Manolo lay down on the bed, caressing his manhood and waiting on Daddy’s favorite little girl to come please him. Hell, even if she’s up to no good after all, I don’t see no reason why I can’t get one last fuck-and-suck before I see to it that she or anyone who decides to jump camp with her, like Toni Braxton said, never breathes again.
Chapter Nineteen
As Halleigh lay there in pain, she didn’t know what to do. “God, help me,” she moaned, grabbing her stomach. She lifted herself up and tried to crawl out of the hotel bed, but ended up landing on her knees beside the bed. She remained in that spot as if her knees were magnetized to the floor.
A few weeks ago, after convincing Manolo to allow the girls to run business twenty-four/seven in the motel, Tasha had gone down and paid the clerk for an extra room to house Halleigh. She didn’t want any of the other girls getting wind that Halleigh wasn’t putting in any work at all. That alone would’ve given them cause to run back and start complaining to Manolo. So Tasha just got Halleigh her own room, away from the ones where the other girls tricked, so that she could get better.
Tasha even used her own money to pay for the room. In all the years she’d dealt with Manolo, she’d never burned him when it came to “the ends.” And even though she was starting to hate the ground he walked on, she still wasn’t about to start spending his money without his say. That would have sent up a red flag. Then what excuse would she have given him? Instead, she turned an extra trick when she could, just to cover the cost of the additional room she’d added to their tab.
“God help me!” Halleigh cried out once again, gripping her stomach in agony. That’s when the irony of it all hit. She was exactly where God probably wanted her to be in order for Him to get her to call out to Him: on her knees.
In all of the mess she had been in since the night of the rape, she had not once gone to God and asked Him for help. She went to Malek, Mimi, Manolo. And, regretfully, she’d gone to Scratch. But not once did she just go to the one who was in charge of everything and ask Him to show her the right way to go about life.
As Halleigh began to call out to God with her last breath, it seemed, she only hoped it wasn’t too late. But figuring that she didn’t have anything to lose since she had given up everything, right down to her soul, she began to pray. Hopefully she could convince God to talk to Satan and order him to give her back her soul.
Halleigh folded her hands and leaned over the bed. Every movement ached her healing bones. For all of those days in that hotel room with the television on, she remembered hearing some televangelist speak about the power of prayer, but had never partaken in it herself. She was willing to try anything now to take the pain away, though. Since all else failed, perhaps prayer wouldn’t.
The pressure on her knees was too much to take. She fell down on her side and began to cry. She figured that she didn’t have to be on her knees in order for God to hear her, so she let the tears come as she put her hands up to her face.
God, please help me. I know that you shouldn’t, and I am probably not worth saving, but haven’t I suffered enough? You blessed my life when You brought Malek into it. Before him, I didn’t know love. I would have never imagined knowing another person better than I know myself. You already know how my mother gets down, so I don’t have to go into that whole situation, and I’m not looking for a pity party, because I know that I did this to myself. Life just hurts so bad, God. It hurts. Malek doesn’t want me anymore. He won’t even see me. He was my everything, God, my reason for breathing. What did I do to deserve losing him?
I don’t know if I can handle life without him. That’s why I’m lying here on this floor with a drug-infested body. I poisoned myself trying to soothe my heart, shooting dope, free-basing. I did whatever I had to do to forget about Malek and the life I’m living. I’m killing myself slowly, but I know that I’m wrong. But I can’t fix it by myself. It hurts so bad. My body hurts all day. It feels like I can’t breathe.
I’m begging You, God, to take this burden away from me. I can’t handle it. I’m not strong enough. I know I’ve never come to You before. I don’t go to church every Sunday like some of the other people who call on You might, but I do believe that You can save me. If I am Your child, why does my life hurt so badly? Why me? Please save me from this because I don’t think I’m strong enough to do this without Your support. I don’t want to do this to myself anymore. I’m dying.
Halleigh became too weak to even think. Her prayer stopped short as her eyes became too heavy for her to keep them open. Her arms fell to her sides as she just lay there.
