by Wahida Clark
By the time Courtney got her first nut Shan had got her second. They both jumped off him almost at the same time.
“Goddamn, yo! Good look!” Courtney remarked, pulling down her skirt and sitting down.
Shan sat down as well.
“Oh, hell no!” Man barked, mouth slick from multiple cum shots. “What y’all bitches think I ain’t gonna get mine?”
“Now you know how it feels, huh?” Shan cracked, and they all laughed.
The laughing made it worse. He jumped off the bed and drew back as if he was about to slap fire out of Shan. But before he could release, he felt the cold steel of a barrel against his jaw.
“Nigga, you was going to hit me?” Shan was flabbergasted.
“I wish the fuck you would!” Michelle gritted.
“Oh, now y’all gonna rob me?” He ignored Shan
“Rob you? Nigga we could buy your broke ass! But you fucked up. Now we gotta teach you some manners!” Michelle spat.
She pushed him down on the floor, keeping the gun aimed at his head.
“Yo, just chill, yo . . . before shit get ugly,” he said, as if having total control of the situation.
“Yo, Nikki! This nigga was about to put his hand on you. What you wanna do?” Courtney questioned aggressively.
“Yo, shorty, my bad. I’m sorry,” he groveled. Seeing how Michelle held the gun, he knew he was fucking with a vet.
Shan had never had a man grovel at her feet. The shit made her feel like a made bitch. The sour talking to her ego said, “Fuck it, shoot him.”
“Naw,” Michelle said, keeping her eyes on Man. “I asked, what you wanna do? We got your back, but tonight . . . you put in your own work.”
Shan looked at Michelle. “I’m-I’m not a killer.”
“Then don’t kill him. But show him what happens when you try to play a bad bitch, yo.”
Man was getting more nervous, not knowing that it was his own fear feeding Shan’s resolve. “Come on, ma. Don’t do this. I-I said I was sorry!”
Michelle handed her the gun. Shan took it and aimed it at Man.
“Ma, don’t listen to her!”
Shan felt the trigger, and for some reason, she thought of her clit. The weed had her zoned. Running her finger over the trigger, she swore she felt it on her clit. That’s how the first shot got fired. Her clit twitched, and her finger reacted. Lucky for Man, the gun was aimed at his shoulder.
“Aarrrghh, you shot me!” he cried out in agony.
Shan squeezed again just to feel the jolt, the kick back and the explosion of power.
Boom!
This time it hit his leg. Man fell out like he was dead, his mind screaming for him to play dead so this bitch would stop shooting.
Courtney kicked him in the ass. “Nigga, you ain’t dead!”
Shan held the gun poised but didn’t squeeze again. She looked down with new eyes on the bloody mass of flesh on the floor. Michelle and Courtney looked at each other with sly smiles across their lips and nodded subtly. Then Courtney said, “Party’s over. So unless you gonna kill him . . .”
Shan stood up, eyes still transfixed on the blood. With the cold steel still in her hand a surge of power coursed through her veins. She felt like a true gangsta. But then she thought about the ass whipping Briggen gave her and her gangsta turned to rage.
“I’m ready,” she replied meaning it in more ways than one.
• • •
If the ghetto is a concrete jungle then Janay had become a panther, stalking her prey. She hardly ate or slept, staying in seedy motel rooms and only moving in the shadows, even in broad daylight. Hell, she hadn’t even buried Boomer or Marquis. Their bodies were still cold at the morgue. No one knew what had hit the West Side, but several people from crackheads to prostitutes to hustlers were dropping. The sun would rise on another corpse, and the streets would buzz. The hustlers were found with jewels and money. Robbery clearly wasn’t the motive. No one knew, but the motive was silence. Dead men tell no tales. So no one could tell that there was a jet-black beauty looking for Baby Boy.
“Yo, I ain’t seen ’im.”
Boom!
“His mother live on Bull Terrace.”
Boom!
“Oh my God, please don’t kill me for what my son did! He live wit’ Quita an’ nem!”
Boom!
Step by step, death by death, she got closer until . . .
Click-clack!
