Page 34

. . .

While Aku was wrapped in her family’s warmth and gumbo leftovers in Emerald City, Malik was right back in the Crescent—neck deep in the grind that never let up.

“You fixin’ bikes now?” his Mama called from inside, voice drifting through the screen door.

He grunted, “Nothin’ else to do.”

She leaned out with her morning coffee, brow raised. “Boy, you got a whole damn app makin’ noise on the internet. And you out here playin’ mechanic?”

Malik didn’t respond. Just adjusted the seat again and passed the kid a ten dollar bill for his patience. Then he wiped his hands on his shorts and lit a blunt behind the bushes, out of sight from his Granny’s window.

He was smoking now—had to do something since Aku took his pills away. Not literally but her words mattered to him.

Truth was, he ain’t been right since Aku left and it was only day three.

He wasn’t tryna admit it—not even to himself—but that silence she left behind was loud as hell.

Her perfume was still in the fabric of his clothes.

Her laugh kept looping in his head like a hook on a track.

She hadn’t even been gone a full week and he already felt unbalanced, like the gravity she gave him was just out of reach.

By noon, Zaire pulled up bumping Roddy Ricch, windows down and jewelry dancing in the sun. He was a Crip nigga no matter how much they tried to whitewash him.

“Aye, hop in,” he called out. “Got a lil’ play lined up, but I need your help.”

Malik sighed, but slid in anyway. The streets didn’t wait for nobody, and bills didn’t care if you was caught up over a girl.

They rolled through the Crescent slow, nodding to old heads and ducking under street cameras. Malik barely spoke. He just leaned back, eyes scanning the sidewalks like the ghosts of his past might come out the cut at any moment.

“You good?” Zaire asked, glancing over. “You been quiet all morning.”

Malik didn’t look at him. “I’m chillin’.”

Zaire raised a brow. “She left town or somethin’?”

Malik smirked, chewing the inside of his cheek. “She with her people.”

“Damn. That why you ain’t been poppin’ shit on the app lately?”

“Just got other shit on my mind.”

Zaire gave him a look like he knew exactly what kind of shit Malik meant. “You know you don’t gotta be scared to be in love, right? Niggas fall in and still get to be hard.”

“I ain’t scared of shit,” Malik mumbled, voice sharp. He was tired of people throwing that word at him.

“I know. I’m just sayin’…she make you smile different.”

Malik finally turned, eyes low. “You watchin’ my mouth now?”

“I’m watchin’ your growth, cuh. You ain’t the same no more.”

Malik leaned his head against the window. “Yea, I feel it too. But what I’m supposed to do with that?”

“That’s for you to figure out. In the meantime, I just wanted to chop it up with you about that meeting. They want you, cuh.”

Malik rubbed his hand down his face. “I gotta see.”

“See what?” Zaire looked over at him when he pulled up to the wing spot. No matter how much money he got, he still loved the food in Crescent. “Let’s get some food.”

“You pulled up on me to eat?” Malik looked him upside his head.

Laughing, Zaire pushed out the corvette. “Just come on, man…ain’t nothin’ wrong with a lil company while you chow down on some of the best wings on the world.”

Malik shook his head but got out anyway. Wasn’t like he had been doing anything. Besides, a few drops later, his schedule was wide open.

Later that evening, he was back on his porch again.

Hoodie pulled over his head this time, pills tucked inside his sock just in case the weight on his chest got too heavy.

Granny was inside watching her soaps, Mama frying something loud, and his daddy was already knocked out from the night shift.

The sky over Crescent was orange and bleeding, streetlights humming to life one by one.

Malik unlocked his phone, thumb hovering over Aku’s thread.

He didn’t text.

He just stared at the messages…that last FaceTime. The way she’d whispered, “I’m fallin’…

He closed his eyes, leaned back in the metal chair, and let the gravity of her linger in the air around him, heavy and holy, like he was still trying to believe she really meant it.

Then he went to Pharoah’s messages and decided to pull up over there just to see his friend.

The house was quiet except for the dull murmur of a cartoon playing on low volume and the sound of Pharoah breathing—deep, slow, and slightly wheezy. He sat by the window in his chair, blanket over his lap, head tilted back just a little, lips parted. His hands rested on the arms of the chair.

Malik sat across from him, head bowed, phone face-down on the table between them.

They hadn’t said much since he got there…didn’t have to. Some silences in the Crescent meant comfort, others meant survival.

Today was both.

“I got the update on Plugged In pushin’ through tonight,” Malik finally said. “Zaire tryna linked me with this dude that’s tryna buy in.”

