Back in the Hood

by Treasure Hernandez

  “Let me go, you sick bastard!” Halleigh screamed as she glanced down at him. Then she began to pound on the door again. She wanted so desperately for her man to come and save her and her baby.

  She wondered why this man had her locked up in basement in the first place. Who would want to do this to her? At first she couldn’t imagine. But then one person in particular popped into her mind—Manolo. Maybe he had something to do with this.

  “You can bang on the door as long as you want and scream as loud as you want, but nobody can hear you. You might as well come back down here, sit yo’ ass down here, and eat this food,” Bugz said, massaging his aching balls. “That was a good shot you got on me, but if you do it again, I’m not gonna take it so lightly.” He pulled out his gun; then he grabbed the shirt that was hanging out of his back pocket and threw it at her. “Cover yourself up and come back down here.”

  Halleigh gripped her stomach, thinking about the safety of her baby. She picked up the shirt that landed at her feet and put it on. Realizing she had no choice but to abide by his rules, she walked down the stairs and hesitantly approached Bugz.

  When she got close to him, he grabbed her by the hair and threw her back into the room. She fell on her side and quickly headed to the corner, trying to get as far away from him as she could.

  Bugz was enjoying watching Halleigh suffer. He wanted to have a little fun with her. “Now, let’s try this again,” he said with a menacing smirk. He was about to take what she would never give to him willingly.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Malek and Scratch reached the house. Butterflies formed in Scratch’s stomach as he prepared to see Halleigh. He was happy he would finally be able to talk to her again, because he missed his friend, but also because he wanted to convince her to forgive her mother. He hoped it would mean something to Halleigh that her mother had finally gotten clean and was one hundred percent drug-free.

  “Halleigh is gonna be happy to see you,” Malek said as he approached his front door.

  Scratch followed closely. He took off his hat and tried his best to pat down his nappy ‘fro. “Gotta look good for my girl,” he said to himself as he tried to straighten up his 1980s-looking shirt.

  Malek put the key in the door and noticed it was unlocked. “I told that girl about not locking up,” he said as he pushed open the door. “We may not be in Flint, but hell, crime don’t discriminate.” He smiled as he raised the duffel bags containing the money and the weed. He was going to split everything from their caper down the middle with Scratch. It wasn’t nearly enough to set him up financially, but it would help. He knew the big heist would be at Mitch’s and Sweets’ spots.

  Malek walked into the house and called for Halleigh. “Hal, come out, baby. I have a surprise for you.” He dropped the bags in the middle of the floor and headed toward the back room.

  Scratch sat on the couch and made himself comfortable. He looked around and admired the plush place. It had been a while since he had been in a home so nice.

  Moments later, Malek came storming out the back, his gun drawn and a note in his hand.

  Scratch saw the look of worry written all over Malek’s face. “What’s wrong, youngblood?”

  “Man, they got Halleigh!”

  “What?” Scratch jumped up, not knowing exactly what was going on.

  “I’ma kill that nigga!” Malek dropped the note on the table.

  Scratch picked up the note and read the sloppy handwriting : If you want to see your whore again, come see me. If you try that brave shit, she’s dead. Mitch.

  “Damn!” Scratch dropped his head and shook it from side to side.

  “This ain’t for her. This is not for her, man,” Malek said as he thought about the love of his life and how he put her in harm’s way. She’d already had a rough life, and he was making it worse. The burden of guilt rested on his shoulders, and then the thought of his unborn child came into play.

  Malek got teary-eyed and began to clench his jaws and fists. He looked around and noticed a lamp on the floor and the phone off the hook. There must have been a struggle when they took Halleigh, and the thought of it made him even more furious. He headed for the door, willing to sacrifice his life to make sure Halleigh and their child would be okay.

  Scratch followed Malek out without thinking twice. He was ready to ride or die for Halleigh. They were on their way straight to Mitch’s main “trap spot.”

