Dirty DNA 3: The Renegade (G Street Chronicles Presents)

by BlaQue

  “Good. I’m glad things are working out for you. I knew if you jumped back in the saddle you would have no problem riding this thing all the way out,” she said cheerfully. She had no idea that only two minutes before she had called me I was contemplating saying fuck all of this song and dance and roll out.

  “Yeah, things are going great,” I lied.

  “I’m glad to hear that, Dread. I knew this would be a good opportunity for you to still do something you love and make strides to better yourself.”

  Queen sounding like a cheerleader was blowing my high and I wanted to hang up on her. I knew how to get rid of her though.

  “Queen, I am heading back in to our briefing from lunch and I don’t want to be late. I’ll see you and Crack when I get home and we can talk about my day then,” I said, rushing her off the phone. I had absolutely no intentions of going straight home and talking about my shitty day. I said my goodbye’s to Queen and sat there looking at my phone. I scrolled through the contacts and found a number I vowed I would never call. I pushed on the name Neko Reynolds and held my breath. It was time to find out if the young woman I saw earlier today was my daughter. I needed confirmation that she was back in D.C.

  Chapter Sixteen

  School Dayz

  YaSheema Nicole

  Somehow I had managed to make it to Washington, D.C. with no incident. I spent the rest of my drive into D.C. peering in the rearview mirror thinking that the police were following me. I’m sure someone must’ve found Aunt Rhina’s body by now and I was sure that they were looking for me. However, no one followed me and I made it to D.C. with no problems.

  The first thing I did was check into the university on Monday morning and got my room assignment. After spending my morning in the admission’s office waiting to get my keys, I went about moving my things into my dorm. It took me four hours to haul all of my things in the room by myself and when I was done. I didn’t want to do anything but take a nap, but my growling stomach said otherwise. After showering in the cramped bathroom I was going to share with some stranger, I got dressed and started to head out to see what I could find to eat when a young woman, who I assumed was my roomie, entered my room with a bunch of bags in her hands. She had two middle-age people who I assumed were her parents with her. The young woman dropped her things on the floor and stuck her hand out to greet me. “Hi. My name is Paige. I guess you’re my roomie, YaSheema?”

  I didn’t shake her hand; I just looked at her and wondered how she knew my name.

  Act cool dummy. They probably told her your name in the admission’s office. Say hello or something. Don’t just stare at her like she’s a freak before she thinks something is wrong with you! Takiya broke into my thoughts and demanded.

  I did as I was told and shook the young woman’s hand. “Hi, yes…I’m YaSheema. I’m sorry they didn’t tell me you were coming today. I guess you kind of startled me. Did you need help with your things? I just got all of my things in myself so I know what a hassle it can be,” I offered, even though I didn’t want to help her do shit. If I had to unload and unpack my shit on my own, then she was on her own too.

  “Naw, that’s why my parents are here. That…and to make sure I ain’t bunking with a serial killer,” Paige giggled. “You know how parents are. This is my second year here and they still treat me like a damn baby,” Paige whispered.

  I’m glad she thought that shit was funny. I could feel the color draining from my face at the mention of serial killer and I didn’t think her joke was funny at all considering I could be categorized as such.

  I don’t like her. You need to see what those uppity niggas in that admission’s office can do about this. I don’t think I’ma be able to deal with her. She’s corny as fuck! Takiya said in my ear.

  I did my best to ignore her and focused on my new roommate. “I’m going to head out to grab something to eat. I should be back soon,” I said, by passing Paige’s parents on the way out the door. Paige shook her head and her parents told me it was nice meeting me and then I left. I couldn’t help but think about my own parents. I hadn’t spoken with my Uncle Neko the entire weekend and I left my Aunt Rhina rotting in a hotel room.