Pharoah blinked slow. His lips twisted into a lazy smile. “Tuh…told you.” His words came out garbled, tongue still heavy from the injury, but Malik had been around him long enough to decode the vowels behind the slurs.

“I know you told me,” Malik said, leaning back. “You told me before we even built the first code base, before Crescent even knew what a damn IP address was.”

Pharoah wheezed a chuckle.

“On God,” Malik said, grinning faintly. “You was the blueprint, P.”

Pharoah’s eyes glimmered with pride, the kind that lived in pain too. He didn’t move, but the weight of what could’ve been sat loud between them.

Malik looked away, jaw tight. “I used to watch you type so fast it sounded like rain. Like…all that magic in your fingers and now?—”

“Still…got my mind,” Pharoah said, slow and deliberate.

Malik nodded. “Yea, you still got that.”

The front door creaked open, and little footsteps came pitter-pattering across the floor. “Malikkkk!” a tiny voice sang.

He turned just in time to see Bren rushing in with a backpack half her size and her barrettes click-clacking.

“What up, big dawg?” Malik crouched down, arms open.

Bren jumped into his chest. “I missed you!”

“I missed you more.” He lifted her onto his lap and squinted. “Damn, girl, you grew! You eatin’ bricks now?”

She giggled, showing off the new silver caps on her front teeth. “Granny let me eat whatever I want. She even took me to the mall.”

“Oh, she spoilin’ you now?”

Bren nodded hard. “She said I’m her lil’ Queen Bee!”

Malik glanced up as Quesha walked in behind her, holding a takeout bag and her keys in her mouth.

Bren threw up a sloppy B with her little fingers, grinning wide. “She taught me this too. See?! B for Bee!”

Malik’s whole body stilled.

He set her down slowly. “Go get you a juice out the fridge, lil’ mama.”

Bren nodded and skipped toward the kitchen, not feeling the shift in the room.

As soon as she was out of earshot, Malik stood up slow and sharp, jaw ticking. “You serious right now?”

Quesha rolled her eyes. “What?”

“She throwin’ up B’s now? Like that’s what we on?”

“She don’t even know what that mean, Malik. It’s cute to her.”

“No, Quesha. It’s dangerous. It’s fuckin’ stupid.” His voice rose. “You got her out here throwin’ up shit that could get her killed .”

“It’s not that deep!”

Malik grabbed her wrist and dragged her into the back room, slamming the door behind them. Pharoah didn’t flinch. He was used to the static.

“You lost your fuckin’ mind,” Malik said, voice shaking with rage. “That’s a baby , Quesha!”

She folded her arms. “Don’t talk to me like I ain’t raised her while you was too busy ‘building an app’ and tryna find yourself. You ain’t even been here like that.”

“I ain’t her daddy, but been givin’ you money every month. I make sure her shit straight. Don’t play with me, like I ain’t trying to right my wrongs.”

Quesha scoffed. “You handed me that little envelope for the bills today like you a savior.”

“Man, fuck that envelope. I’d give you my whole check if it meant she didn’t grow up thinking this gang shit is cute .”

“So, what you want me to do, Malik?” Her voice cracked. “You ain’t here to show her how to really be Blue. You ain’t holdin’ it down no more.”

“She ain’t shit. That’s the problem!” he yelled, pointing toward the door. “She a baby, and y’all out here raising her to be like us . That shit ain’t cute, Quesha. That shit trauma with glitter on it.”

Her face twisted. “So now you better than us? ‘Cause you runnin’ round with that rich bitch? She got you wearin’ white tees instead of blue talkin’ like you above the hood?”

“This ain’t about Aku,” he growled, stepping forward. “This about you failing that little girl.”

Quesha’s lip trembled. “You don’t love me no more.”

He blinked. For a second—just one slow, suffocating second—it wasn’t the present he was standing in.

It was the past...back when she used to sneak into his Mama’s house through the window with pink lip gloss and a busted phone, back when she still had braces and used to write his name in her notebook like they was gon’ last forever.

Before Bren. before the blood…before the hood taught them both that even love came with casualties.

He remembered the night she called him crying.

Whispering.

Begging.

Her voice barely came through the phone, her lip already split, her wrist bruised from the same nigga she swore she was “just using to make him jealous.”

Malik didn’t think twice.

He pulled up barefoot with nothing but basketball shorts on and a black durag tied tight. Dragged dude out the back of his mama’s house and beat him until his own brothers had to pull him off.

Blood-stained Malik’s hands, his chest, even the grass under his feet. One of his homies said he’d never seen him like that. Another said he had the devil in his eyes that night.

And then death came…just like it always did.