Shadows of Our Society: (Shadow Purgers Series, Book 1.5)

by N. Phillips

  “Ashanti, do you mind waiting in my car?” Lorenzo asked her. “I would like to speak with Zayn here in private.”

  “No,” she replied harshly. “Whatever you have to say, you say it to the both of us, ‘cause I wanna know who or what the hell are you. My mother made a mistake bringing you into our lives.”

  “It breaks my heart to hear you say that, because the love I have for your mother is one of the few things I can feel. But very well; perhaps it’s best if you both hear what needs to be said.”

  As he spoke just now, a thought processed in my head of why I was brought here, and I couldn’t help but voice the possible truth.

  “Wait… I get it now.” His sudden grin assured I was correct. “This was all to showcase your power to me. Like a threat, or a warning… There’s no other reason for bringing me here other than making me afraid to stand up to you and your goons.”

  He nodded with a smile. “That’s right. Two times now you’ve intervened with my men and their business, regardless of how immature and reckless it may have been. The first was the party in The Heights, and the second was your schoolyard buddies attacking the home of my lieutenant. After three issues, Zayn, the Silicon Cogs consider someone or something to be a problem. You’ve seen tonight what we do to problems: we eliminate them. Because you have potential to be a promising component to the machine I am building, I gave you the luxury of witnessing what could happen if you make another mistake. Do not go down that path.”

  Ashanti squeezed my hand as we grilled Lorenzo. Everyone started to clear out as he got into his car and pulled the window down to smirk at us.

  “Come now, get in. Children shouldn’t be out this late. It’s dangerous.”

  I damn sure didn’t want to, and I’m positive Ashanti didn’t either, but with no money for a Lyft or even a cab, we had no choice if we wanted to get home.

  The two of us slid in the backseat, and before he drove off, I saw his smug expression in the front mirror of the car. Had we just been mentally submitted by this man? No. We were going to fight. We just needed the right weapons and knowledge to win the war.

  CHAPTER 7

  The next day after school, Tory and I sat in the control room of the recording studio up the block from my house. Sitting next to us on the leather couch was a little girl watching cartoons on the phone in her hands—who happened to be the daughter of Darius’s producer.

  “Let’s run that back,” the producer said to Darius, who we could see in the booth through the laminated glass window between the two rooms.

  The beat dropped just before Darius began to rap. It was generic lyrics about money, cars, clothes, and hoes—and that’s cool when you feeling yourself and the song is hard—but there lies the problem…

  The track was garbage.

  Once he was done recording, he walked out of the booth and into the control room hyped as hell as if he made some heat. Tory and I were here to ask him about Lorenzo, but I couldn’t resist calling him out on that whack ass song. It was in my nature when it came to music.

  “It was trash,” I uttered over his celebration. His face scrunched up as if he heard the most baffling statement in the world. “The bass is knockin’, but it’s drownin’ out the other instruments on the track. Your lyrics are cool for what’chu goin’ for, but they don’t make sense sometimes. You said, ‘I’m Tom, this money Jerry’, but if you watch the cartoon, Tom never catches Jerry. So, by that logic, you gonna be chasin’ the bag forever.”

  The death stare from Darius that followed made me look away in silence. I really gotta learn when to speak my mind.

  “The youngin’ got a point,” his producer chuckled out. Darius’s glare shifted to him, leading to my audible sigh of relief.

  “Fix this shit,” he demanded. “I’m goin’ back in.”

  Once he left the room to step back in the booth, his producer turned to me and said, “You almost got us killed.” He then proceeded to tweak the sound of the song as Darius went over his lyrics noted on the cell phone.

  Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but so far in his rap career, Darius had only been surrounded by Yes Men. His only foot in the game was the release of two mixtapes averaging low streams online, with one being a collection of diss songs toward a rap group he had beef with who were called the Three Wavy Boyz. Clearly music wasn’t for him, but hey, all it takes is one lucky hit, right?