  I headed to the car and turned my cell phone on and watched as each new text message and voicemail popped up on the phone one by one. Each call and text was from Uncle Neko. I’m sure he was worried sick about me and Aunt Rhina by now. I decided not to call him back just yet because I didn’t know exactly what to say to him. What was I supposed to say? Was I supposed to tell him the truth? Was I supposed to tell him that I killed his wife and continued on into D.C. like nothing ever happened? Or was I supposed to tell him that Takiya did it all? Either way, he would never believe me no matter what I told him.

  “You better not tell Uncle Neko shit! He will turn our asses in and you know he will. I suggest you keep your mouth shut and let this shit play out on its own.”

  “And just how do you think it’s gonna play out, Takiya; huh? Do you think the authorities aren’t gonna figure out we were with Aunt Rhina? Do you think Uncle Neko is gonna be able to forgive us for what we did? We killed his wife! Then we… me and you got in the car and drove to D.C.; somewhere he never wanted us to be in the first place and checked into college like we didn’t just kill her in cold blood. If you think that’s gonna happen you’re more delusional than I am, bitch!” I screamed, forgetting that it was broad daylight and people were walking by me having an open conversation with myself.

  “I know you better shut the fuck up before you get us late before we even have a chance to put my plan in effect. YaSheema, just chill the fuck out and play shit real cool. Let me handle it. Now get in the car and stop acting like a fuckin’ nutcase in the middle of the street before these good people hand you over to the police for actin’ weird!” Takiya ordered.

  I whipped my head around and noticed that a few people passing by spotted me talking to myself. I don’t think they heard me, but they certainly saw me standing out in the middle of the parking lot spazzing out by my damn self.

  “Shit!” I mumbled to myself. That’s all I needed was for someone to see me cursing myself out and report me to campus security. Fumbling through my over-sized bag, I found the car keys and hit the button to disarm the alarm.

  “Damn, shawty, you aight?” I heard a voice say from behind me. I damn near jumped out of my skin. I spun around to see who had gotten in my personal space. When I came face to face with the voice I almost melted. The voice had come from a brown skin brother with a neat haircut, dressed like nothing I had seen any nigga in Georgia dressed. He was wearing nothing but a light Helly Hansen jacket and dark jeans complimented by a pair of white Air Force One’s. He wasn’t doing too much, but he was definitely doing enough. I locked in on his thick, brown lips and tried not to drool. He was fine. He was clean shaven and his hair was cut low. He was a breath of fresh air from what I had become accustomed to in Georgia.

  “Oh umm…excuse me?” I asked the stranger, doing my best to regain my composure.

  “I heard you talking to someone on your phone and I was trying to get in my car. You’re blocking my door,” he said, pointing at how close to the line we both were.

  “Oh, my bad. I’ll get out your way,” I stuttered. I opened the door and slid into my car and tried not to blush from the embarrassment of how I was all up in his face.

  “Naw, you’re aight. Are you a freshman?” he asked me before I could shut my door.

  “Yeah, I am,” I knew it was too late now. I was definitely blushing and I’m sure he could see it written all over my face.

  “My name is Lamont. Hey, I know you don’t know me, but I was wondering if I could put my name in that phone of yours. You know…since you like to talk on it and everything, I was hoping you would talk to me too,” he said smoothly.

  I threw him a smile and mumbled, “Sure.” I was more than happy that he assumed I was on the phone and not some deranged lunatic yelling at myself. He gave me his number and I locked
it in my phone. I would definitely be calling him. He was beyond fine. “You never told me your name, beautiful.”

  Every time he spoke to me with his infectious smile and sexy lips, I couldn’t help but blush. “My name is YaSheema Nicole, but you can call me YaSheema,” I said, trying my best to hold back the goofy grin that was threatening to break free.

  “Well, it sure is nice to meet you, YaSheema. I hope you’ll accompany me to one of my games. I play on the varsity team and being that it’s my senior year, I hope to go pro right after graduation, but we can talk about our future when you call me later,” he said, licking his lips and causing my womanly parts to flutter. This nigga was smooth. He was a pinch too cocky, but he was doable.

  “Maybe I’ll see you around,” I said and cranked up my car and backed out my space. I knew he was watching me. I could feel his eyes on me and I liked it.

