Page 41

Ready to Die – The Notorious B.I.G.

Brooke drove too fast, weaving through traffic, erratic enough that I was sure someone would have called the cops even if there weren’t already two police cars on our tail.

She banked quickly as she turned to go down a side street, the whole car leaning into the bend.

‘Fuck!’ Brooke exclaimed.

A car was blocking our exit, its hazard lights blinking pathetically. A few seconds later, the police blocked the street behind us. With high brick walls on either side of us, there was nowhere to go.

We were trapped.

‘Oh my God, Brooke,’ I whimpered.

She dropped her head, and I watched as her hands, still gripping the steering wheel, went white-knuckled. When she looked up at me, she had a haunted look in her eyes and a determined tightness to her jaw.

‘Do you trust me?’ she demanded.

‘Yes, of course.’

‘I need you to play along. There’s no time to explain, but just go along with what I’m saying, okay?’

‘Yeah.’ I nodded. ‘Yes. I can do that.’

‘Okay. Get out and come around to this side of the car. Slowly. Please.’ Her voice broke on the ‘please’.

I didn’t know what Brooke was planning, but she clearly had something in mind, and I trusted her – more than anyone, more than myself . I was shaking, and she noticed. She leaned in and kissed me hard, once, on the lips.

‘Go!’

I nodded and unbuckled my seatbelt with trembling fingers.

Brooke started reaching into the glove box and my confused brain tried to figure out what she needed a cassette tape for right now.

I swung myself out of the car, slammed the door closed and forced myself to look at the people who had been chasing us since we left Seattle.

‘Jessie Swift!’

‘Hands up!’

I instinctively listened, scared – no, terrified . You can be sure I put my goddamn hands up.

‘What’s going on?’ I called out, desperate to come across unaware.

I couldn’t count the number of police officers at the other end of the street.

There must have been at least three cars, their lights flashing out of sync with each other.

I walked around the back of the Mustang, trying to make it look like I was walking toward them when I wasn’t.

I needed to get back to Brooke, and her plan.

A small part of me still believed we’d get out of this, and I was clinging to that thought as hard as I could.

Both my knees and my bladder felt weak, and I was way past the point of thinking I was going to throw up – I could taste the acid stinging the back of my throat.

But out of nowhere, a fierce rage settled over me.

How dare the cops corner us now? After everything we’d done?

After all we’d been through? They hadn’t been there for me back in Seattle, they hadn’t done anything when Brooke went missing, and now they wanted us?

In a stinking alley in downtown Atlanta. Of all the fucking places.

The next chorus of hands up rang out as Brooke got out of the car and took two quick steps toward me. She wrapped an arm around my waist to bring me in tight.

A few police officers had dashed forward, their guns pointed straight at us, and my head started to swim. I felt so trapped, so crushed. The walls of the buildings on either side felt like they were pressing in, and the heat of the street seemed to crawl up my legs and glue me to the spot.

‘It’s gonna be all right,’ Brooke murmured.

Get down, get down, get down.

‘Brooke,’ I said. I felt light-headed, black spots dancing at the edge of my vision.

‘Do you trust me?’ she asked again.

I nodded. I was starting to go numb. I couldn’t feel my lips.

Brooke reached behind her and pulled the gun out of her back pocket, then in one swift move she shoved me in front of her to shield her body, wrapped one arm around my neck and pressed the barrel of the gun to my forehead.

I was glad of the arm around my neck because my knees gave out. Brooke held me up.

The noise in the street doubled and bounced off the walls – I couldn’t hear what any of the cops were shouting even if I’d wanted to. Brooke probably couldn’t either.

‘Let us go,’ she said, her voice cracking. Then again, louder. ‘Let us go!’

Hands up, hands up, hands up.

‘Let us go,’ she repeated. ‘Or I’ll shoot her.’

Everything went eerily quiet. No one seemed to dare move, and time crept forward slowly, wispy and fuzzy, like we were in a dream.

My breath came in snatched gasps as I stared at the shocked police officers. Then tears filled my eyes, blurring their faces.

Brooke was playing a dangerous game now, banking on the police wanting us alive more than they wanted us in custody.

I wasn’t so sure that was the case. She still had the upper hand, though – they didn’t know about the one and only cassette bullet.

They didn’t know the gun wasn’t fully loaded and that she wouldn’t start shooting them after she shot me.

I’d promised to trust her, and I did. I did.

But we’d run out of road, run out of options, and I couldn’t go back. Not to Seattle. Not to Mouse. All I wanted was to be with Brooke, and I had no idea how she was going to get us out of this.

The noise ratcheted up again as police crept in. I dared a glance over my shoulder and more cops had blocked the other end of the alley, too. We were surrounded on all sides.

‘Don’t move!’ Brooke screamed. ‘I’ll shoot!’

Then, much quieter, so only I could hear, she whispered, ‘No, no. God, no.’

I could feel how badly she was shaking as well, and as I stared down the barrels of a dozen police-issued revolvers, I realized the same thing as Brooke. She knew they weren’t going to let us go. They weren’t going to let her take me ‘hostage’. They’d shoot us before they let us escape.

I tipped my head back and she was tall enough that the little movement meant I could kiss her one final time. Kiss her goodbye, in case this really was my last chance.

‘Thank you,’ I whispered. ‘For everything.’

Brooke nodded, and I could taste the tears on her lips.

The metal of the gun against my skin had heated up now. It wasn’t so cold when she pressed it harder against my temple.

I closed my eyes.

The noise faded.

And then she dropped the gun.

She dropped the gun.