Sex in the Hood Saga (52 page)

The Queen knew Knight or somebody had to bust in here quick. How the fuck could this have happened? Why hadn't the siren blared? All she knew for sure was that she could guarantee that Duke would never hurt her. All she had to do was squeeze down on this metal and put him out of his misery right now.

She remembered Knight citing The Prince Code by saying, “Kill or be killed,” in the gun range. Still, faced with the reality of this situation, it seemed a whole lot more complicated.

The horror of the moment came crashing down on her senses.

That meant she'd have to kill the muthafucka because Duke would have stolen the only people in her life who mattered; Knight and Baby Prince.

Her index finger curved around the hard, cold metal of the trigger. If nobody came, and if CoCo were dead, and Reba and Antoine were about to come in here and kill her too, The Queen would blast away all their evil asses. Then she'd go get married and get the fuck away from this crazy life in Babylon. Assuming no other crazy shit was breaking loose in the rest of the building.

“C'mon, girl! Run!” CoCo's shout rang from the hallway. In her white robe, splattered with blood, CoCo ran into the bedroom. She snatched her dress off the mannequin and grabbed The Queen's left hand.

“Where's Antoine? And Reba?” The Queen asked, gripping the gun in her right hand.

“Don't worry about them.”

The Queen ran, still in her high heels, behind CoCo into the entryway, where on the wall beside the door, a foot wide smear of blood trailed down the white wallpaper. It went behind Antoine's head but started back up at the hole over his ear. He sat upright, eyes wide open.

“What about Reba?” The Queen asked as CoCo as she opened the door.

“She's takin' a long shower,” CoCo gasped as they dashed into the hallway. “The stairs!”

They had to run about a dozen feet to reach the stairwell door.

It flew open.

Several Barriors and B'Amazons, rifles in hand, burst into the hallway.

“We escaped our damn selves,” CoCo snapped. “Duke's in there bleeding. And we need to get to the wedding.”

One of the soldiers gave orders, “Half of you get Duke. The others, escort The Queen and CoCo to the locker room in The Playroom.”

The Queen had no phone. It was still back on the vanity in the bridal suite, so she'd been calling for Knight on their special supernatural love hotline. But no answer.

And since nobody had responded to her screams, or seen the chaos on the hidden video security system, then any of these allegedly loyal Barriors and B'Amazons could be snitches or Duke sympathizers, who wanted to kill her, CoCo, and Knight, right now.

The Queen squeezed her grip tighter around the handle of Duke's gun. Part of her thought she should feel scared, but it was so surreal, so adrenaline charged, she felt like she was in survival autopilot. And she wasn't going anywhere or doing anything until she saw Knight alive and safe.

Fuck all these people.
If security were doing their jobs, then Duke wouldn't have just busted into her room! The Queen sprinted down the hall. Her dress rustled. The chopsticks came loose; she grabbed them with her left hand as her hair tumbled down her shoulders.

“Queen!” CoCo shouted. “Wait for me!”

The thunder of footsteps sounded like the soldiers were following too.

The Queen kept running. Her toes slammed into the sharp points of her life-saving shoes. Finally she came to suite 501. She turned the door knob.

The door opened.

“Knight!” she shrieked, “Knight, baby!”

But every room was empty. The digital clock beside the bed said five-oh-five.

“Let's go!” The Queen grabbed CoCo's hand, and they ran down the hall, Barriors and B'Amazons in tow. Her mind raced as she dashed up three flights of stairs in her heels and wedding dress.

What would Knight do in this situation? If some deadly conspiracy were going on with Duke or someone else, wouldn't they expect her to run straight into Knight's arms?

Trust no one,
she heard his voice inside her head. So it didn't matter. If she ran to him and the bad guys at large caught her too, then that was how she wanted to go down; at Knight's side.

