by Brick
I focused on what they both were doing and inwardly chuckled. Baby girl Gina had her kicks planted into the face of one of Dante’s goons. Blood and teeth went flying with the side of his face turning left. Once she had him distracted, Ray-Ray turned around to help and ducked under that nigga’s arms to jump into the face of another cat, using her elbow to slam into his Bubba Gump–lipped face, so Gina could hunker low and punch him dead in the nuts.
I knew watching them work like they were their own clique that they were crazy as fuck. These two bad bitches were going to fucking get killed and for what reason, I wasn’t even sure about at the moment. I just knew that both of them were going to be snatched the fuck up had Jake and me not been there. But, right as I was about to push off from the wall, a white van pulled up and two CIA-looking cats stepped out in suits and shades. One of them started yackin’ at the mouth and I instantly recognized the voice.
Instantly, I signaled behind me to Jake and I pushed off the wall. “Yeah, they’re getting buck as fuck; anyway, strap up, we all about to scrap. These motherfuckers ’bout to take Gina and Diamond, leggo.”
Timbs thumped against the street pavement as we ran head long into the middle of Diamond and Gina’s fight. The two CIA-looking cats tried to turn and run to their van but they didn’t make it in time. Being smaller than Big Jake, I was able to sprint faster as he body dropped niggas by the numbers. I dashed to the van, pulled out my Glocks and let off several rounds hitting each man in the back, and legs. I glanced around noticing that where we was no one who really saw shit, so I rushed up on each fallen snatcher, searched for their cells, then cold blocked each one.
Behind me, Diamond was moving like a junkie looking for a hit. She stomped whoever was on the ground in front of her. In her hand was a makeshift shank. She swung out and stuck whoever came her way in their ribs, across their face, or against their arms or hands. Jake was behind her, crushing skulls together and on the pavement. Gina saw my signal to protect the van, and then sent a skinny motherfucker flying across the street with a strong kick of her foot and a swipe of her chain belt of shanks. They took down seven niggas and left me four.
Enjoyment filled me and I chased down the remaining four who ran off deeper into Dante’s code. I didn’t give a fuck that they were leading me into the middle of hell; all I knew was that those niggas needed to go down, and go down they did. I had a silencer on me so I was able to take down two before they disappeared into the chaos. Turning, I trailed after the other two, climbing apartment ladders, and then managed to jump deck to deck in their towers, to take down another.
This fucker shot at me, the bullets whizzing past me, until I was able to tackle him and watch him dangle over the edge of a balcony. Fear was in his eyes, which fueled me and made me smile. I could see he was young, looked about my age and the reality of that was all in that cat’s face. He started to plead, but I didn’t give him a chance to finish. My own shank came out in the form of an ice pick and it slammed right between his bulking eyes. Those shocked eyes rolled into the back of his head, I pushed him off the edge watching him fall while I whistled a tune then jumped into another tower deck, climbing down the ladder.
I knew the other dude was farther way, so I picked up my speed, zigzagging through the hood, jumping down ditches and finding the quickest way to catch up with the nigga. I found a spot between a dumpster and a back door where I hid and I waited in the area I had seen him go. Like a predictable punk, he was hiding. So as I waited on him, he eventually came out and looked around pulling out a cell.
He nervously walked back and forth, looking over his shoulder. His fit seemed like it was swallowing him. Saggin’ pants, a big, oversized pullover hoodie, and dirty kicks. He looked like any white kid in London who was into what some would call the urban culture, wasn’t really a threat unless you saw all his piercings. One in his lip and some over his ears. As he dialed, I focused my Glock on him, pulled the trigger, then shot off his hand. His gurgling screams rent that air.
“Don’t kill me, bruv, I swear down, I swear down dat I won’t tell Dante a thang man. On my blood, this is for mah—”
Slicing across his face, I listened him scream again, as my blade glistened in his blood. I walked around him in a circle as he fell to his knees and I chuckled, “Yeah, I don’t fucking care, homie.”
The end of my shank sliced through his jugular and he fell against the dirt of the road. I studied how he fell, my Timbs kicking into his skull until I saw his cell and snatched it. Nigga had dialed someone, and I could hear them on the other end. Laughing low into the phone, I hit end then copped the number with several of the other contacts before smashing it against a wall.
