Page 36

I bring the dated motel key to my face, making sure I’m at the right door. But I already know that, since I’ve done this at least five times.

Door twelve. Second floor of the South Kenton Inn. Sincere is on the other side of this door, probably waiting on me. I can go in here, finish this once and for all, and that’ll be it.

It’s not like I haven’t killed someone before. Shit, it’s not even that I haven’t killed a nigga I know. Several times, I’ve been right beside my brothers cleaning house in the Birch, administering street justice when a nigga goes against the grain. I may not be a BB, but I’m Foe Dub, and Nut always went harder on me and Sean since we were the youngest.

I’ve been trained for this. Bust in there. Two to the chest. One to the forehead for a confirmed kill. Call Bleach for cleanup.

How many times have I done this?

And yet, my feet are rooted in this spot. Unable to cross the threshold.

There’s so many moments that have switched our timelines. So many moments that proved we could never go back to how things were. Too many to count.

But shit, maybe it’s been me going against the grain. Niggas never liked Sin. Even Sean tolerated him. It was me, thinking niggas was bullies. Wanting to include a nigga that seemed like he wanted to be included. Wanting to bring everybody where everybody can’t go. And look what that has cost?

So why is this so hard?

Movement behind the door catches me off guard, and my instincts finally kick in. I slip the key in, unlocking it quickly before turning the knob and throwing it open.

I fire before I can see all the way inside the darkened room, the silenced gunshot slicing through the stale air. Sin grunts and I hear his back hit the wall, followed by a heavy thunk.

Only then do I step all the way inside and close the door.

He’s holding his shoulder, the same one he got Set in. Blood pours out of the wound, but I swallow all the excess spit trying to get me ready to throw up, and only focus on his grill.

I take a seat at the small table and turn on the lamp. Sincere stumbles onto the bed, sitting up against the headboard. I guess what he dropped was his piece, because his free hand, his right hand is clenched.

“It’s crazy,”

he forces out, trying to put more pressure on his shoulder.

“I met you when you was defending me. And now you’ll be the one to end me.”

I set my gun down and wipe my face. We got nothing but time anyway.

“I’m not mad at you, ,”

he rambles on.

“This is all me… from jump you been nothing but my bro, and I just… I just didn’t listen, man. I should’ve listened. I wish I could go back. You don’t know how much.”

My hand twitches to just end this. Anger flares deep within me as I snatch my shit up, stand and aim at him.

“You never fucked with me, Sin. You couldn’t have. Yo shit started stinking way before all this, and I was too blind to see it. Everyone else did. Sean did. But I just couldn’t think my bro would ho me out like this. And then to fuck my bitch on top of it… slimy as fuck on Foe.”

There it is.

That pure, unadulterated hatred spewing from him as he finally sheds that fake ass facade. It takes me fifteen years, but I see it. If he could, he would do it over. But he’d stop me from helping him.

We were never supposed to be boys.

I hold onto that notion desperately, as I lift my hand.

His eyes balloon, and his bloodied hand wrenches away from his shoulder to plead with me. But he doesn’t get a word out.

Not before I sink one between his eyes.

I choke down the bile that’s threatening to rise as I pull out my phone and text the code to Bleach.

Not even a minute after I press send, there’s a knock on the door.

She’s there, with a pair of slides in my size, looking at me with so much pity, I almost can’t take it.

“Don’t be too hard on yourself, ,”

she whispers. She hauls her backpack inside as her team follows her in.

I step out of my shoes, placing the slides on the other side of the threshold to step in, and leave her to do her shit.

It’s like I blink and I’m back home. My line is being blown down, constant vibrations in my pocket. Rico never came back to the city. Wyn’s in the wind. Ty’s on my shit separately, saying they found Sahara dead in her apartment, and Van’s going ape shit. I tell the group chat my shit’s handled, and power my phone down. I need a shower, and to lay eyes on my girls. Everything else can wait until tomorrow.

I’m on autopilot, moving through the house to the backyard. I barely feel myself trip over a rogue rock, and each step on the stairs sounds like the silenced gunshot to Sin’s forehead.

The lights stay off as I walk through my living room, but I’m guided by the tv I must have left on before I jetted out of here only hours ago. It doesn't sound like me, but shit, who knows.

My closet’s outside of my bedroom, so I grab some basketball shorts, boxers, and a wife beater, before heading through my room to the bathroom.

