Authors: De'nesha Diamond

Gangsta Divas (13 page)

BOOK: Gangsta Divas

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I slammed the phone back down and stood up.

“YOU HEAR ME? I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU!”

“Fuck you. I hope your ass rots in here,” I mumbled under my breath as more tears rolled down my face.

Alice ranted as I headed out the door. “I want my sons back, bitch! GIMME ME BACK MY SONS!”

As the memory drifts away, I squeeze my eyes tighter and beg a God that I no longer believe in to end this shit. Apparently, He doesn't believe in my ass either because the only answer I get is the familiar squeak from the basement stairs.

She's back.

Groaning, I struggle to uncurl from one corner in the room, but when I move an inch my body mutinies and I ball up even tighter. A key rattles in the lock and then a second later, Alice strolls into the room wearing a bright smile.

“Good morning,” she sings, after spotting me in a corner. “I see you're up early.” Alice walks over to the rickety wooden chair at the foot of the bed and sets the food down.

The smell of bacon and eggs has my stomach twisting into double knots and a new sheen of sweat beads my hairline.

“I figured that you should be sick of flapjacks by now so I switched it up.”

“Alice, please. I need . . . to get to a doctor.”

“Oh. You're fine. You probably just have a stomach flu. You'll shake it off in a couple of days.” Her smile thins out as our eyes connect.

She's changed since I've been down here. Her long gray hair has been dyed back to it once youthful color of a warm chestnut, except for a strip in the frontâexactly how I used to wear my shit. She's wearing makeup and if I'm not mistaken that's my blue dress, hugging her slim body.
What the fuck is wrong with this girl?

“I see you staring.” Alice spins around so that the dress's skirt fans around her. “You like?”

My stomach does another painful lurch. “Alice, please.”

What's left of my sister's smile fades. “Humph.” She cocks her head and inches her way toward me. “You know . . . maybe you're right. You don't look so good. In fact . . . you look kind of green.” Alice stops at our invisible line. She knows how far the chain shackled around my one good leg and arm will allow me to reachâif I wasn't doubled over in pain. It doesn't matter. The chains stopped being necessary a while ago. Pain is my shackle now.

“It doesn't feel so good when someone tosses you in a cage and then throws away the key, does it?” Alice asks, looking philosophical. “The feeling of abandonment is so profound, isn't it? The absence of love, caring, and understanding. It's downright inhuman.”

My answer is a long, winding groan. I can't help it. It feels like I've swallowed a box of nails. The simple task of breathing is a bitch. “Get me to a doctor,” I plead in between trying to process small sips of air, but I think my lungs are shutting down. “Please.”

Alice sighs and shakes her head. “Sorry. No can do. Seeing how I've escaped the hospital myself, I'm sure you can understand why it's best that I avoid them.”

“You can . . . just drop me off in the emergency room,” I reason. “I promise . . . I won't tell anyone about this.”

“There you go againâtreating me like I'm stupid.” She tsks under her breath as if scolding a child. “I've always hated it when you did that shit. Just like I've always hated how you thought your ass was always better than me.We came from the same place. At one point, we both had monkeys on our backs.” She closes her eyes as if just mentioning them brought her to ecstasy.

When she opens them again, I see something that makes my heart skip a few beats.

“You're never going to see a doctor.” Boldly, she crosses over the imaginary line and hunches down next to me so that she can take a long whiff of my hair.

I can feel her shutter as another wave of ecstasy washes over her.

“Face it, Maybelline. This room is your coffin . . . and the only time you're coming out of this basement is when I bury you by the big oak tree in the yard.”

Lucifer

D
ribbles draws a deep breath and rakes her hands through her hair like she doesn't know where to begin. I try to wait her out, but my curiosity is all over the place.

“You gotta tell me something. I'm freaking out over here. Mason had an older brother?”

“It was all so long ago and . . . it doesn't matter now anyway. Sometimes it's best to let sleeping dogs lie.” She turns and looks out the limousine's window.

She has a point, but that's not satisfying me at the moment. “Do you have a name? Maybe . . . this
brother
would like to know what has happened to Mason. I could go and . . . what is it?” I'm freaked out about the number of tears falling over Dribble's lashes.

“Let it go.Trust me, going down that road will only lead to more trouble. He's gone now. Just let it go.”

“Gone? You mean Mason or the brother? What about Alice? Is she still alive?”

Dribbles flinches. “How did you know her name was Alice?”