Something had to be wrong with Knight right now, or intuition would have responded to her in their telepathic love connection. She yanked open the door marked rooftop. It led to a covered, glass-walled area beside the elevators. This entrance area faced the beautiful arrangement for the wedding.

But the terrace was packed with people. Security, celebrities' assistants, cameramen and video crews, ready to capture every joyous moment.

“Shit!” The Queen exclaimed. “Where is he?”

All around her, “ooohs” and “aaahs” broke out in every direction. Then The Queen remembered she was in her wedding dress, and she was the star of this show. But she wasn't here to meet and greet right now. And all this would be bullshit if she didn't have the man who made her heart beat.

A dark pink carpet stretched from beneath her life-saving stilettos over the brick-patterned floor and into the enormous white party tent. Giant white poles, covered with greenery and pink roses, held up the corners and inside lengths of the scalloped tent. Inside, explosions of pink flowers hung from the peaked ceiling. Rows and rows of pink satin-covered chairs held hundreds of beautiful people.

Celebrities. Musicians. Politicians. Pimps. Madames.

But The Queen didn't care about anybody or anything except laying her eyes on her man.

All those people standing in the aisle, she couldn't see the altar, except for the golden backdrop that cast a shimmery sheer over the wide-open view of the blue river and downtown Detroit's skyscrapers.

“Girl, wait,” CoCo took her left hand.

The Queen realized she was still holding Duke's gun. She turned toward CoCo, hoisted up her dress, and slipped it into her garter belt.

“Play it cool,” CoCo said, pulling her into an elevator.

“I gotta find Knight,” The Queen said.

“Everything looks cool and calm up here,” CoCo said. “The Barriors are handling the situation downstairs, so don't let anybody see you look flustered.”

The Queen stared hard into CoCo's eyes.

“Girl, don't even think it.” CoCo stared back just as hard.

A B'Amazon stepped onto the elevator and nodded at CoCo, who let the bloody robe fall. She slipped into her pink dress and said, “Now zip me, girl. We got a wedding to be in.”

As soon as they stepped out, Jamal and the Bang Squad, who were set up near the altar, began to play the wedding march.

CoCo kissed The Queen on her cheek. “You come right after me,” CoCo reminded her.

She nodded as CoCo walked in the soft, late afternoon sunshine toward the tent.

Someone brushed The Queen's hair while someone else handed her a giant bouquet of pink roses. Another person guided her to the edge of the tent.

A hip-hop version of “Here Comes the Bride” boomed.

Everybody turned around with more “oohs” and “aaahs.”

The Queen stared straight ahead. She looked down the rose petal-strewn aisle, past the satin ribbons draped on the sides of the chairs, past all the famous faces in the crowd. There, under giant bouquets of pink, purple, and white flowers, she should have seen the sexiest man alive.

The reverend was there. So was Jamal. But Knight was nowhere to be seen.

A bride wasn't supposed to feel this fucked up on her wedding day. She wasn't supposed to fend off an HIV positive rapist or kick him in the face and dick or hold a gun to his head. She wasn't supposed to have soldiers with rifles surrounding the pretty white tent where she would say, “I do.” And she definitely wasn't supposed to have a gun strapped inside the lace and satin of her garter belt.

No, Alice was not enjoying Ghettoland one bit. She wished she could pass through a secret portal into a Wonderland where she'd feel safe to live, love, and raise a baby with her man who would magically appear. Now.

As she walked slowly on trembling legs down the pink aisle, she hated that all these people were staring at her when she wanted to burst into tears or cuss somebody out or both. She hadn't even brushed her hair on her wedding day.

Neither had CoCo, but she still looked gorgeous up there, grinning back at The Queen, like there was something in this nightmarish day to smile about.

Suddenly, Knight rose from a chair in the front row, next to his mother, who wore a giant pink hat with netting over her face. Like an ebony tower rising in front of all the guests, Knight turned around. His eyes sparkled at her, his sucka lips curled up into a smile that broke out into a grin.

