Hood Misfits, Volume 1 (11 page)

“No more tears, baby doll. I got you always, like I told you day one. You remind me of who my baby sister coulda been, like before all that shit you went through. Know that. I always got you.” I watched her blush then smile before sitting down on a table next to Ray-Ray.

Quietly exhaling, I cracked my neck and then lowered my voice. A nigga was back in the game. I knew the house had ears, so everything we did from then on out had to continue to be done in code. Me and Big Jake quickly taught Ray-Ray our code. We had to school her. She now was part of this fam, because of what she had shared with me. Now a nigga could be down with her crazy ass, but she needed to learn how to be smarter about shit.

Big Jake and I quickly shared what our plans had been from the start of working with Dame. We'd never intended to stay with this crazy-ass nigga. It had always been to get money then leave.

Big Jake's additional plan was to step out of the way of a bullet one day that would be aiming for Dame, and now I was in on that part. That nigga was going to get his, and everyone quietly talking was aiming to doing it.

I let them know that Dame was working on getting some new pure shit from another cartel set overseas, the Vietnamese and French.

“Nigga is scraping to get his money back, thanks to how li'l shawty's parents played him. Now we need to get those stashes and money that they hid, and we need to teach li'l shawty how to throw bones, a'ight. I feel like I'm some scheming-ass nigga right now, so we need to go back upstairs and do our shit.”

Everyone stood watching me. Big Jake gave me dap. I reached out and tugged on Gina's braids then she turned to touch the side of Big Jake's face. Ray-Ray was standing looking down at the floor, holding her arm, before Gina tugged on her, pulling her away.

I quickly reached out to grab Ray-Ray, turning her around to look down in her big eyes. “Thank you for sharing. Like I said, my bad. And what's your real name?”

A nigga felt real lame once Ray-Ray looked up at me and tried to get some attitude in her, sucking her teeth.

“Why? What's yours?”

See, I ain't neva been about some chick trying to game me, so I wasn't about to let Ray-Ray punk my ass. I was still Trigga, regardless of all this extra-sappy violin shit, so I gripped her arm and lightly shook her, pulling her closer to me.

“Look, chill with all that bullshit, a'ight. If you want to survive, you come in this family with your agenda on the table, a'ight. When alone, we all talk to each other on some real nigga shit. Big Jake is Jackson Hawkes, Baby G, is Gina Lewis, me, my name is dangerous, mama, because of who my people were, so only Jake knows. So I'm just asking. Your momma treated me right, and I had nothing but respect for her. That's why I help you. So if you're with us, then you got a family for life, one that will hold you down and take down whoever the fuck you need, 'cuz your enemies are ours. So with that, li'l shawty, what's your name?”

Something in the way Ray-Ray looked up at me had a nigga hearing my mom's words again. “
A jaguar can never be made pussy, and jaguar is always a queen.”
Just her closeness alone had a nigga feeling funny, but at the same time, I could tell she still was on some bullshit, so I let go of her hand and walked way, annoyed with her kiddy-ass games.

While my back was still to her, I shook out my locks and ran both hands down my face as I heard her quietly say, “Diamond. And one day you're going to tell me your name, nigga. I'm down for this family because I ain't got anyone like y'all, been hurt in this game like y'all, so yeah whoever your enemies are mine, too. E.N.G.A. And because you liked my mama. Thanks for helping me. And my bad too; now we even.”

A smirk flashed across my face as something about this moment had me thinking about Kendrick Lemar's “Poetic Justice.”

The sound of my cell thumping Geto Boy's “Trigga Happy Nigga” let me know Dame was sending me on another hit. I put my hoodie on my head then slid my hands in my pockets before turning around to look Diamond in her pretty doe eyes. “Pookie will get his next, and then we'll work from there, a'ight?”

Diamond stood watching for the longest while my cell kept ringing. My dick slowly left its imprint in my jeans when she licked her lips, giving me a sexy smirk.

She stepped up close, where her feet were in front of mine, then whispered, “A'ight.”

I hit answer on my smartphone then lifted it to my ear. Dame barked out some more orders. Dame had fucked with the wrong ones in the trap. His time was definitely about to be up. Game was back on, and his goods were now about to be ours.

Shit was moving fast, almost too fast. Trigga had a plan. I didn't know what that plan was, but I knew it involved us taking out Dame and getting the hell out of the game. I hadn't seen the outside of Dame's mansion since I had been brought into the house. At times I found myself hating my parents for stealing from the nigga and then having me inherit their debt. I knew that before Dame would allow me to leave, he would kill me first. Once a nigga like Dame had control over your life, it was no longer yours and would never be again.

“So, how we gon' get rid of Dame, Trigga?” Gina asked as we all stood around that room.