  Chapter Nineteen

  Mitch, surrounded by his goons, was in his main trap spot in the 5th Ward. He was smoking a blunt at a table where ounces of coke sat in piles, ready to be cooked up for distribution. He was waiting for Malek to enter any minute. He knew he would be on his way, because Malek had been calling him constantly. But Mitch didn’t want to talk over the phone; he wanted to tell him what he had to say to his face.

  He felt bad for kidnapping Halleigh, but in his eyes, it was all a part of the game. Mitch was a strong believer in an eye for an eye, and Malek had violated.

  Mitch still had a thing for Halleigh, and he had no intentions of hurting her. In fact, he always wanted to be in Malek’s shoes when it came to Halleigh. That was a contributing factor to his disloyalty. Just like he didn’t think Malek had earned his way to the top of the game, he didn’t think Malek deserved Halleigh either. He smirked at the thought that once Malek was out of the picture, maybe he would make her his woman.

  Just as expected, Malek stormed through the door, along with Scratch.

  Mitch stood up and smiled at Malek, as if they were friends. “Oh shit! Look what we got here—Dumb and Dumber.” He laughed. “What? You running with dope-fiends now, son? Shit must be real bad, huh?”

  He was the only one laughing. Malek was furious as he stood a few feet away from Mitch. All of Mitch’s goons had their hands on their waists, by their guns, waiting for Malek to make the wrong move.

  “I see you got my letter, huh?”

  “Where is Halleigh?” Malek said through clenched teeth, cutting right to the chase. He stared at Mitch intensely, hatred in his eyes, and didn’t blink once. He wanted to put a bullet through Mitch’s skull right then and there.

  Mitch had Halleigh, so he was in complete control. He pointed his finger in Malek’s face. “I should be the one asking all the questions, my nigga. Pat this clown down.”

  Three men ran up on Malek and searched him. One of them found a gun in his waist and quickly gave it to Mitch.

  “You can take me. Just let her go, man,” Malek said, trying to reason with Mitch.

  “How do you know she isn’t already dead?” Mitch said, sending darts straight to Malek’s heart.

  The words made Malek’s knees weak, but he stood firm.

  Scratch had heard enough. He pulled out the gun Malek had given him and tried to point it toward Mitch. He handled the gun like an amateur, fumbling it, and Mitch’s goons quickly attacked him and gave him a beat-down.

  Two of Mitch’s goons started striking Scratch on the head with their guns, causing blood to trickle down his face. Malek stood there helplessly as Scratch got beat down by the two men who were half his age.

  “Let that bum up,” Mitch ordered as they stomped out Scratch. The goons returned to Mitch’s side and focused on Malek.

  Scratch spat up blood and held his stomach in agony. He slowly got up, blood pouring from different gashes on his face and mouth; but he still managed to release his famous smile. “That’s . . . all you . . . young punks got?” Scratch gasped and held his broken jaw.

  Just as the words came out of Scratch’s mouth, a goon gave him another hit for good measure, this time knocking him out cold.

  Mitch looked at Malek and thought about how he ran up on him in his own house. He wanted to make him suffer before he eventually killed him.

  “I got somebody I want you to meet.” Mitch looked toward the back room. “Yo!” he hollered, calling someone.

  Moments later, Sweets, the homo thug responsible for the death of Jamaica Joe, emerged from the ba
ck. He crooned in a singsong voice, “Malek, Malek, Malek.”

  Just months ago, the two had been at each other’s throats over a turf war, and now Malek was face to face with him. He thought he would never see Sweets anywhere on the North Side of Flint. Mitch had sided with the enemy, which only made Malek feel more angry and betrayed.

  “Fuck you, Sweets!”

  Sweets sat nonchalantly at the table, buried his head in one of the blow piles, and used his nose as a vacuum. Then he threw his head back, smiling as he wiped his powdered nose. “No. Fuck you!” he said. “It looks like you have made yourself a li’l situation here,” Sweets said, referring to Malek’s beef with Mitch. “I would hate to be you right now,” he said in an instigating tone. “Oh yeah, and just to let you know . . . I faithfully piss on Jamaica Joe’s grave every day. You know, I got to keep the flowers watered. It helps them grow better.”

