Page 52 of This Is Law 2

He mumbled all kind of shit up under his breath, probably calling me everything, except a child of God.

I followed him with my eyes, watching him walk away, until I no longer saw him anymore.

All I could think to myself was that that lil nigga was headed down a road of destruction.

Once a kid drops out of school, and they had all this time on their hands, that’s when they started getting into all kinds of shit.

Usually, when the young niggas are in the streets, but they still go to school during the day, it’s a chance that they could be saved, but his mama had already kicked him out, he was desperate to move weight, and I could see it in his eyes that he wanted to get his hands on some money quick, fast, and in a hurry.

Mark my words, it was only a matter of time before he got so desperate that he had to kill somebody for what he wanted, and in turn, he was going to get killed as well, or have to sit down, and serve a life sentence.

As I was sitting here, still thinking about that weird exchange that just happened between me and Quay, my phone started buzzing in my lap.

I picked it up, seeing Kross’s name flashing on the screen.

I damn near broke my neck to answer the phone for him, especially since I had been trying to get in contact with him for a few days, so that we could hash out our issues.

I went ahead, and accepted the call, placing it on speaker, so that the phone could continue resting in my lap.

“Man, you just now hitting me back? I been trying to get in contact with you!” I snapped the second I answered the phone.

“Hi, is this Mr. Thorne?” a female voice asked on the other end of the phone.

For whatever reason, I panicked, hearing that it wasn’t my son. All the bad shit that I’ve done in the world, I just knew that this moment right here was getting ready to show me what karma looked like.

I aggressively picked the phone up from my lap, and I held it in my hands.

“Who are you, and where the fuck is my son?” I spat, pulling out of the parking space that I was in. I didn’t know where the fuck I was headed to, but I wanted to be out of this lot for when she explained to me what was going on, and I could get there.

“Hi. My name is Nurse Jenna. I’m at Jackson Memorial Hospital.

Your son, Kross, is here. I’m the head nurse that’s in charge, and I was able to gain access to his phone, after one of the EMT workers handed it over to me.

Your son has sustained multiple gunshot wounds, and right now, he’s in critical condition.

We are in the process of running tests on him, but at the moment, he’s still unresponsive,” she let me know, and hearing her say this shit, it felt like my whole fuckin world had stopped.

For a second, it felt like I might have stopped breathing too.

“What the fuck happened?” I roared, pissed.

“As of now, we don’t have many details on what caused the shooting. All I know from the EMT workers is he was shot as he was coming out of an apartment complex. I just wanted to call you, and update you with what was going on, so that you could come, and see about your son,” she let me know.

I was so fuckin angry, that I couldn’t even thank her for calling me, and telling me this shit. I wasn’t too far from the hospital, so I floored it, breaking every traffic law that was put in place, trying to make it to my son.

As I was speeding to get there, so many scenarios was flooding through my mind.

The main thing was trying to find out who could have done this shit.

I wasn’t even about to sit here, and try to be a delusional parent, and pretend that my son was an angel, and that he didn’t go around giving people problems because I knew he was far from a saint.

I haven’t spoken to Kross in a couple of weeks, and in that time, I didn’t know the kind of shit that he might have been up to, who he might have crossed, and the beef that he was now in the middle of.

I wanted him to fight because I couldn’t lose the only child that I had.

We had our shit, and at times, it felt like he couldn’t get it right, and because he couldn’t get it right, it often affected our relationship, but I prayed that he kicked it, woke up, so that he could tell me who the fuck had done this shit, and I could handle it.

I pulled up to the hospital, and luckily, I was able to get a spot right in the front.

I moved fast, walking through the parking lot, and once I made it inside, I went right to the admitting clerk, telling her who I was here to see.

She really couldn’t give me many details right now.

All she could tell me was that Kross was in the trauma unit, so that’s the floor that I went on, and over there, I couldn’t go straight back to see him.

I was told that he was being treated, so in there, I had to sit in the lobby.

The whole time that I was sitting in here, it felt like I was about to lose my fuckin mind, not knowing what was going on with my son.

Right when I felt like I was about to nut up, that’s when a nurse walked over to me.

“He’s good?” I asked her.

“Kross is stable right now. You’re free to go to the back and see him.

He’s on a ventilator right now, and that’s pretty much the one thing that’s helping to keep him alive.

He’s in room 323,” she told me. I recognized her voice, so I knew that she was the same nurse that I’d spoken with over the phone.

Her words pierced me. That shit hurt me to hear. It wasn’t what I wanted to hear, but I still followed her into the room where Kross was.

We walked the long hallway in silence, and within a matter of seconds, we were standing in front of his door, and she pushed the door, allowing us access.

When I walked in, and I saw my son’s condition, my chest tightened.

Hearing all these machines going off, knowing that this was the only thing that was keeping him up pained me.

I walked over to his bedside, and I touched his hand. When I picked his hand up, it felt as if I was holding onto dead weight. He didn’t squeeze my hand, flutter his eyes or anything to acknowledge that I was in the room with him.

“Can you give us a minute?” I asked the nurse. With sympathy in her eyes, she nodded her head, letting me know that she would give us a minute.

She walked out of the room, leaving just the two of us. The second she was gone, that’s when a tear fell from my eye. I squeezed my son’s hand tighter, and I leaned in because I wanted him to hear me.

“Wake the fuck up, son. You can’t do this shit to me.

You’re the only thing left that I have in this cold ass world.

I know that our shit hasn’t always been right over the years, and we don’t always get along, but don’t do this shit to me, man.

It ain’t much in life that’ll hurt me, but if you leave me, I swear this will bring me to my fuckin knees, son.

You gotta shake this, man,” I spoke to him, my voice shaking the entire time.

I didn’t get any kind of response from him, whether it was in his breathing, blinking of his eyes, or him squeezing my hand, so to be honest, I really didn’t know if he heard me, or not.

I ended up taking a seat in the chair that was near his bed, and I got comfortable because I knew that this was going to be a long night.

I didn’t have any plans on leaving out of this hospital because I wasn’t sure who was responsible for this, and I feared that if I left, whoever did this would find where my son was, and try to finish the job.

I’ve been in the streets for years, so I’ve seen a lot of shit, heard a lot of shit, and done a lot of shit, so I knew that just because he was laid up in this hospital, it didn’t mean that he was safe.

When a motha fucka wanted you dead, they would stop at nothing to finish the job.

I didn’t know who Kross had wronged, so if they really wanted to get to him, they could.

Every time a man puts himself in a position to walk away from the game, and leave the past in the past, something always comes pulling, keeping him in it. This was the pull that was going to get me linked into some heavy shit, but for my son, I would do whatever.