the end, Chyna chose to get her womb vacuumed and scraped of any child who would be born of the most traumatic experience of her life. The family never spoke of it again because, well, it was better that way. Chyna had an agenda and she wouldn’t be denied it.
Back to the present, I watched as the men took turns kicking and beating on a boy who would forever be the only person who would have my heart the way he does. I accidentally hit the wall on the side of the door. Saw the men look up and then Dante motion for Stiff to see what the noise was. I made a mad dash down the corridor and quickly bent the corner of the hall I’d seen earlier. My heart was beating so fast and hard that it hurt, but he didn’t see me. I peeped around the corner to see him walk a few paces, look around, and then go back in the room.
Although I’d made a stupid mistake, in the end, it worked out in my favor because the dumbass left the door open. I rushed down to the other end of the hall, hoping I could find another way to the door. Luck was on my side as I made my way back to the room from the opposite direction. I knew I’d said earlier that if I’d had to choose between his life and mine, I’d let him leave this hell on earth, but screw that. Just the thought of those niggas trying to take him out like they had earned the right to end his life had me on a suicide mission.
I got down on my stomach like I was in the army. Used my elbows and knees to move. As stupid as it may have sounded, I felt like a snake as I army crawled my way into the room. With their backs turned and the fact that they were on the other side of the room, it was easier than I thought it would be. The room was big and with the dim lighting it was easy for me to do. Not to mention they were so focused on torturing Trigga that they didn’t have time to pay attention to me. I looked across the room. There in the big air vent, I could see an outline of a little figure anxiously awaiting her right to save the man she saw as her father.
“You little cocky piece of shit,” Valentino spoke as he wiped the bloody spit Trigga had hawked in his face. He pulled out his gun and placed it in the center of Trigga’s head.
“Hold ya head, Val. I wanna make sure this little motherfucker feel every kind of pain imaginable before we send him to join his folks,” Stiff added.
Trigga slowly held his head back up and eyed Stiff. “What the fuck is that you know about my folks, sir? I’d suggest you not speak on shit you don’t know about, nigga, unless you telling me you know about it.”
Only those closest to Trigga could hear the threat laced in his voice. His parents would always be a sensitive topic and he held no prisoners when it came to avenging them. Stiff balled his lips and brought a steel baseball bat down over Trigga’s thighs. I watched Trigga’s hands ball into tight fists behind his back, right along with him gritting his teeth. His face screwed up in what I knew was pain, but he didn’t let out one sound, not even a moan.
“We shouldn’t play with him,” Kim stated. “We should kill him and be done.”
Valentino laughed. “Ease up, Kim. It ain’t like this little black motherfucker can do shit to us now anyway. Tough little monkey,” Valentino commented then laughed again.
“Just like his daddy. Took two bullets to the head to kill that fucker,” Dante added then sent a fist flying into Trigga’s face that I was sure loosened some teeth.
Trigga’s low guttural laugh was all that could be heard. “That’s all you got?”
It took all I had not to throw caution to the wind, but I had to wait for the right moment or shit could go all wrong. Had to wait for the signal before making a move. I kept watching as three overgrown niggas did whatever they could break an eighteen-year-old kid to his bare minimum. Seeing blood leak from Trigga’s face, ears, and nose would forever be my undoing. I may not have even known what being a true killer meant until that very moment. I watched on as Kim did a Jet Li kick to Trigga’s chest that sent the chair he was tied to flying backward. After that, Stiff sat the chair back up and Dante went to work on Trigga’s face again. Valentino picked up a razor and as his hand rubbed at the place an ear used to be, I knew I’d seen enough.
“You gotta wake up every day ready to die more than the next nigga,” I remembered Phenom schooling me. “You ready to die, Diamond?”
That day I’d been rebellious, didn’t understand the knowledge he was dropping on me until now. My attention turned to the tiny outline of a little girl in the shadows. Three sharpened pencils rolled from the vent across the steel gray stain concrete floor.
“What the fuck was that?” Dante asked as the three men looked down at the floor, wondering why pencils were rolling toward them.
Trigga’s head slowly rose looking into the direction where the pencils had come from then started to laugh.
Stiff turned to him and asked, “The fuck you laughing at?”
“Tell me something,” he taunted. “You niggas afraid of ghosts?” he calmly asked them.
Dante was confused and so was Valentino. Stiff had raised the bat and was aiming at Trigga’s knees this time until the light in the room went out. Someone must have cut the power from outside, which was good, but for only a second since I could hear the roar
ing noise of the generators. Dim lights around the room flickered on. I could hear her little feet rush from the shadows, saw when the little Ghost jumped from a chair onto Valentino’s back and shoved a pencil directly into his carotid artery on both sides of his neck. She pulled the pencil out quickly, dropped to the floor, and rolled smoothly out of the way of spraying gunfire. She was good, just as her father, Trigga, had trained her to be. Valentino’s life spurted from him as he tried futilely to use his hands to stop the bleeding.
Stiff didn’t know what was going on. “Yo, what the fuck, man? I thought you said this shit was secure,” he yelled at Dante’s retreating back.
While the lights had been out, Dante had managed to make his way to the door. There was nothing I could do about that at the moment. I had other shit to worry about. Stiff was trying to figure out what was going on while Kim quickly turned his attention back to Trigga. I took that as my cue and took Kim out in one shot. The bullet caught him in the back of the skull. Kim and Dante were the deadliest of the men in the room besides Trigga. And since Dante had already run for cover, I had to take Kim out. Next came Stiff. I aimed my Sig and took his left knee out. He fell down to his knees, right near Trigga’s feet.
Ghost scurried across the room like a little ninja, stuck a sharpened pencil into his back where his kidneys were. She fell back and used her feet to mule kick the homemade weapon through. She was quick on her feet as she jumped back up and took another pencil through his neck then eyes. When Stiff’s’s body finally hit the floor, Trigga used his feet to drill the pencil clear through his skull. I left my hiding place and went to rush across the room. I was halfway to Trigga when a bullet blessed my thigh. I screamed out and turned to see Kim’s men closing in on us from the hall. I hadn’t counted on them getting passed my fam, but when I saw Mirror fighting like Michael Jai White as he gave a roundhouse kick that damn near took one of Kim’s men’s head off, I knew I was covered. Jake was bringing up the rear. I guessed he’d gotten tired of using his hands as a weapon, but then I saw the blood dripping from them and knew he had been injured.