  Everyone in the room had a good laugh, except for Malek and Scratch, who was still out cold on the floor.

  “Okay, okay, enough of the reunion. You thought you could get away with coming in my shit like that?” Mitch asked Malek.

  Malek remained quiet, but stared at Mitch intensely.

  Mitch, gun in hand, walked over to Malek and stood face to face with him. He lifted the gun and pressed it to Malek’s lips. “Open up,” he whispered.

  Malek gritted his teeth and kept his mouth shut.

  Mitch shouted the order again, this time cocking the gun, and Malek reluctantly opened his mouth. Mitch forced the barrel of the gun in.

  Meanwhile, Scratch began to regain consciousness. He shook his head, trying to focus his blurred vision. Once he remembered what was going on, his only thoughts were to get Halleigh back. He sat and watched the situation unfold.

  Mitch stood right in front of Malek. ”I want a half-million in seventy-two hours,” Mitch said, thinking about the dough that Malek had exited the drug game with. “If that money isn’t in my hands by Friday, you can start picking out Halleigh’s casket.”

  A rare tear slid down Malek’s cheek. He thought about his woman. He had put her in harm’s way, and hadn’t been there when she needed him.

  Mitch pushed Malek forcefully and smiled. “You better go get my money, bitch,” he said, like a pimp talking to one of his hoes on a Saturday night. Mitch thought Malek had money put away, but little did he know, Malek was dead broke.

  Scratch got up and followed Malek out the door. They had only three days to get a half-million dollars, which was next to impossible, considering any money Malek had planned on getting was from Mitch’s spot. Malek had to do something to get his love back, and Scratch was going to do all he could to help. They had no plan and little hope.

  Halleigh cried her eyes out in the corner as blood trickled down her leg. She ached all over after being raped by Bugz. Just when she thought her life was changing for the better, the streets of Flint had grabbed her. Now she was knee-deep in the game once again.

  The shirt she wore had been ripped, and her eye was beginning to swell because of the blow he’d delivered to her when she tried to resist. She’d told Bugz she was pregnant while he was degrading her, but he didn’t care. It only made him go harder, as if it excited him.

  Bugz exited the room breathing heavily, a devilish smirk on his face. He finally got a piece of the “devil’s pie.”

  Halleigh became lightheaded and nauseated, owing to the odor of semen and blood. Feeling herself starting to lose consciousness, she cried out for Malek. He’d broken his promise to never let anything else happen to her. Now, she honestly didn’t know if she could ever trust him again. The last thing that rolled off her tongue before she blacked out was Malek’s name.

  To be continued . . .

  Flint 6: A King Is Born

  Coming November 2009

  Coming Soon 2009

  Flint Book 6:

  A King is Born

  Chapter One

  Halleigh’s body was racked with violent shivers as she hugged her knees close to her chest and tried to hide herself in the shadows of the dreary basement. She had just come to, having no idea exactly how long she’d been unconscious. For a second there she’d forgotten about what had taken place just moments before she blacked out, but when she looked down at her body, she was quickly reminded.

  She looked around the room, her eyes darting from one corner to the next, almost as if she were on drugs; but drugs were a thing of the past. She had been perfectly drug-free for a long time. This act of paranoia came from the fact that she could feel someone watching her. Although no one appeared to be in the room with her, she could feel eyes burning through her.

  After a few more moments of scanning the basement, she finally spotted what she could sense was there: the eye of a camera. She could see the tiny red blink of a camcorder in the upper corner of the room. Once again, she felt violated. She reached out in an attempt to grab something to cover herself, but nothing was there. She had no choice but to resume her earlier position—knees to her chest, with her arms curled around her legs.

  She rocked slowly until a sharp pain forced her to let out a gasp. That’s when she recalled that she’d been bleeding ever since Bugz had violated her, and now she feared for her baby’s life. She buried her face between her knees as tears fell from her eyes. She didn’t want whoever was watching her to be empowered by her tears, so she felt the need to hide them.