I hesitate for a moment and decide that the best way to get her confidence is to give her some of mine. “Smokestack.”

“Oh, he did, did he?” She searches for his face by the gravesite. “Funny. I don't remember him being so chatty. Did he also tell you that
he
was the one who decided to take Mason from Alice that day?”

“Well, he did find him in the oven. Imagine if she had turned the damn thing on.”

Dribbles looks agitated. “She was high. I give you thatâand she made a mistake, but what happened to her afterwards, she didn't deserve thatâprison and then the crazy house. We shouldn't have taken her baby.”

“You wanted to give him back?” I ask, shocked.

“Everybody deserves a second chance. I'm living proof of that.” She crosses her arms and hugs herself. “Don't get me wrong. I loved Mason. Lord knows I did, but I wasn't any better than Alice.You remember. I was a hot mess roaming up and down these streets, robbing, stealing, and fucking anything just to get to high.You're lucky.You don't know what it's like.You deal that poison, but you've never fucked up and got a monkey on your back.

“If nothing else, I understood Alice. We may have come from different backgrounds, but we were fucked up together. What Alice did could've easily happened to me. We were friends. She used to confide in me. Let me tell you that girl went through some shit that really messed her up. I'm the last person who should judge her.”

I'm trying hard to understand where Dribbles is coming from. “If you felt that way about it, why didn't you take Mason back?”

“The way shit blew up, taking him back would've landed me in jail. There was a nationwide search for him for about a year. I was convinced that no matter what I said, they would've thrown the book at me.”

“But Cousin Skeet knew that you had him.”

“C'mon. Skeet wasn't going to turn in his own brother. Besides, he thought Smokestack would do a better job with the kid than Alice anyway. After all, she'd already abandoned Mason's older brother with one of her family members. He thought it would be just a matter of time before she did the same with Mason.”

I let that hang in the air between us for a few minutes. Before, when Smokestack had told me the story, I was glad that Smokestack and Dribbles came to Mason's rescue. If they hadn't, I would have never met him. I can't imagine where I'd be if Mason had never been a part of my life. Now, Dribbles has made Alice sound more human.

“One year turned into two and then three and then pretty soon, Smokestack and I were the only parents Mason knew. I loved him as if he were my own.” She wrings her hands. “Still, it doesn't make it right though.”

“No. But if you ask me, you made the right decision.”

Dribbles' watery gaze shifts back to me. “Yeah?”

“I've learned that life is filled with a lot that's hard and unfair. We do what we do and hope that it all comes out in the wash at the end.You and Smokestack saved a life that day and then you provided and loved him the best you could.You have to believe that it was enough.”

She smiles. “You're very wise.”

“I don't know about that,” I laugh.

“I do. You're very smart . . . and beautiful. You could do anything that you set your mind to. Why would you want . . .”

My smile melts away. “What? Say it.”

“Why would you want to go down this violent and dangerous path as the supreme chief of the Vice Lords? You're smart enough to know that there's only two ways on how this is going to end.”

“Actually, there's only one way
all
our stories are going to end. Nobody gets out of life alive.”

Dribbles throws back her head and laughs. “I guess you got me there.”

The conversation draws to an end and my curiosity is still getting the best of me. “I still think that we should at least send his other family something . . . even if it's anonymously.”

She shakes her head again.

I'm at the end of my patience. “All right. What's up? Why all the roadblocks?”

“Why can't you let go?” she pushes back. “Nothing good will come out of it. If anything, it will just cause more problems.”

“Fine. I guess I'll just go online and find the information out for myself. It shouldn't be too hard to search the newspapers' archives for the story.”

Dribbles' shoulders deflate in defeat. “Why are you doing this? Is it that important?”

“It is now.” We engage in a stare-down that I win easily.

“Fine.” Dribbles tosses up her hands. “What do you want to know?”

LeShelle

November ...

“D
IE, BITCH! DIE!”

Ta'Shara flies toward me with a pair of knitting needles and my eyes suddenly spring open. I blink, then glance around, confused by my surroundings. A loud, steady beep catches my attention and I swing my head to the left and recognize a heart monitor.

What the fuck?

I try to move, but my body mutinies until I give up. That's when I notice the tubes and needles sprouting out of my arms and hands, as well asâhandcuffs?

“Well, well, well. Look who rose from the dead.”

Startled, I jerk my head to the right and toward the last muthafucka I want to see: Captain Johnson. “What the hell do you want?” The second the question clears my dry throat, I erupt into a spasm of coughs.