  As the recording went on, the little girl beside me began to pout and whine while looking down at the phone in her hands. Her father took notice, asking, “What’s wrong, baby girl?”

  “Your phone sucks,” she said, making me smile. She couldn’t have been older than six or seven.

  “What’chu mean my phone sucks?” He took the phone out of her hands and looked at the screen. “I put cartoons on for you like I always do, so… Wait, hol’ up. What? Why everything replaced with old shit?”

  Me and Tory gave each other a confused look before he took out his cell phone and went online. His thick brows creased even more.

  “What the hell? Bro, ain’t no shows available anywhere except for stuff our parent’s parents probably watched.”

  “For real? That’s weird,” I replied, just before Darius walked back in the room.

  “Yo, Jug, it’s time we head over to the ministry. We finna get back to this shit after we help out.”

  Tory, just as surprised as I was, asked, “You workin’ at the shelter on your own free will? Or you only doin’ it to get off some community service hours I don’t know ‘bout?”

  Damn. So harsh and straight-forward. He worse than me at speaking his mind.

  Darius’s producer, Jug, took his daughter and left the room at the sight of Darius’s offended expression. He closed the door behind him, leaving the three of us in the room with awkward tension.

  “If ya lil’ pencil ass must know,” Darius started, grilling his brother, “I been down there for two whole months serving food and unloading stock. But see, that’s ya problem: you think because I rap and sell drugs that I ain’t got a heart. I do that shit for us. Maybe if yo ass talked to me like you used to and get’cha head out them fake ass video games, we could have a real conversation.”

  Judging by the dancing of Tory’s eyes, he felt some way about Darius’s words. He couldn’t look his brother in the face without seeing the truth that he was yet able to accept.

  “Aight, so on the topic of conversations,” I voiced with uncertainty, “we were wondering if we could talk to you about something. Maybe ask a few questions if that’s cool.”

  “Nah, but I got a question for y’all.” He took out his cell phone from his ripped jeans and showed us the screen. “The fuck is this?”

  The video that played caused my heart to skip a beat as I took two steps back with my eyes still locked on the screen. It was all there; yesterday’s confrontation with Miguel had been recorded.

  And if Darius saw the video, who knows how many others have seen it as well?

  “Damn,” Tory muttered, looking away. Even he knew what this could potentially mean: we were targets for the men in black. Just like Ashanti.

  “Damn?” Darius wondered out loud. “What you mean? I told you to stay away from them, so why you out here foolin’ ‘round with these dudes and making a special effects video?”

  Bruh.

  “Wait, what?” Tory panicked, surprised and confused as hell by his words. “Nah, this is—”

  “A short movie we gotta do for class.” I had to jump in. No way Darius should know about any of this. “See, we um, making a film about superheroes in the hood, and we wanted real gang members to play the villains ‘cause you know, for authentic sake.”

  Darius’s head swung side to side in disapproval. “Fuck that. Find another way. I can’t believe y’all lackin’ like this. None of this shit is a game to them. They want a bullet in my skull and pretending to be cool with y’all is how they tryin’ to get to me and my squad. The fuck you think this is, Baby T? You know better.�
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  “Is it because they work for Mr. Payne and you’ve already got three strikes?”

  And there it was. For the first time, Darius had removed his cocky, tough guy exterior after Tory’s question and replaced it with an expression of dismay—that he did not wear proudly.

  He locked the door and stared the two of us down. “What do y’all know ‘bout Mr. Payne? Spill everything. No cappin’.”

  Tory leaned forward on the couch to look his brother in the eyes. “I know you two were cool when I was little, then he suddenly stopped pulling up to the house after a while. What happened?”

  Smiling sideways, Darius mocked Tory with a snicker. “Aight, see first of all, ya ass still little. Second, the situation between me and Mr. Payne is complicated. We had a fallin’ out after some shit went down years ago that didn’t sit right with me. But nothin’ that came out’cha mouth answered my question, so I’mma ask again and be more specific this time: why the fuck do y’all two know who Mr. Payne is?”