Tasha entered the hotel room and saw Halleigh sprawled out on the floor near the bed. “Oh God!” She dropped her purse and ran over to Halleigh. “God, please don’t let her be dead. Please don’t let her be dead.”
Tasha made it over to Halleigh, got on her knees, and grabbed her wrist to check for a pulse. She then placed her ear against Halleigh’s nose, trying to see if she could feel any life coming out of her, something she’d seen on television before.
Halleigh coughed.
“Oh Jesus!” Tasha said with a sigh of relief. “Hal, why are you laying out on the floor like this?” Tasha sat beside her on the floor and rubbed her hair softly.
Halleigh opened her eyes and replied, “No, Tasha, don’t touch me. It hurts.” She was too fatigued to even cry. Tears just drained from her eyes and rolled down the side of her face. “It just hurts so bad,” she whispered.
“I know, I know, Hal. I’m so sorry for this. I know that this ain’t for you. This isn’t for anybody. You don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve this. I’m going to get us out of here. Just let me come up with a plan. I just need to think of a way to get us away from Manolo safely. Just hang in there. Give me time. I swear, I’m going to find a way out.”
“I thought you said there is no way out,” Halleigh replied, feeding Tasha’s own words back to her.
“I’ll find a way, Halleigh. I’ll find a way,” Tasha muttered as she tried to think of a possible escape plan for them. She pulled a cover and two pillows off the bed and lay right beside Halleigh. She snuggled close to her, wrapped her arms around her, and let the tears fall without shame.
It had been so long since she had cried. She’d trained herself not to be emotional from the day she turned her first trick. She didn’t want anyone to think she was weak or that she could be easily manipulated, so she told herself that crying was a sure way to lose control over her own life. Now she felt weak, trapped underneath Manolo’s selfish reign, and all she really felt like doing was crying.
As Tasha lay next to Halleigh, she cried for all of the times that she’d let strange men have her body. For all of the souls of the girls she’d helped Manolo lure in. For her parents, whom she knew she’d hurt when she started tricking. And for Loita. When Loita died, she didn’t even cry then, so she was crying for her now too.
She released her entire life’s heartache while she lay next to Halleigh, and she felt a closeness with her now more than ever before. Tasha knew that it was time for her to get strong—on her own. She didn’t want to feel powerful by preying on the weakness of others, but she wanted to empower both herself and Halleigh so that they could live the life that they deserved.
God surely must have taken these two women to the bottom this day, to a point where they both realized that they had nowhere to go to and no one to go to but Him. It seemed that prayer was moving in Tasha’s heart that day as well, because she asked God for the strength she needed to get them out of their current situation, and to give her a better direction in life.
Chapter Twenty
Two weeks passed by, and each day God answered Halleigh’s prayers by gradually taking the pain away. Halleigh was no longer in unbearable pain, but she was still very weak. She honestly didn’t know what it was that was causing her pain to be less severe; whether it was prayer, God, or if her body was just getting better on its own now that she wasn’t feeding it heroin anymore.
Also, to help ease her pain, Tasha had tricked with a doctor who gave her a prescription of methadone for Halleigh that made her body think it was getting a hit, but it really wasn’t.
Now that she was getting better, Halleigh was tired of being locked up in the hotel room. Before, she could barely move, so staying in that hotel room wasn’t an issue. But now she felt cooped up and nauseated all the time. She figured that her body was still trying to adjust.
She had polluted her body with drugs, and now that she wasn’t on them anymore, she felt weird, but she was grateful to be alive. She realized what a stupid mistake she’d made. She didn’t want to be addicted to drugs. For her entire life, she had tried to differentiate herself from her mother. She wanted to show people that she wouldn’t follow in her mother’s footsteps, but indeed, she had fallen victim to the trials and tribulations of the streets.
Halleigh knew that she was very lucky to have her life. She had been spared. For what reason? She didn’t know, but she promised herself that she would never take her life for granted again. Not for Malek, not for anyone.