Captain Johnson strolls from the door and bears down on me. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you can't afford one then one will be appointed to you. Blah, blah, blah.” He stops at the bed's railing and leans down. “I've been waiting three months for you to wake up.”

Three months?
That shit can't be true.

“Where is he?” Johnson hisses.

The alcohol on his breath singes my nose hairs. “Who?”

A wide, sinister smile slithers over the corners of Johnson's mouth while he plucks one of the pillows from behind my head and starts fluffing it. “Don't play. My patience is real thin. It wouldn't take much for it to snap.”

This crazy muthafucka places the pillow against my mouth and nose and glares into my eyes. “You feel me?”

I clamp my mouth shut.

“Now I'm going to ask you again: Where is Python? I
know
that he survived that car crash. Only you know all the little places that snake likes to hide. SO TALK!”

What the fuck is he talking about? I don't even know where the hell I am.

Johnson adds pressure to the pillow.

I twist my head in an attempt to steal some air, but Johnson locks my head between his hands. Air traps itself in my chest. My eyes bulge while the beeping on the heart monitor speeds up.

“Your fuckin' life don't mean shit to me,” he growls. “I'd be doing the world a favor by erasing you off the face of the earth. He killed my daughter and you're the sick fuck who tortured my grandson.”

The pressure mounts, causing my temples to hammer my skull. My survival instincts kick in and my weak limbs fight back. Next thing I know, I'm dragging my nails down the side of his face.

“Aaaarggh!”

Johnson's grip on the pillow loosens and I'm able to push him and the pillow off my face. The instant stream of oxygen sends me into another spasm of coughs.

Johnson touches his face and then gazes down at his blood-painted fingers. “You fuckin' bitch!” He comes at me again with his fist cocked.

“What the hell is going on in here?” a woman's voice snaps from the doorway.

Johnson and I jerk our heads to the door where a plus-size woman in a pair of floral hospital scrubs glares at us like a disappointed parent. By the time Johnson finds his tongue, the nurse charges toward him and shoves him out of the way.

“She's fine,” the captain barks. “We were just talking and she got a little excited.”

The nurse frowns and then scolds him for his answer. “You should have called the nurses' station.” When she turns to me, her frown morphs into a smile. “As for you, Ms. Murphy, we're glad to have you back.” She picks up the discarded pillow, fluffs and then places it behind my head.

“You could have fooled me,” I croak through my dry throat. “You guys have one hell of a welcoming committee.” I lift and refer to my shackled wrist.

The nurse's frown returns. “Let's not focus on that right now. You need to concentrate on getting better. My name is Maureen and I'm going to be your nurse on duty today. I've already paged Dr. Berg and he is on his way.”

“Fine. Fine.”The captain shoves Maureen. “I need to finish interrogating my prisoner.”

Maureen snatches her arm back and stands her ground. “This is not the time or place for that. Under the circumstances, I doubt whatever this young lady says will stand up in a court of law anyway.We don't even know whether she's lucid enough to understand what's happening.”

“Mind your own damn business.”

Maureen jabs a hand onto her hip.“
This
is my business.You can either step out or get knocked out.Your choice.” She tilts her head side to side, cracking a few bones in her neck.

I don't doubt for a second that she can take Johnson. Her
I-don't give-a-fuck-
attitude reminds me of Momma Peaches.

Johnson gives the nurse a nasty look while his face purples, but whatever bullshit he's about to blast is cut off when a man in a white coat strolls into the room.

“Ahh. So it's true. Our sleeping beauty has awakened.”The doctor with snow-white hair flashes a smile and reaches for a pen-sized flashlight in his front pocket. He's completely oblivious to the war he's interrupted. “I'm Dr. Bergâand I've been taking care of you these few months.”

In the next second, I'm blind.

“Look to your left. Uh, huh. To your right. That's a good girl.” He clicks off the light and then gets busy jotting shit into my chart. “How are we feeling today, Ms. Murphy?”

Captain Johnson backs away from the bed.

“Much better now that you guys are here,” I croak.

“That's good. That's good.” The doctor starts unsnapping the buttons in the front of my gown. “Let's me just take a peek at how some of your wounds are healing.”

It takes a second before my brain catches up to what he's saying, but by that time, my gown is open and I glance down at a minefield of multicolored stabs wounds across my chest. Fuck. I don't even recognize my shit.

“You're one lucky girl,” Dr. Berg says, smiling and writing again. “Do you remember anything that led to your being here?”

“I don't know where here is,” I tell him.