The Queen wanted to run down the aisle and throw herself into his arms. She had to feel the long, firm length and warmth of his body; then she'd know that he was safe and that his heart was beating just fine. They could get married and live happily ever after.

It seemed like forever as The Queen walked toward Knight, fighting the bad vibe in her gut. Still wearing no panties, her pussy was sweaty and swollen. The friction of her walk rubbed Celeste, just right, to take a tiny bit of the edge off this awful state of mind.

All these fabulous people didn't matter to The Queen. They had on beautiful dresses and suits. Famous musicians, actors, and politicians dotted the crowd. It was as picture-perfect as the celebrity tabloids, daily newspapers, and hip-hop magazines could imagine, yet Knight had issued a ban on all media, for both the wedding and The Games, even though the who's who of the hip-hop world was here to celebrate her big day.

Not Emcee Sexarella in her rhinestone-studded blue leather dress and her entourage of big-haired beauties. Not Rip Masta and his crew of hardcore gangsta rappers. And not all these other people who were officers and associates of Babylon from across the country. They were just here for the hype factor of the hottest wedding in Babylon history and the sexiest entertainment ever, anywhere, for The Games tonight in the auditorium downstairs at The Playhouse.

Hot tears blurred the gray pallor on Knight's face. The closer she got, the harder her heart pounded. Whether it was stress or her curse or panic attacks or PTSD or something worse, she was sure that it would kill him if they didn't get out of here.

He held out his arms as she approached.

Her dress fluffed around her feet as she walked, and her palms got sweaty around the satin-ribboned handle of her bouquet.

Finally, she felt beautiful. Not because it was a gorgeous dress whose price tag could finance the purchase of a small house. No, she felt beautiful because her Knight was staring down with so much love in his eyes. She thought she would faint. If she died right now, she would have experienced more love with him in the past year than some women ever got in a lifetime. It was pure.

The Queen hoisted up her dress and ran the last few steps into Knight's arms.

His eyes grew wide as he glimpsed the gun on her thigh. That wasn't part of his security plan for today, but he played it off by embracing her and lifting her up and spinning her around.

They pressed their lips together and kissed long and hard.

The audience exploded with cheers.

The reverend playfully cleared his throat, his microphone attached to the collar of his black robe amplifying the sound. Laughter erupted among the guests.

The Queen never wanted to stop breathing health and life into her man. She pressed her face into his neck, feeling his pulse beat against her eyelids.

“May we begin?” the reverend asked playfully.

“Yes, sir,” Knight answered. “Let's do this!”

As The Queen looked up into Knight's onyx eyes and he stared down into hers, they faced each other and gripped hands. She just wanted to hear the words
husband and wife
so she could stroll off into the sunset with the man of her dreams.

They were close, because the reverend said, “If anyone here has any objection to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace.”

A piercing scream made The Queen's gut cramp. All the guests spun around to look.

Blood-covered Reba stumbled onto the pink aisle. “Watch out for Duke!” she screamed.

A shocked gasp rose from the guests. “Watch out for Duke!” Then she collapsed.

In black, white, and gray fatigues, Barriors and B'Amazons descended on her, plucking her off the carpet and carrying her away.

“Continue, please,” Knight said.

Minutes later, the reverend said, “I now pronounce you man and wife. You may kiss your bride.”

For a moment, their charmed circle of love made everything around them fade to gray. This was their Technicolor dream, live and in color, as they officially became one and three all at once.

But that bliss was shattered when the ear-splitting sirens blared, and B'Amazons and Barriors around the perimeter of the rooftop terrace drew rifles and ushered all the guests to the center of the tent.

Yeah, this was about the most fucked-up wedding day any girl could ever imagine.

But part of The Queen felt like it didn't even matter. Because her beautiful black Knight was pulling her up against his strong body, and she was burying her face in his neck where his pulsing veins confirmed that he was alive. Now they just had to escape this hell.