  “You better watch the road, bitch. Don’t get all caught up in his ass and let’s get something to eat. I don’t like that pretty muthafucka’ and I don’t trust him. You ain’t got time to be makin’ googly eyes at some random nigga. We’re supposed to be here on some other shit. What happened to you wanting to find your pops? I thought that was the real reason we came all the way up here.” Takiya scolded me.

  I heard Takiya talking, but I wasn’t really listening. I was deep in my own thoughts. Maybe D.C. wasn’t gonna be so bad after all.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Heavy

  Pinky York

  I can’t believe this shit. I rode all this way to pour my heart out to this nigga and he tells me he can’t hurt his wife. I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking about coming all this way for nothing.

  What’s crazier than me driving all this way to only be rejected, was the fact that I was still willing to help this nigga. I was soft on Neko and that shit never changed; even after all this time. Now, here I am, helping him track down his niece’s lil’ friends. He decided he had a few things he wanted to ask them before he confronted his niece…well, that’s if he ever gets in touch with his niece. He’s been dialing her and his wife for the last twelve hours and he hasn’t gotten a response from either of them. I guess maybe Neko had run off to Georgia to settle down. Maybe he had really changed. I wish my feelings for him would change, but nope…here I am ready to ride or die for him just like old times and all he was worried about was his family.

  “Neko, I know I have been out of commission for the past seventeen years, but I don’t think you going to this girl Cassandra’s house in the middle of the day is a good idea. Maybe we should wait for the sun to go down or something. Are you trying to let the cops know what we’re doing? You know what we’re doing isn’t exactly legal you know?” I said, looking up and down the upper middle-class suburban street. I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb. I don’t know why I felt like all eyes were on us, but I did.

  “Legal? You gotta be kidding me, Pinky! I don’t think you’ve ever done a legal thing a day in your life. Now you wanna nitpick me about the law. I’ve got to find my niece and my wife. Maybe you don’t understand, but my shit is different now…and it seems mighty odd that as soon as you come around, the police wanna start questioning my family about bodies and shit. How coincidental is that, Pinky?” Neko said, rubbing his temples in frustration.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with your family Neko, but I said I would help you find them. I think you know I would never hurt your niece or your wife,” I said, defending myself. He was really testing me and it was taking everything in me to stay calm.

  “I don’t know what I believe is true anymore. I never would have believed that I would see you again, but here you are. I don’t know why I thought I could live a normal life. I ran all the way to Georgia to save my niece. But I don’t think I can save her, Pink,” Neko said, looking over at me from the driver seat of the car. I could see the hurt in his eyes.

  “I feel like I failed YaSheema Nicole. I always thought by taking her and running away, I would save her from whatever lurked over my family. You, of all people, know my family ain’t been all there. My father was no saint. My sister died for the sins of my father and my other sister was crazy as bat shit,” Neko said, shaking his head. I looked over at him confused.

  “What do you mean your other sister was crazy as bat shit?” I asked curiously.

  Neko turned away from me and stared straight out the car window like I wasn’t even there. “I don’t think you want to hear this shit, Pinky. It’s kind of heavy. I wouldn’t believe none of this shit if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.”

  “What did you see?” I asked him. My curiosity was on one hundred now. Apparently, I wasn’t the only one with secrets.

  “Do you remember NiQue?” he asked, never looking at me.

  “Yeah. I remember her. What does she have to do with anything?”

  “She was really my sister. I found out she wasn’t just YaYa’s friend. She was my father’s dirty lil’ secret. My father apparently kept my sister NiQue a secret because she was a lil’ off,” Neko said, shaking his head.

  “A lil’ off? I don’t get it, Neko.”