“You're at Baptist Memorial. Do you remember what happened?”

DIE, BITCH! DIE!
Ta'Shara's demonic face flashes before my eyes and my hands ball at my sides and I nod my head.

The doctor smiles again and then buries his head into my chart. For the next thirty minutes, I suffer through a flurry of activity and a battery of questions.To my horror, this dirty cop hadn't lied. My ass has been knocked out for three whole months.
Where are my people at?
I glance around the room.

Ain't nobody here to hold me down?
They ain't got
no
love for the throne?

Johnson steps back into the room.

The monitor besides me beeps like crazy.

“Her blood pressure is skyrocketing,” Nurse Maureen announces. Her gaze follows mine to the captain. “Maybe it's best that you step back out of the room.”

“Fuck that,” he barks. “I'm not going anywhere until I get some answers out of that . . .” He chews on the word that he wanted to say. “. . . your patient.”

The nurse and doctor exchange annoyed looks, but Johnson ignores them.

Another nurse enters the room, rolling a cart of some kind. She looks stunned to see that I'm awake.

“If you've come to draw her blood come on now,” Nurse Maureen says, pulling out a small vial.

The new nurse scrambles around Johnson and comes up on the left side of the bed. While she preps to draw blood, Nurse Maureen injects something into my IV.

The doctor smiles. “This is just something to calm you down.”

Instantly, the shit puts me on ice.

Dr. Berg spits out a laundry list of tests that he wants to perform. I try to concentrate on what he's saying but it goes in one ear and out the other.

I jump at a sudden sharp pinch. “What the fuck?”

“Sorry,” the nervous nurse says after stabbing me with a needle. “You moved your hand.”

Does everybody think my ass is a pin cushion?
I keep an eye on her, wondering if this is the first time that she has done this.

“All right,” the doctor says, flipping my folder closed. “If you don't have any questions for me, I'll leave you to get some rest. If you need anything, press the button next to you. It'll connect you to the nurses' station. Okay?” He flashes me a smile and pats me on my leg. “We're going to get you fixed up and out of here as soon as we can.”

Barely able to keep my eyes open, I nod and then track him as he heads for the door. My attention zooms back toward the silent nurse when I feel something being crammed into my hand. Frowning, I look down at a folded piece of paper.

The nurse gives me a look, telling me to keep this shit on the down-low before she scrambles to catch up with Dr. Berg at the door.

Captain Johnson steps up to the bed's rail, ready for round two.

“Doctor,” I call out despite my burning throat.

Dr. Berg turns and the nervous nurse tenses up.

Fighting the drugs, I continue, “I just need a witness of me telling this dirty muthafucka here that I don't have shit to say until I talk to my lawyer.”

Rage seizes Johnson's face as he swings his heated gaze between me and the doctor.

“Any further interrogation or attempted murder on his part will be brought up before a judge as a breach of my civil rights.” I glare back at Johnson.
That's right, muthafucka. I know how to play this game.

Dr. Berg clears his throat. “I'm sorry, Captain. But I'm going to have to ask you to leave.”

“She is under my custody,” Johnson seethes.

“First and foremost, she is my patientâthat takes precedence.” The doctor puffs up his chest. “Ms. Murphy has sustained quite a bit of trauma. I can't have you adding to her stress. Besides, she requested to speak with an attorney, I don't see why you or your man can't just wait outside the door until one arrives or she's released from our care. I assure you, she's not going anywhere.”

Johnson plants himself in the doctor's face. “I don't give a fuck about that shit. The bitch is going to talk!”

“Captain Johnson,” the doctor gasps. “The young lady has just awoken from a three-month coma and has requested to speak with an attorney. Now, I'm going to have to ask you to leaveâor you'll leave me no choice but to place a call to your superiors.”

Checkmate, muthafucka.

Johnson struggles with his temper until he jabs a finger toward me and snarls. “This isn't over, Ms. Murphy.”

“Captain Johnson,” the doctor warns impatiently.

“Fuck off,” Johnson barks.

The doctor jumps back.

“And as for you,” Johnson hisses as he leans back over the bed. “I'll be backâmaybe even with a certain young man soldier who wants to talk to you about a certain prom date you crashed.”

My heart stops.

His smile returns. “Think it over.”

Instead of cussing his ass out, I clamp my jaw tight and glare at everyone as they clear out of my room.

Once alone, I remember the folded piece of paper in my hand and read:

I got youâ
Python.

BOOK: Gangsta Divas

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