Trigga had just found out that Dame had been one of the masterminds behind murdering his parents and raping his mother. The raw, uncut killer instinct he possessed showed in the way that nigga's upper lip kept twitching.

“We ain't really got time to be jawing, Baby G. We gotta get out of this room before niggas start to notice we all missing. You know how they talk in this joint.”

“We don't even have a plan,” I said. “How we supposed to take a nigga like Dame out without one?”

Trigga looked at me. I could tell he was still frustrated and annoyed. He ain't look like he wanted to be answering no twenty-one questions.

“Look, first thing first, li'l shawty, we all gotta play a part in this shit for us to get out of here alive. I ain't trying to wait months or weeks to get shit popping. A nigga want out. My mental ain't right, right now.”

“And some of us may not make it out alive,” Big Jake said, almost cutting Trigga off.

“Don't say that, Jackson,” Gina's baby-soft voice said. It was so light you almost didn't hear it.

She walked over and wrapped her arms around Big Jake's waist. To be honest, it looked like a gnat trying to hug a big-ass bull. I could tell she was in love. I wondered just how the hell she could find love with all that had happened to her. And how could Big Jake love her, knowing what Dame did to her and what he made her do? It made me wonder if a man would ever love me if he knew what I let Dame do to me every chance he got.

But I couldn't focus on that because what Big Jake had said rang true to me. By the time all of this would be over, there was a possibility that one or none of us wouldn't make it out of there. I just felt that shit in my heart. It could have been fear, simple fear, but I felt it.

“Yo, he's right, li'l shawty.” Trigga looked from Gina back to me. “You gotta be smart now. No wild shit. Play ya cards and keep ya eyes and ears open. You hear me?”

I nodded. I kept my eyes on Trigga, just like he kept his eyes on me. Something silent passed between us in that moment. I had to wonder, when all this shit was over, would he even still want to be around me. Probably not. He would probably go on to bigger and better things. I didn't know when or if I could return to school. I was only sixteen with nowhere to go. Shit, I didn't even have no family to run to. I would be alone when all was said and done.

Maybe I could go live with my best friend Dominique and her parents
, I thought. Yeah, that would be what I would do once everything was over.

“Come on, Big Jake, bro, we got to get the fuck up outta here.” Trigga turned to look back at me. “Play ya cards right, li'l shawty. Remember the codes to look for,” was all he said before him and Big Jake disappeared again to do Dame's bidding.

 

 

For the next two hours, until Dame got back home, me and Gina talked in codes. I had to make sure I could read them and understand them at any given moment. All of the stories told, from Big Jake's to Trigga's to Gina's, mirrored mine. All I knew was that the end was soon. I prayed to God that I'd live long enough to see it and enjoy the day when Dame would no longer rule my life.

I didn't see how Gina had been able to survive this long. I was ready to give up, and it had only been two weeks, maybe three. Shit, I couldn't tell anymore. The days had started to run into one other. I couldn't imagine being attached to that nigga for two years.

I looked up and saw my mama standing by the window of Dame's room. The sun was shining, I could tell. She was still in the same clothes she had been killed in. Sometimes I wondered if she was just a figment of my imagination. I couldn't tell, because it felt like I was living a constant nightmare.

“What the fuck you and Gina in here bumping yo' gums about?” Dame asked as soon as he walked into his bedroom, jarring me from my thoughts.

That told me he had been watching us. She and I had been silent for at least thirty minutes before he'd walked in.

I'd been so caught up in what was going on with Trigga when he had choked me up, I had forgotten about the cameras all over the house. I was hoping he didn't see or hear anything.

“Nothing,” I answered a little too quickly.

His hazel eyes cut over at me, and his lips were turned up like something in the room stunk. “Get the fuck off my bed!” he ordered. “And why the fuck y'all shoes all over my shit, bitch?”

My right eye twitched when he called me a bitch, and I knew he saw it, from the way his frown turned into a semi-smirk. The look on his face dared me to do or say anything he didn't like.

Gina quickly jumped up and grabbed our shoes.

“Drop them!” he ordered her.

She did without hesitation. The nervousness with which she darted her eyes between me and Dame unsettled me.

“Diamond, get the fuck up and clean my shit!” he barked.

This nigga is on one
, I thought.

Gina and I exchanged quick glances as I got up and began to clean like he demanded.

“You a deaf-mute or some shit now, ho? You don't hear me talking to you?”

“I do. I'm up cleaning like you asked me,” I responded with just a little too much attitude in my voice.

Before I could even roll my eyes, like I had planned to, he snatched me up by the back of my hair just as I was kneeling to pick up the shoes. I didn't even know what I was being snatched up for, but that was how it was with a nigga like Dame. At any given moment he would beat your ass, and you had no idea why.