After Tasha told Halleigh how Malek had refused to help her, Halleigh had tried to wrap her mind around the fact that he didn’t care anymore. That simply broke her heart. But she’d found a new friendship with Tasha, who really had become like a sister to her. Before, it was Mimi and Halleigh who had been the closest, but Mimi had been on a paper chase, putting the almighty dollar before everyone and everything. Tasha, too, was on the paper chase, but not because she was obsessed with money like Mimi was. She was doing it for the sake of Halleigh. Tasha and Halleigh talked together, laughed together, cried together, and dreamed big together. They also promised each other that they would always keep in contact, no matter where their lives took them.
Tasha promised Halleigh that she would still try to help her see Malek again, if that’s what she really wanted, even if it was just for closure. But first things first, Tasha had to get her and Halleigh out of Manolo’s clutch.
Halleigh knew that Tasha was trying to get her out of the game, but what she didn’t know was that Tasha herself wanted out of the life as well.
“How do you feel?” Tasha asked Halleigh, who was sitting on the bed playing a game of solitaire with a deck of cards Tasha had bought her from the corner store, so she could focus her mind on something. Tasha had just finished up a long night of work.
“Better.” Halleigh continued her game, not looking up at Tasha. Not only was Halleigh ashamed that Tasha was out turning tricks because of her, but she was embarrassed by her own behavior.
Tasha noticed her disposition. “Ain’t no need to feel no type of way around me. You’re my sister. I did what I had to do to make sure you were okay, so don’t look down on yourself. You know these past few weeks we’ve sort of switched places. Turning tricks will tear you down mentally and physically. I understand how it broke you, Hal, but you have to promise me that you are going to take care of yourself. You’ve got to stay strong from here on out. No more drugs. Having to cover for you and turn tricks to make sure that Manolo’s money was consistent made me realize that this lifestyle ain’t for me either. I realize now that it was never for you. We’ll get away from Manolo. I don’t know how yet, but we will. Just give me some time to figure it out, okay?”
Halleigh nodded her head. “Okay,” she stated, still not looking up.
“Now, you ready to get out of this hotel to get some fresh air? I know you have to be starving.”
Halleigh didn’t think that she would be able to hold down any food. The way her stomach felt, the food would probably make her sick. She was also still having a hard time controlling her bowels. She stood up and looked at herself in the mirror, and what she saw disgusted her. She’d lost about twenty-five pounds, and her skin was sickly-looking. She barely recognized the person staring back at her.
“Yeah, from the looks of it, I need to eat,” she said, figuring she’d at least give it a try. If nothing else, she would at least enjoy some fresh air. She felt like a prisoner in solitary confinement, although she was the one who’d created her own prison.
“Then let me go get cleaned up real quick,” Tasha told her, “and then we’ll head out.” Tasha headed over to the bathroom.
“Cool,” Halleigh replied.
At that exact moment, Mimi came banging on Tasha’s door, stopping Tasha right in her tracks at the doorway. “Tasha, open up!” Mimi yelled. “I know you in here.”
Halleigh looked at Tasha nervously.
Tasha whispered, “Don’t worry about it. I didn’t tell her anything about what’s been going on. She just thinks you’ve been sick.”
Halleigh breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t want her business to be out there like that, and was grateful that Tasha hadn’t spread the news. Halleigh liked Mimi, but she knew Mimi’s relationship with Benjamin Franklin took precedence over any friendship.
Tasha nodded at Halleigh to go ahead and open the door for Mimi, which she obliged.
When the door opened, Mimi practically knocked Halleigh down when she saw her. “Bitch, where the hell have you been?” she asked as she hugged her tightly.
“Ow, Mimi!” Halleigh whined, grimacing slightly from Mimi’s tight grasp.
“Take it easy, Mimi,” Tasha said. “She’s still a little under the weather.”
“Um, no offense,” Mimi said, looking Halleigh up and down, “but you do look bad.” She then walked over to Tasha to talk about the business at hand: the fresh gossip that had her anxious to spill.