  She couldn’t help but wonder if anybody had been watching her while she was being raped. Who had sat in front of the monitor and witnessed the horrible act without intervening? What type of person could do something like that? Whoever it was, she hated them. Their voyeuristic sin was cruel, and she was desperate for an escape.

  Suddenly, Halleigh lifted her head as a memory flashed before her eyes. In the split second between her being snatched from the shower and a cloth being put over her nose and mouth, she’d looked into the bathroom mirror and saw something . . . someone. Someone familiar.

  “Mitch?” the words fell off of her tongue as she realized that all of this was possibly his doing. “I need to see Mitch,” Halleigh whispered to herself.

  If Mitch was behind this entire thing, she knew she had a chance to survive after all. As far as Halleigh knew, she’d never done anything to Mitch to prompt him to do something like this to her, so she could only assume that this had nothing to do with her at all, but everything to do with him and Malek. She didn’t know what had sparked a beef between Mitch and Malek, but she did know that Mitch had been sweet on her at one point. She hoped that he still was. If so, perhaps she could use it to her advantage.

  She knew that his attraction toward her was probably the only way she could ever get out of the situation alive, and she was willing to do whatever she had to in order to ensure her baby’s safety.

  Where are you, Malek? she asked herself as her eyes darted frantically around the room. She was trembling in fear. She didn’t know what to expect next. It had been a full twenty-four hours since she had been given any food, and she hadn’t seen another face besides Bugz’s. The thought crossed her mind that now that Bugz had gotten what he wanted from her and she could identify who he was, she would be left for dead.

  She shook her head in an attempt to erase those dreadful thoughts. She hoped and prayed that Bugz was gone for good, but that someone else would come see about her. Bugz wasn’t in this alone; she knew that much. There had to be someone else that had been assigned to keep guard over her, but who? Maybe her eyes had deceived her. Maybe it wasn’t Mitch she’d seen before blacking out.

  She closed her eyes and ran the scene through her mind; the scene that had happened so quickly. She visualized the shadowy figure that had stood off to the side, and unless her mind was deceiving her, it was indeed Mitch.

  Opening her eyes, Halleigh wished to God this had all been just a bad dream, but the fact remained that she was still being held hostage. The torment of being locked in the basement reminded Halleigh of when Manolo had imprisoned her in his
basement for weeks. It had been sheer torture, and she truly believed that a part of her had been forever locked in that basement. When she was finally released, she was a partial image of the person she used to be. She could only wonder what kind of emotions this time would bring upon her. How much of her soul would she leave behind this time, if she made it out at all?

  Everything in Halleigh just wanted to get up, go beat on that door, and cry out for help, but she was all out of screams. There was no fight left in her. All she really wanted to do was just go home. She would do anything to be back home, safe and sound in her bed, next to her man.

  She closed her eyes once again, and instantly, Malek’s face appeared behind her lids. Her heartbeat began to speed up as she thought about the possibility of never seeing him again.

  She couldn’t understand for the life of her why it seemed as though the two of them were always lingering on the edge. Why was it that their love was so hard to keep? Just when it appeared as though they’d picked themselves up and dusted themselves off again, they were being kicked back down. There was always something in their way, trying to keep them apart.

  Perhaps, Halleigh thought, she and Malek simply were not supposed to be together. True love couldn’t possibly be this hard to maintain, could it?

  Tears ran down her face as she kept her eyes squeezed shut. She could see him smiling at her. He was holding her baby—their baby—in his arms. A sob escaped from her lips as she imagined Malek staring lovingly at her, rocking a baby boy back and forth in his arms. Halleigh had never seen that much joy in Malek’s face, and she was mesmerized by the child he was holding. He was beautiful ; the most beautiful baby boy she had ever seen. His smooth chocolate skin was flawless, and his big doe eyes were innocent and sweet. She fell in love at first sight, even if it was just a dream.