  “My father kept NiQue a secret because he had no room for a psycho in his camp. Her real name was Pajay and my father didn’t think it was a good idea to be in her life, so he passed her off because she suffered from multiple personality disorder. She was fuckin’ crazy to say the least; and instead of getting her the help she really needed, he paid a nigga to babysit her. Eventually she found out the truth about who she really was and then the bitch went crazy. She killed everyone I loved; then the police killed her. Then I ended up raising my niece because her father didn’t want shit to do with her. I can’t blame him though. That nigga had been through enough with my family. As much as I hated Dread, I can’t even blame him for turning his back on his daughter. Maybe I should have turned my back on her too. I just got this fucked up feeling that history is about to repeat itself.

  YaSheema Nicole has been acting weird. She hasn’t been like herself, but it was familiar to me. She was acting like NiQue or …ahh Pajay did before she died. She’s been talking to herself. When I confront her about it, she acts like I’m the one who’s losing it when deep down I know she is slipping into the same dark place her mother must’ve slipped in to. I always said that if I ever caught YaSheema Nicole acting anything like her mother, I would have her ass committed. I guess that shit was easier said than done. All the signs were right there and I should have done something. Instead, I ignored it. I hoped it wasn’t the same thing my sister had gone through.

  I think my sister gave into her illness because she didn’t have the love she craved from our father and now I think my niece is going through the same thing. Now she’s headed to D.C. to chase after her father and she’s letting the illness take over her and it’s all my fault. I could have stopped it, Pinky. I could have stopped it and I didn’t. If anything happens to my niece, it’ll be on my head. It will be my fault.

  History is repeating itself. It’s like this fucked up DNA that courses through my veins. It’s eternal. It never ends. My father cursed us all. My family was fucked up then and I fear it just got worse with YaSheema Nicole heading to school in D.C.” Neko finally looked over at me to make sure I got all that.

  Oh, believe me I had questions for him; but I was still trying to chew on everything Neko said to me. I knew the Clayton-Reynolds family was fucked up. They always had been. I shouldn’t have been surprised by anything that Neko had dropped on me. Finding out NiQue was his sister was a lot. His family had always been mixed up in a lot of shit back in the day. Being employed by Darnell Clayton allowed me to see some wild shit, but nothing compared to the shit he had his entire family immersed in.

  “Pinky, I can’t let anything happen to YaSheema Nicole and I can’t let anything happen to Rhina. They’re all I have left. If any of the shit the police say is true about YaSheema Nicole and the bouncer from the club, then my wife, who is blindly innocent, could be i
n danger,” Neko said with a serious look on his face. The vein in his forehead thumped and I couldn’t help but notice he looked just like his father.

  I had never believed in curses or any of that silly shit, but I did believe that the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. If his niece was anything like he feared, then I guess it was good that I came back from the dead.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw someone come out of the house we had pulled in front of. “Hey, is that her?” I asked as I pointed in the direction of the house.

  “Yeah. That’s Cassandra,” Neko responded, putting his hand on the lever to open the door.

  “Naw. You know damn well she ain’t gonna talk to you. If she already dropped a dime on your niece to the police, then you know she ain’t gonna tell you shit. Let me talk to her,” I said, getting out the car before Neko had time to stop me.

  I felt my waistband for my gun. I think I was practically itching to use it. I didn’t want to hurt the girl, but I did want to get Neko the information he needed; and if I had to scare the girl to get the info, then that’s what I was going to do. I quickly walked up the driveway before the young woman had the chance to get to the bottom of the driveway and to her car.

  “Excuse me. Cassandra?”

  The young girl jumped and looked around. “Yes. What can I do for you?” she asked me. Before she had the chance to move, I lifted my shirt up and showed her the butt of my gun.

  “I just need to ask you a few questions, Cassandra. It shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes,” I grinned. I was slowly, but surely, slipping back into my old ways and it felt good.

  “I don’t know shit. Just leave me alone,” the young girl said, trying to back away from me. I grabbed ahold of her arm and forced her into the back of her car. I kept my hand near my waist and eased to the driver’s side and slid into the seat never taking my eyes off of my new friend Cassandra. I turned completely around in the seat and took my gun from my waist and sat it in my lap casually.