My eyes found Gina again. She was standing, wringing her hands and chewing on her bottom lip as she watched on. The fear in her eyes was real.

“Keep talking to me like you stupid,” he told me through gritted teeth. He had my feet damn near dangling off the floor, one hand trying to snatch me bald, the other hand around my throat.

My eyes started to water, and that healthy fear I had of him covered me. “I didn't say nothing, Dame.”

“You still talking now, ho? And call me by my name again.”

“Daddy, I—”

“Shut the fuck up! Let another muthafucka tell me you was eyeing them, like you don't know I own every muthafuckin' thing about you, and I'ma fuck you up to the point nobody gonna recognize yo' ass but me. What the fuck was you staring at Anika so hard for? Huh? You know how much money you just cost me, bitch?”

This nigga was getting at me for some shit that I'd done the night before. I really couldn't think, because his big hand was like a vise-grip around my neck.

“She didn't know, Daddy,” Gina said, her light voice shaky.

Her reward was a quick backhand that sent her stumbling across the room. Her body crashed into the table against the wall before she hit the floor hard.

I closed my eyes, but he made me open them with another vise-like grip around my neck.

“You bitches getting outta hand, costing me fuckin' money. And a nigga already about two million short because of the dumb shit your ho-ass parents pulled off.” As he talked he jerked my neck and backed me up until I had fallen back on the bed. “Don't you ever in your muthafuckin' life look at another muthafucka, male or female! You understand me?”

I thought the nigga was about to kill me. The back of my head felt like it was being shoved through the mattress, and my eyeballs were about to pop out. My head started to swim, and my chest started to burn because I couldn't breathe. I couldn't answer him, couldn't even nod.

The vein in the center of Dame's head looked like it was about to explode. I was so focused on trying to breathe as my hands gripped at his wrist, I didn't even realize he had pushed my dress up around my waist and snatched my underwear off. When I realized what was about to happen, my mind screamed no over and over again.

Yeah, I had let the nigga fuck me as many times as he wanted. I ain't have a choice. But I didn't ever want to experience what it felt like to be raped. I didn't want to know what it felt like to have my pussy violently taken.

I guess that was what had me reaching and trying to swing to fight back. His hand only left my neck after he had used his muscled thighs to force my legs open. I swung blindly. My open palms caught his face as I clawed his eyes and screamed, trying to get away from him.

That nigga looked like he was possessed. The more I fought him, the more he seemed to be turned on by it. He got control of my swinging fists after a while and used one hand to hold my hands over my head.

My screams rent the air. “Nooooooo!”

But no matter how I screamed, “No!” and “Stop!” what I feared most happened. When he shoved his dick inside of me, it was more painful than when he had taken my virginity. His dick felt like it was coated in sandpaper, like he was shoving a Cadillac where a ten-speed bike should go. I could feel my pussy ripping because Dame was like an animal on top of me. There was no moisture, no wetness to ease the pain, but only raw digging inside of me that had my pussy on fire and feeling like it was being shaved with a sharp blade cutting into my skin.

When he grunted loudly and then laughed as his hand pushed down in my face hard, I knew he was trying to kill me. His teeth found my titties and nipples, and I swear to God he was trying to bite them off. The more I struggled, the harder and faster he pushed in and out of me, and the harder he bit down on my titty.

Dame sat back on his haunches and took control of my hips as he jackknifed me. Once again, it felt like my womb was about to fall out. I cried out loud, praying for some kind of reprieve, but none came. He didn't even seem to care that I was punching and clawing at his face.

He growled out like a rabid animal, and his hands found my throat again, like he was trying to choke me to death while raping me. From time to time he would slap me in my face for good measure.

It didn't matter; I was still trying to fight him off. It made little difference because he was too big and too strong. Then he grabbed a pillow and held it down over my face.

I guess Big Jake was right—Some of us weren't going to make it out alive.

It became harder and harder for me to breathe, and my chest was on fire. The dizziness took over, and after a while, so did blackness. The more consciousness I lost, the harder he used his dick to stab me. He did it harder, faster, deeper, and rougher each stroke, until he shot his demonic seed inside of me.

As he released his nut, he pushed the pillow down harder over my face. My arms went limp beside me, and finally I stopped struggling against him. He moved the pillow only then and gazed down at me. I could barely see him.

“Next time, I'm going to kill you and wear your eyeballs crystalized around my neck to remember you by,” he told me, his voice calm, cool, and collected like he hadn't just raped me.

He got off the bed humming the song, “I Only Have Eyes for You.”

This couldn't be real,
I found myself thinking.
It couldn't be.
He didn't have to rape me, since he'd been fuckin' me against my will and doing to my body what he wanted anyway.

Gina's sobs in the corner of the room reminded me that it was real. What had just happened was my reality and would be until either he or I was dead.