Lights flickered in the alley where I stood. Coolness of the night sky cooled my body down and my back arched forward and I threw my head back yelling to the whole block that nigga Tempa T’s “Swing”: “‘Swing that back to your face, proper. You get smashed, proper. Round your head, proper. Stamp stamp on your head, proper. Sixteen blows killer combos, bust your nose, proper. Merk you!’”
Amusement filled my chest when I heard murmurs kick start around me. Rustling made me shift out my Glock, but a blur sped by me with a familiar lopsided smirk. Nigga let out a cocky laugh, stuck his tongue out, and grabbed his nuts, then threw his hands in the air doing an Azonto dance. Something he always did when he was slicing cats.
I knew that nigga Speedy was here. Me and Jake had seen slashed up body parts as we stepped up to the community center where Ray-Ray was. I didn’t think on it until I saw him now. He musta followed Gina and protected her back; now this nigga was running through the codes murking dudes and I let out a laugh as he disappeared covering us while probably using some of his own boys, like Tunez, as his backup.
My head shook and my Glocks slid back in hiding. Before anyone could see me, I ran back down the alleyway to find Jake. As I made it back to that spot, Jake pulled up in the white van. He already knew what time it was. Diamond opened the passenger side door and Gina reached to pull at me. Jumping in, I glanced at them both as Jake sped out of Dante’s code.
“You snatch up the two niggas who was driving this shit?” I asked.
Perspiration spilled down Jake’s face, dripping onto the shoulders of his black jersey. Both of his giant hands fisted the steering wheel and he nodded while he drove.
“Yeah, Trig, Jake put them in the back. There’re some kids and teens back there,” Diamond rushed out as if she were trying to catch her breath.
“And I’m untying them, Trig. Ew you got a nigga’s ear on your hoodie; that’s nasty,” Gina hoarsely said with a frown while using the tips of her nails to pick it up and throw it over her shoulder.
Baby girl leaned over to wipe at Jake’s face kissing him, then moving to kiss Diamond before sliding to the back, speaking softly to the kids.
“Yo, I thought you were staying in the flat, baby girl,” I asked, holding on to my temper with her.
“Ah huh, I was, but like I changed my mind, ’cause Diamond texted me. I snuck around the back ways and beat you there. Yep, I know the codes too, and I bust some teeth out.” Gina cheesed then sucked her teeth. “Speedy gunna be mad, but he’ll be a’ight. I’ll make him a shank and he can get me more fried Mars bars. I’m hungry.”
“No, he’s not and maybe he will, Baby G. That bashy nigga is covering our tracks and tying shit up. God save him.” Jake gave a boastful laugh as he hyped us up on Speedy before sharply turning the van.
Having both Diamond and Gina speaking to me made me realize the dumb shit they had done and I turned to glance at Diamond as we sped down the streets of London. “Yo, you almost got put down there, shawty. What the fuck were you thinking? Naw, let me tell you, you weren’t. Fuck is your problem? Do you realize what you just did? Do you realize that every time you do some stupid-ass shit I gotta come and get you?”
Jake’s laughter filled the small space of the van with that of the grunts of the two men behind us. I could see out the side of my eye
that Gina was working on getting the kidnapped kids and teens free. Several of the free kids moved behind Gina and they had the two snatchers held down, bound, and gagged. It made me smile but I wasn’t about to show that to Diamond or Gina right now. A nigga was pissed off at them both, but mainly Diamond.
“Whatever, Trig, you fucked up my rotation. Was trying to get snatched up to get to Ghost and you just ruined that, but that’s cool. We got those two in the back. That’s what counts, nigga, so get out my face with that rah-rah,” Diamond hollered back. She rolled her eyes, sucked her teeth, and flipped her hand in my face as we rode on.
Shawty was on some real bullshit if she really thought that being snatched up by Dante was really going to help anything. And if she put her fucking hand in my face one more time we were going to have a problem. I didn’t realize that she had me so mad, that I had spit that shit out right in her face.