That was the sound that brought Jamilla out of her revelry. Just getting off work at S & C’s, Friday night, and she was on her way to hook up with what she hoped was a tricking ass baller. All she thought about was how she was gonna spend the nigga’s money. That is, until she heard that sound that every ghetto head knew preceded a bullet in the head. The sound of a bullet entering the chamber.
“Please! Just take the car, I—”
“Shut the fuck up and get in!” Janay instructed her.
Jamilla got in on the driver’s side door, but Janay made her climb over to the passenger side and she got in behind her. When Jamilla looked up, Janay hit her dead in the face with the pistol, breaking her nose. Blood poured freely. She was dazed, but her fear kept her from passing out. Janay stuck the gun in her face.
“Where did Quita move to?”
“I-I don’t know! She quit! I ain’t seen her!”
“Call her. Tell her you got that money you owe her,” Janay instructed.
“But I don’t owe her no money!”
Janay just stared at her. Jamilla got the hint. She hit speed dial.
“You better pray she answer.”
On the fourth ring, her prayers were answered.
“What up, bitch?” Quita answered playfully, seeing Jamilla’s name come up.
“H-hey, girl. I-um-um got that money I owe you,” Jamilla said, as instructed.
“What? Oh, oh, yeah, okay,” Quita replied, almost blowing free money. “Where you at?”
“ ’Bout to come through. Where you live?”
“One ninety seven Hunter Street, apartment 118. Why you sound like that?”
“Allergies. My nose is . . . stopped up,” Jamilla replied, looking at Janay with pleading eyes.
“Don’t be comin’ over here wit’ them nasty ass germs,” Quita giggled.
“Hang up,” Janay told her. “What’s the address?”
Jamilla must have sensed, or seen it, in Janay’s eyes, but she knew she was going to die. She blurted out the address, and then she tried to grab the door handle and dive out the car. Janay squeezed the trigger, hitting her in the temple and blowing her brains all over the car window. Since she had gotten as far as opening the door, the dead weight of her body fell out, and there it would be found, half in and half out.
Janay got out and headed for 197 Hunter Street, apartment 118.
• • •
Mr. Howard climbed out of his work truck with a relieved grunt. He had just gotten home completing another hard day as a brick mason. Tired but satisfied he had always prided himself on working hard, and his family had benefitted. He owned a nice brick home on the outskirts of Detroit. His wife of thirty-two years was happy, and his five kids had all made something of themselves. Well, all except for Keith and Kevin, his twins. They had taken hold of that street life and hadn’t let go. They were a close family, and he loved his boys. He just worried about their safety.
He should’ve worried about his own.
Click-clack!
“Don’t move, old man, or I’ll blow your brains all over the yard,” Baby Boy cautioned, holding Mr. Howard’s collar tight with the gun to the back of his head.
“Easy, son. You don’t want to do this,” Mr. Howard warned him. He was a man used to being in control.
Baby Boy had timed his approach perfectly, catching Mr. Howard right after he unlocked the front door. He shoved him inside so hard that he fell onto the carpet. When he tried to get up, Baby Boy kicked him hard in the nuts, taking the fight right out of him.
“Sta
y down!” Baby Boy hissed.
“Baby, are you al—” came the question floating in from the kitchen.
Baby Boy heard her voice before he saw her. Mrs. Howard came in, typical black matronly type, graying hair and a ready smile. Only she didn’t smile when she saw Baby Boy masked up and standing over her groaning husband holding a gun.
“Oh my God!” she gasped.
Baby Boy backhanded her, causing blood to squirt from her mouth. She crumbled to the carpet screaming.
“Bitch, shut the fuck up! Who else here, huh? Lie to me and whoever I find is dead!”
“M-my daughter and my niece,” the old woman said. “Please don’t hurt them!”
“Don’t move and I won’t!”
Baby Boy backed down the hallway watching the two old people. He found the niece, a seven-year-old in pigtails and their youngest daughter, an eighteen-year-old in tight cutoff sweatpants and a T-shirt. He snatched them into the hallway. The niece screamed. Baby Boy punched her in the mouth.
“Keep her quiet or I will!” he vowed to the daughter.
The daughter shot daggers from her eyes. He ordered them both into the living room next to the old people.