A sigh stops me in my tracks.

There, on my bed, are my girls. Macy’s cuddling a pillow, with her hand firmly gripping the bed bassinet. Sadé is sprawled on her back, asleep as well, letting the tv watch the both of them.

Both alive. Both in my room. Macy cuddling my preferred pillow. Sadé clutching one of my shirts.

It takes most of my energy to get me to walk away from them, but I can’t touch them with death lingering on me still.

My shower is quick, but thorough. I don’t bother wrapping my braids after brushing my teeth. Shit, maybe I’ll pull a Nut and cut my hair.

I turn off the bathroom light so I don’t disturb them. I gently pull my pillow out of her grip and climb onto the bed, wrapping myself around her.

She clings to me as she wakes up and smothers me with her titties, but I don’t mind. I need this hug. I need her. And I need her to know it.

“You’re here,”

she whispers, pulling away so she can make sure it’s me. Like her body doesn’t already know.

I nod, feeling the familiar pressure build behind my eyes, but I have no more energy to hold it in. To hold anything in.

She notices, because she crushes me back to her chest.

“I got you, Rahshad,”

she murmurs.

And I let myself go.

Macy smells so sweet, like her cherry blossom body wash. It’s all I can smell as I let it all go. Every memory I have of those who aren’t here with me. They all stack on top of one another, threatening to take me under with them. Fishing with Granddad. Church with Nana. Movies with my OG. Working out with Bishop. Singing to Raya. Performing with Sean.

Shooting the breeze with Sin.

Nigga hated me even in his last breath, and I still can’t bring myself to reciprocate it. Even after everything he’s done. All that he’s taken. I’d choose Set over him in any lifetime, of course. But through it all, I loved him. And in this life, with so many of my loved ones being snatched from me, having to take the life of one of the few I had left will probably be the thing to taint me.

“It’s not fair,”

I stammer. Macy hugs me tighter, pressing kisses to the top of my head.

“I know baby. I know.”

Age 17

We run until we can’t anymore.

Fucking Sean’s ass. Always meeting some girl at the Galleria. This time, it was this girl who lived in Tree Street Piru territory. It was her birthday kickback, and she wanted us to perform.

Nevermind he’s a BB and them niggas be on sight. She offered us a hundred each, on top of birthday pussy for Sean, so he was all for it.

Our first paid gig.

And we shut that shit down. All three of us.

Sean made me sing the hook to one of our unreleased songs, but I mostly stayed at the turntables, while he and Sin worked the crowd. Nigga was scared getting his braces tightened would fuck up his flow, but they did they shit, foreal.

Shit was all gravy, until they started gangbanging.

We had to run out blasting, even Sin’s usually scary ass, but we made it out, and even got paid before we did all that.

Now we’re back in BB territory, high tailing it to one of Set’s traps where Sean sometimes stays when Ms. Sheryl’s working a double.

“We really them muthafuckin’ niggas boy!”

Sean screams into the night.

He throws both his arms over us, making us cackle as he recounts how crazy shit just got.

“They was really feeling us! Shotta beats had ‘em twerking and gangbanging and shit… they was even feeling yo tired bars, Sin!”

“Fuck you,”

he chuckles, shoving Sean away.

“Nah foreal, we can take it all the way y’all. We just gotta play it right. Get the studio, find a videographer. We can really do this shit.”

“We can, foreal,”

I add, still on a high from the night.

“I didn’t think being in front of everyone would be so lit.”

Sean smirks at me.

“I told yo ass! We need to get you in the booth foreal, Shotty! Nah, maybe Shotta. Yeah, that’s more lit… Fuck! This is the best night of my fuckin’ life!”

He starts hitting his dougie and reciting Way Too Gone by Young Jeezy, his favorite song by his favorite rapper. That’s why he goes by Yung Beezy, though he’ll say some other dumb ass reason, depending on who asks.

“This nigga’s a fool,”

Sincere remarks. But for once he’s grinning like the both of us.

“You let that thang go back there!”

I playfully shove him.

“Shit, I had to. I’m too cute to be a Tree nigga’s bitch.”

Sean and I fall over laughing at this dumb nigga, before we go back and forth rapping Future’s verse.

Our first fucking show. Ended in gunshots, but we still had the party lit.

It’s only up from here.