“So! What the hell you going to do? Huh? You going to put your hands on me? Do it! I’ll gash you the fuck—”
I snatched her so fast by the bun on the top of her head, twisting her in her seat. She gave a yelp because she was tangled by the seat belt. My snatching her like that threw her off the yackin’ she was doing. My lips locked down on hers hard. I fed her my tongue, found my hand on her titty, and kissed her so raw that I felt her body shake in my grasp as I held her arm with my other hand. My light brown eyes glinted with the light rise of the sun and I stared her right in her face.
Part of me was proud as fuck that the stupid shit she just did paid off, we got two goons to bleed info from, and her stupid shit with Gina had us saving some kids from being snatched. But, another other part of me was still pissed at her that she had thought of something so fucking stupid at the same time.
“You still acting on stupid. Fuck your rah-rah and think about what your actions do to others, a’ight? Pull over into the marshes, Jake. We in one of Anika’s codes where Dante wouldn’t even think to look here,” I pressed.
“You two need to fuck, bro, and a’ight,” Jake clowned.
“Ah huh. You two are slow as fuck,” Gina instigated, her voice still light and hoarse.
Ignoring them both, me and Diamond just looked at each other before shifting back to where we were as he parked the ride. The sound of the seat belt signal dinging with that of the van light illuminating the small place had me moving to the back of the van. I glanced at all the kids, and opened up the doors so they could get out.
“Tell my man Jake and my girl Gina what endz you come from. We’ll get you all home a’ight, and you tell them everything you saw, heard, smelled, touched, tasted when they snatched you. Tell them where you all were at, who you were with, too, a’ight?” I detailed to each teary-eyed, disheveled kid and teen.
They all nodded, some of them talking a mile a minute to me, and others reached out crying to hug me before I urged them to hit up and told them to ignore everything they were about to hear.
Closing the doors of the ride, while I climbed back in, I saw Diamond inch closer, then slap the face of a bald, slightly fat, yet muscled white guy.
“You know what this is about to be, so I’ma tell you to get to chattin’ and don’t play games or my nigga is about to make it worse for you,” she smoothly suggested in a lethal sexiness that had me eyeballing her for a moment ’cause I swear she was throwing vibe like her aunt.
Both men grunted and I gave a slight shrug while kneeling in the back of the van. Digging in my pocket, I took out my shank and didn’t say a thing. I just reached out to grab the bald one’s pinky finger, sliced it off, and then threw it in the face of the other one. Both men screamed into their gags, but I wasn’t done, snatching the black-haired biracial-looking guy’s finger. I slowly worked the tip of my blade into his fingernail. I jiggled it, watching the blood slowly flow, and I smoothly popped that bitch off and chuckled at the sharp feminine scream he gave. Glancing up at Diamond, I nodded to her to speak for me again.
“Spill that shit. Give us names, locations, and the reason of your boss’s bullshit, okay!” she shouted, slapping each one again.
I read each nigga’s eyes, could see they were down for their boss, so I gave a bored sigh, then flipped to the bald guy’s hand. I took his other hand, and gave him the same pinky treatment that I gave the dark-haired dude. His screams saturated the van and I shifted up to take the dark-haired guy’s face in my hand and I pressed the tip of my shank into the bridge of his nose waiting.
Brown eyes widened as I twisted the tip deep. I watched him squirm then I took his gag out of his mouth. “Talk.”
“We were ordered to take kids no one wanted; then we were told to just start snatching from ya codes. Any kind, just take ya,” he stammered. My knife twisted again and he screeched out, “Okay okay. I just know him by S.B. I’m new here. I don’t . . . I promise . . . Leave mi nose please!”
Diamond shook her head in my face and I chuckled. I had no intention of not cutting his nose off, so as I stood, my blade sliced that shit right off and I moved to turn the bald-head guy’s face my way. He saw nothing but blood and a nose. Diamond waved behind me and I smiled down at the cat, as I nodded for her to address him.
“Your turn. Speak,” she cooed as she held down the other, who was rocking and shaking over the shock.