“Girl! Keesha lying ass been spreading all types of rumors around this bitch about where Halleigh been. First, she was talking about Halleigh was pregnant, and I was like uh-uh, ’cause I knew you wouldn’t have kept that from me.” Mimi turned to Halleigh. “Then she started talking about how Halleigh had caught something from one of her johns and gave it to Manolo. She said that he had her taken care of. I knew that shit was a lie too, though.”
Halleigh and Tasha were cracking up at Mimi, who couldn’t stop talking. She was going on and on about how much drama Halleigh had missed and how much she hated Keesha.
“Tasha, will you please let me beat that bitch’s ass for lying on my girl?” Mimi said, getting even more amped at the thought of fighting Keesha.
“No, let it go, Mi,” Tasha told her. “She ain’t worth it. Anyway, I’m about to freshen up. Hal and I are about to go grab something to eat.”
Tasha continued into the bathroom, but before she closed the door, Mimi mocked, “Hal and I are about to go grab something to eat,” and threw Tasha a nasty look.
“You got a problem?” Tasha said, stepping to her.
“No, just that you are all of a sudden treating me like some stepchild, like I ain’t a part of y’all’s little clique.” She turned back to Halleigh and said, “I asked her a thousand times about what was going on with you, and she wouldn’t tell me anything except that you were sick. Well, what kind of sick?”
“That’s ’cause you didn’t need to know nothing, bitch,” Tasha said playfully. “And don’t get jealous, ho. You can come eat with us too if you want,” Tasha said, closing the bathroom door.
“You paying?” Mimi asked through the door, her hands on her hips.
“Yeah, it’s on me.” Tasha shook her head from side to side at Mimi’s cheap self.
A few minutes later, Tasha came out of the bathroom and grabbed her purse. “Y’all ready to eat or what? Come on, let’s go celebrate.” Tasha winked at Halleigh.
“What are we celebrating?” Mimi asked, feeling like she was on the outside of an inside joke.
“We are celebrating that our Halleigh’s health is coming back and that everything is good now.” She turned to Halleigh. “So where you want to eat, guest of honor?”
“It ain’t got to be nothing all big. Let’s just go to Atlas Coney Island,” she replied. “Hopefully I can get a hot dog down at least.”
Tasha smiled, and the girls headed out of the room, Mimi leading the
way and Halleigh behind her.
“I’m proud of you,” Tasha whispered to Halleigh as she put her arm around her shoulders and they headed out. Tasha was also proud of herself for pulling Halleigh out of the gutter. Now all she had to do was make sure that they both kept their heads above water until they found rescue.
Chapter Twenty-one
Jamaica Joe, Tariq, and Malek loaded up the black Navigator with several duffle bags containing twenty kilos of pure cocaine. Joe had a buyer in Detroit who wanted to get hit off. Joe usually never made transactions face to face with his buyers, but because of the big order, he decided to make the trip himself. He couldn’t afford to take any risk with some other cat fucking up his money.
Sweets’ little caper had set Joe back, and he was trying to get his paper back up to par. He needed this flip desperately, and wasn’t going to trust anyone else with that amount of money. He would make $350,000 on the transaction, and didn’t want any funny business with one of his mules, or some nigga getting caught slippin’ and getting robbed. He asked Malek and Tariq to come along for added security, and made sure they were prepared before they hit the road.
Joe loaded the last bag into the trunk. “Yo, you strapped up?” he asked Malek.
“You know it,” Malek said in a low tone as he patted his waist.
“You?” Joe asked Tariq as he looked over in his direction.
“Yep!” Tariq lifted his shirt and displayed his twin 9 millimeter pistols.
They all jumped into the truck and took off. Malek drove, and Tariq sat up front in the passenger’s seat, while Joe sat in the back and lit up a blunt.
’Bout time this nigga chauffeured my ass around for a change, Tariq thought as he pulled out his Sidekick. Now, this shit is more like it. He leaned back and got comfortable, reclining his seat a little. He looked over at Malek. Although it’s too little, too late, as far as I’m concerned. But still, I’ma milk this shit for all it’s worth.
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