“My brothers gonna kill you for this!” the daughter spat with sass.
Baby Boy laughed. “You think so? Let’s call ’em and find out. Call ’em!”
The twins were still not taking lightly the fact that someone was taking out The Consortium Members one by one. They moved with mad soldiers. To get to them, a man would need an army, or so they thought.
They forgot the one place no man can guard.
His heart.
When the phone rang, they were at their safe house, bagging up and counting money.
“Who that?” Keith gruffed.
Kevin checked the caller ID. “Li’l sis,” he replied, then answered the phone. “Hel—” he started to say, but he was greeted with an ear piercing scream.
Baby Boy had shanked her in the eye with a pencil. He snatched the phone from her trembling hand and said, “If you try to send anybody or call the police, I will kill your whole goddamn family. Do what I say and they will live! You got three seconds to answer!”
“I hear you,” Kevin replied, his insides aching for his little sister’s pain.
“Put me on speaker,” Baby Boy commanded.
Keith complied.
“My eye! My eye! He stabbed me in the eye!” She screamed. “Oh my eye!”
Keith dropped the money in his hand and looked at the phone.
“I hope I got y’alls attention because y’all got a big decision to make. Who lives? You or your family?” Baby Boy asked.
Both Keith and Kevin were riveted to the phone.
“You try to send anyone and I will kill them all. Are we clear?”
“Yeah,” Kevin answered.
“What the fuck you want, nigga? Money?” Keith barked.
Baby Boy laughed. “I want your life, and you’re going to give it to me, or you get to listen to your family die in your place.”
The next thing they heard was their niece cry out in such a grotesque manner they didn’t even want to imagine what he had done to her.
“You hear that? That’s what it sounds like when you lose a thumb!” Baby Boy cackled, looking at the little girl’s thumb in his hand and the bloody straight razor in the other.
Kevin and Keith were both enraged and heartbroken. Their helplessness dripped from their eyes into burning tears.
“A million dollars, yo! We’ll give you a million dollars, man, just please let our people go!” Keith begged.
“I wish I could, but you already heard my price . . . or maybe you didn’t.”
The next thirty seconds were like an orgy of pain. It seemed like an eternity to the twins as they listened to the sounds of their family being tortured. The cries and screams of the girls. The deep moans and bellows of their father, and the soulful cries to God from their mother as Baby Boy took them through a hell none would forget. Having had enough, Keith was on the verge of pulling out his dreads. The sounds were unbearable. Truthfully, he would rather be dead than hear the family he loved so much suffer.
“What do you want us to do?” Keith was now frantic. “Just tell us!”
The intensity of the screams stopped, and only the pants and whimpers were now heard.
“Kill yourselves. Right now. Take out your guns and blow your own brains out. If it will make it any easier, pretend it’s me doin’ it,” Baby Boy taunted them.
The twins looked at each other with questioning gazes.
What should we do? Was the unspoken question communicated. Family was sacred to them. They had vowed never to let this street shit bring them harm, but ironically, since they had made it so hard to hit them, it made it that much easier to get at their family. They could let their family die in order to save themselves. But that would be cowardly . . . or they could do as he said and end it all.
What would you do?
The ten seconds it took them to think was too long for Baby Boy, so he shot their niece in the thigh. She blurted out a wounded cry. The gunshot made Keith and Kevin jump. The second gunshot in their sister’s foot made them cry out at the same time she did.
“We’ll do it! Goddamn, we’ll do it!”
“Then do it and don’t try to play me! I’m takin’ Ma Dukes wit’ me, so if either one of you survive, she won’t!” Baby Boy promised.
Keith and Kevin looked at each other. They knew their hand was totally forced.
“Man . . . I’ma do it,” Keith said. “We can’t let them die for us.”
“We ain’t gotta do it for real! We can just shoot—” Kevin whispered.
“Yo, you heard what he said. I’m not takin’ chances wit’ Mama’s life,” Keith vowed, pulling out his gun and putting it to Kevin’s forehead. “You might as well kill me K, ’cause I’ma kill you.”