Pulling down his gag, the nigga straight spit in my face; luckily I had my hoodie zipped up but the fact that he spit in my face pissed me all the way off. That was some shit I didn’t do. So I kicked open the van, jumped out, then snatched that nigga by his bounded ankles and pulled him out the van. I watched him fall hard banging his head against the van and the ground. Fury had me going, and I gave Diamond the signal to off that cat she was sitting on and I took the time to drag this nigga to the front of the van.
Jake and Gina both watched me from afar wondering what I was about to do. He saw the shank I had in my hand and the anger in my body and he moved Gina and the kids away so they wouldn’t see what I was about to do.
“Nigga, you don’t spit on me and not expect me to piss on your grave, check it.” I moved to pop open the hood of the van. I looked at the inner working of it until I saw the battery. We really didn’t need this shit anymore, so I pulled it out and dropped it against his hand.
“So, you’re the one who gets a hard dick off this shit, I heard you, so don’t deny it. Now usually I’d cut ya tongue out but we need that, so guess what you get?” A sinister smile lit up my eyes and I popped open the car battery and pulled out a tube that held what I was looking for.
Reaching for his face, I watch that nigga buck at me, but I fed him the end of my fist before holding him down, opening his eyes, and pulling the tube over it.
Lovely acid sizzled out and landed on the whites of that nigga’s eyes and the scream he gave made my day. “Drip, drip, motherfucker.”
I waited until his body stopped shaking; I pressed my shank against his throat and let him spill all we needed to know. He gave us locations, numbers, IDs. I found out that both of these niggas were corrupt cops and I learned that they worked on their own dime, going code to code, pulling out kids, teens, and even women, and selling them on the black market, either for the sex trade, or for ruthless people who would do anything for a kid, or infant. This shit was crazy and the names he spilled spun my head. I memorized everything he said, even who S.B. was. The final kicker for me was that this nigga knew exactly who I was and who was taken from me.
“Where are they?” was the last thing I growled to that jiggling bastard as he pleaded for me to stop his torture. Blood, flesh, and battery acid covered my gloved hands and my mark while I kneeled over his now shirtless body.
The low, tired, raspy voice of the nigga let me know he was on his last leg and he gave me the exact code where he had last seen Ghost and Chyna. He let me know that he had seen them both locked up in a cage with S.B. and Dante in a room at his compound. He had told me he was going to take Diamond next, but of course, that wasn’t going to happen. Then he gave me the icing of
the main location of Dante’s with that of other crews that worked with him.
Dante was a shifty motherfucker and now we had knowledge of what he was doing. I offed the pig next to me, gutting him open and carving DIRTY C AND PEE’DO in his body. Walking back to the van, I did the same to the other cop Diamond had offed and I pulled her out of the van. What was there would be left for the coppers to be witness to. We had names. Thanks to their cells, we had numbers, too. Shit wasn’t going to be easy but we had two motherfuckers to take down and our fam to get back. Fuck politics; ENGA was in London now and the blocks were ours.
Chapter 12
Ghost
We were woken up at like the crack of dawn. Kids were scared ’cause we could hear other kids screaming down the hall. There was gunshots and stuff. We didn’t know what was going on. The room was still dark. The only time there was light was when the door was opened and they came to snatch another kid.
“Dem chat too bloodclot much. Close uno mout. Mi shoving swords up pussiholes, yeah?”
That nigga Dante was crazy. He kept coming in staring at Chyna like he wanted to do something to her. Every time they took a kid Chyna would scream and ask what they were doing to them. I could tell the ones she was fond of. Dante seemed to only pick kids that she talked to so she told me not to talk to her no more. So I didn’t. We could hear dudes talking about how some cops had been killed and how it had been found out that they was taking kids. So now since kids were missing the law had started to look for them and Dante didn’t want any found alive in his house. That scared me.
I hadn’t ate since I been there so I was hungry as fuck. Scared and hungry. They ain’t let me out the cage so I had to pee there, too. So did all the other kids. The room stank like shit and piss. I prayed Trigga was coming for me soon. My legs were hurting and I was tired. I ain’t sleep at all. I remember when they first brought Diamond to Dame’s house. I would watch her from my spots in the wall and see how she ain’t really sleep either. When she did them niggas tried to take her to the basement. I wasn’t going to sleep. I was thinking about my family with Diamond and Trigga when Dante walked in.