  Tory slouched back with his hands in his red tracksuit and looked away. I guess it was up to me to answer the question.

  “We got into somethin’ with the boys who work for him, so he told us we got three strikes; don’t let it happen again. We just wanted to know about him. That’s all.”

  Darius mean-mugged the both of us until he finally grumbled, “Y’all really think I’m stupid? If y’all got into some shit with his crew, why the fuck are y’all making videos with them, huh? It don’t add up.”

  Me and Tory stayed quiet as my eyes wandered around the room. Trying to get information out of Darius while keeping everything that’s going on a secret felt impossible. Now, we were both caught up, and I couldn’t think of anything on the spot to get us out of it.

  “I tell you what,” Darius began, glaring at Tory, “I don’t know what the fuck y’all tryin’ to do, but yo ass goin’ straight home.” He then pointed at me. “You too. Dead all this shit and stay in the house. Understand?”

  He didn’t wait for a response before unlocking the door and walking out of the room. Me and Tory got up off the couch and looked at each other in disappointment.

  “What now?” he wondered.

  I don’t know. I’ll hit you up in a lil’ bit.”

  Feeling defeated, I walked to the door to head home until I heard him say, “Wait hold on.” He dug into his blue backpack and pulled out something that made me gawk in surprise.

  Headphones.

  “Bro, you for real right now?” I asked as he handed the box to me. “These mine?”

  “Yeah, I can’t have you out here defenseless without me,” he laughed. “Those the upgrades from your old pair, and I was lucky to find the same color. Last ones at the store, too.”

  “Damn, you ain’t have to do this. When did you get these? How much were they? I gotta pay you back somehow.”

  He smiled and shook his head. “I got’em last night while you was out saving your princess. But don’t worry ‘bout paying me back or nothin’. You good.”

  I pulled him into a hug after we dapped. “Thank you.”

  We walked out of the room and into the lobby of the recording studio, where Darius and his squad were acting a fool with loud banter around a group of four girls.

  One of those girls…was all too familiar.

  “Jasmine?”

  She looked and gave me a wink. Darius heard me acknowledge her presence. “Hol’ up,” he shouted, causing everyone to stop talking. He then approached me and Tory. “Y’all know her?”

  Feeling put on the spot, I nodded with hesitation. Darius then stepped to the other dudes in the room.

  “Y’all bringin’ high school girls in the set now? The fuck wrong with y’all?”

  The guys shook their heads in defense and voiced their innocence, with one of them saying, “Nah, we ain’t know shit. She came on to us talkin’ ‘bout she 17.”

  Darius shoved the dude. “That’s still too young, stupid ass.” He then turned to Jasmine and pointed to the exit door. “You gotta go.”

  Jasmine sucked her teeth as the other females in the room gave her dirty looks. She responded with a flick of her hair using her middle finger and walked out with a smirk. An arrogant, unusual smirk.

  Maybe I was wrong because this was not the Jasmine I knew. Yeah, she had always been a confident girl since middle school, but she was never the type to put herself out there like some groupie with ratchet tendencies.

  “Z, we gotta see what’s up with her,” Tory said beside me. “She out here wildin’ while CJ in the hospital all fucked up.”

  “You right. Let’s follow her.”

  Outside, we spotted Jasmine walking by the community college across the street from the studio. We stayed out of her sight by trailing behind her, using whatever was around us to remain hidden. Things were going smoothly as she turned the corner to reach the back of the building, which has a campus-like structure with benches and a view of the Hudson River.

  But, as one would expect, something went wrong.

  I ended up knocking over a trash can trying to hide behind it, causing Jasmine to stop in her tracks at the sound of it falling. Out of nowhere, her body did an unnatural one-eighty twist, with her eyes now zeroed in on the two of us.

  “If you wanted my attention, all you had to do was ask,” she said in a flirty tone with a quick lick of her lips.

  “Oh, she freaky-freaky,” Tory whispered next to me, smiling. “But nah, something’s really wrong with her.”