Kevin knew his brother was right. This was the only way to save their mother. Reluctantly, he pulled out his pistol, clicked off the safety, and put it to Keith’s forehead. Tears lined their twin cheeks. It was like looking in the mirror.
“I love you, bruh.”
“I love you too! On three.”
A split second before they pulled the trigger, their mother screamed out as Baby Boy stabbed her in the hand with a steak knife.
One . . . two . . . three . . .
Boom! Boom!
Two of the twins’ soldiers snatched open the door, guns in hand, ready to set it off. They found the twins both on their backs, brains leaking and bodies twitching. They rushed to the window, but it was unbroken so no one had shot through the window. They looked down at them seeing them both with a gun in hand.
“Ain’t no goddamn way . . .” one soldier remarked.
When Baby Boy heard the twins’ shots, he knew they were dead. He hung up. “For your sake you better hope they ain’t bullshittin’,” he snapped, snatching their mother up by the hair. “Now, let’s go.”
He looked at the daughter. “Still think they gonna kill me?” He smirked.
She may’ve been in excruciating pain but her spirit was raging inside. She glared at him through her only eye and vowed that one day he would suffer . . . way more than she did.
Baby Boy read her expression and winked. “Anytime, baby. I’ll be around.”
With that, he snatched the mother out the door.
“Please don’t,” she begged.
“Bitch, shut up! Where’s your keys?”
“In-in my purse! Where are you taking me?”
“Fuck!” He had to go back in and get the keys, but before he could, he heard his name called out in the still black night.
“Baby Boy.”
He spun around to fire, but took two bullets in the upper chest and shoulder. The gun flew from his hand. The old woman didn’t wait. She scrambled away and ran back in the house, locking the door behind her.
Baby Boy lay on his back struggling to get up. “Who the fuck—”
Janay stepped out the shadows and approached slowly, gun aimed for the game ending head shot if he even blinked wrong.
She had gone to his apartment building and waited until a figure emerged and mounted a red Yamaha TZ500J. One of her victims told her what he drove. Janay followed him and watched him as he parked it and then as he stole a car. She would’ve moved then, but it was too open. So she followed him here to the Howards’ house, having no idea who they were. But when she heard the screams she knew he was up to no good. She waited. When he came out she was ready.
“Remember me?” she asked, her face a perfect mask of killer calmness.
He scowled and squinted. “Who the fuck are you?”
She got closer, her face fully illuminated by the light of the moon. “You tried to kill me.”
“I never seen you before in my life.” He grunted, shoulder and chest on fire.
She could tell he wasn’t lying. Her instincts read his expression perfectly. She shot him in the knee. He howled.
“Fuck! I told you, bitch, I ain’t never seen—”
“Who do you work for?”
“Eat a dick!”
“Wrong answer.”
Boom! Blood gushed from the other thigh, then she ground the toe of her boot into the fresh wound.
“Aarrrghh!”
“Who . . . do . . . you . . . work . . . for?” she gritted.
“Dark, yo, Dark! I work for Dark!” he relented.
“Dark?” She scowled. But Dark had been hit in the same attack. Who was behind the hit?
In the distance, they heard sirens. She eyed him, feeling no remorse, only irony. Janay had hunted down the wrong man.
“My bad. I thought you were someone else,” she remarked, turning on her heels and disappearing back into the shadows.
“I’ma kill you, bitch!” Baby Boy yelled as he tried to get up, but only fell back down.
Several seconds later, the street flooded with cherry high beams. Then the searchlight covered him.
“Put your fuckin’ hands up!”
“Don’t move!”
Baby Boy reluctantly complied.
Chapter Fourteen
Shan was on some real bullshit. He took her and her girls out, sent her flowers, cards and candy. How much apologizing could a nigga do for giving up an ass whipping that a bitch deserved? Plus, it’d been almost two months since he whipped her ass. Let bygones be bygones. It was time to make money. At least that’s how Briggen saw it. It had been several days, and she still hadn’t hit him with any dope. His money was too funny to be coppin’ from somebody else, especially since she had the best prices along with the best dope. But he knew if she hit him off on consignment, he could get it all off. He was the hustler, but now she had the upper hand and had the audacity to be hand-feeding him. Then when she did hit him, it was some short shit.