  “I heard that,” she hissed, just before positioning her hands and feet in a fighting stance. An immense flow of dark aura radiated from her body—almost like she was a Shadow.

  Thrown off by her actions, me and Tory looked at each other with perplexed expressions. By the time we turned out heads back toward her, she was already inches away from us wearing a devilish grin.

  “What the fu—”

  The wind was knocked out of Tory with a fist to the gut before he could express his bewilderment. Not even I could react as my feet left the ground from Jasmine’s leg sweep, and although I was staggered from the sudden fall, I could’ve sworn I saw her flip backwards to create the separation we now had.

  Jasmine took karate classes and did gymnastics, but damn this was unexpected. Did she have to use those skills on us? Either way, she was clearly possessed by something and needed to chill.

  It was up to me and Tory to do the cooling down.

  “Aight, it’s on,” he coughed out, trying to catch his breath. “I ain’t never hit a girl, but shorty right there is a demon. We gotta exorcise her, bro.”

  “This is nuts, but alright. Hold it down while I sync my cell to the headphones.”

  Tory confronted Jasmine as I ripped through the headphone packaging. He waited for her to throw a jab first before trying to counter with his own strike that ended up missing. I could tell he was still hesitant to hit her, but as the fight between the two went on, he became angrier from her blows and swung more aggressively.

  Regardless though, Jasmine was too good.

  “Shit.” He backed away after a palm strike to the chest. “How is she hittin’ me so hard, bro? Am I gonna have to get serious?”

  “You mean your video game powers? Yeah, if you know how to use’em. She’s obviously not playin’ fair, but don’t kill her.”

  He smirked, turning his red hat to the back. “Got’cha. I don’t know how to activate most of’em, but I been practicing all night.”

  Tory stepped up to Jasmine for round two, only this time, he was the first to throw a punch. It was faster and steadier than his previous jabs, and he even began to incorporate kicks into his arsenal as the two matched each other’s moves perfectly. If I hadn’t known what was going on, I’d think the two were doing choreography for a movie or TV show.

  They were that precise.

  Despite keeping up with Tory, Jasmine was caught off guard when he tried to deliver a fiery uppercut that missed her chin by an inch. She didn’t bac
k down after the dodge and grabbed Tory’s leg as he attempted a spinning kick. With unbelievable strength, she tossed him to the side, his back smacking full force against a railing. He cried out in pain just as my cell synced to my headphones.

  “My turn.”

  The demonic grin resurfaced on Jasmine’s face when I confronted her. We clashed fiercely with my body maneuvering in motion with the beat of the song playing. Tory soon joined in on the session, but somehow, she was able to fend off the two of us and knock our bodies to the ground with ease. It became more and more apparent that we weren’t winning this fight, but Tory disagreed.

  “She can’t keep me down,” he said, struggling to his feet with shaky legs. “I’m right back up like a fightin’ game combo. Let’s go.”

  Regardless of his enthusiasm, we were in trouble, and his weak puns weren’t gonna get us out of it. Thankfully, a swarm of buzzing college students came out of the building and grabbed our attention away from the battle, though it seemed like we were the main attraction because most of them stopped and stared at our face-off.

  Their soft whispers revealed the hard truth: they knew exactly who we were. As I had guessed, others beside Darius saw the video of us fighting Miguel and his crew. We could only hope they believed the video to be fake, but either way, I wasn’t about to give them any more evidence.

  “Tory, we gotta chill,” I mumbled. “Fall back and let her go.”

  We backed away from Jasmine, who got the hint and joyfully skipped away from the scene in eerily fashion. Everything about this confrontation was bizarre and distracting from our primary goal, but we weren’t going to it slide knowing how dangerous she was.

  It was time we paid CJ a visit.

  CHAPTER 8

  Tory and I walked through the ivory-colored halls of St. Luke’s Hospital until we reached CJ’s room. He greeted us with a wide smile while lying in his bed.

  “There go my bros. What up?”