Chapter 19
The first thing I registered was the cold air where the sheets had just been.
Something yanked me sideways. Then I was airborne and weightless for half a breath before I slammed into the hardwood.
My lungs seized, refusing to expand.
My shoulder took the impact, then my skull slammed against the floor, and the splitting headache I’d gone to sleep with doubled back, driving white-hot needles behind my eyes.
The room pitched. Shapes moved in the dark. My arms wouldn’t lift. My legs were still tangled in sheets that had twisted into restraints while medication coated my bloodstream, keeping my thoughts sluggish and disconnected from my limbs.
Hands grabbed at me. From the left. From above. Fingers dug into my biceps, my ankles, and my hair. Someone twisted my wrist. Another hand caught the back of my shirt, and I was dragged, my hips scraping the wood.
For a second, I couldn’t understand what was happening.
“Move! Move!” Someone shouted. “Get her hands!”
Panic detonated inside me.
“What the fuck—” I spat as I was lifted and slammed onto my stomach.
Pain shot through my ribs, and my cheek mashed the hardwood.
My vision kept glitching in and out of focus. Shadows stretched across the room while my mind lagged behind everything happening to me.
Hands forced my arms behind my back, and for one disoriented second, I thought I was still dreaming.
“Get the fuck off me!” I shouted, struggling blindly beneath the weight crushing me.
The pressure against my spine intensified immediately.
“Quit resisting!”
“I’m not resisting!” I screamed back. “What the fuck is happening?”
Another sharp pain shot through my shoulder, and tears sprang into my eyes when somebody jerked my arm higher.
That was when reality finally started breaking through the fog.
Police.
The room was full of police.
Black boots stomped across my bedroom while flashlights cut through the darkness from every direction. Drawers slammed open. Men shouted over each other. The mattress was thrown aside behind me as someone ripped the blankets completely off the bed.
“Clear!”
“Bathroom clear!”
“Closet clear!”
The pounding in my skull made every shout feel like it was happening inside my head.
Then panic truly hit me.
Booda.
Where was Booda?
My head snapped up so fast that pain tore through my temple. I looked toward the bed. Empty. It was now on the floor.
“Wait!” I yelled frantically, trying to twist away from the officer holding me down.
He gripped me tighter. Shoved his knee further into my back.
I thrashed as I turned my head from side to side, trying to see past the bodies moving through the home while cold metal cuffs snapped around my wrists.
Too many boots stomped through the rooms, and too many voices yelled over each other.
But none of them belonged to Booda.
I kept listening. Waiting for his voice to cut through the chaos. Waiting for somebody to start screaming. Waiting for gunfire. Something.
Nothing came.
My pulse stumbled.
The officers were still tearing through everything around me, but all I could hear was the blood swoosh inside my ears.
“Sit her up.”
Hands grabbed me again. Rougher.
They hauled me upright, and my stomach came with me a half-second late. The side of the bedframe slammed against my hip as metal cuffs bit into my wrists behind my back. I blinked at the ceiling, then at the floor, then back at the ceiling again while the room refused to stop moving.
“Watch her,” an officer ordered.
Flashlights kept sweeping through the apartment while officers moved in and out of my bedroom, carrying pieces of my life with them. Shoes. Drawers. Pill bottles. A shoebox from my closet. Somebody flipped my dresser over.
I blinked slowly, trying to force my eyes to focus.
Still no Booda.
Had he run?
Had they caught him already?
No. If they had, I would’ve heard it. Booda wouldn’t go quietly. Not ever.
An officer brushed past me, carrying my mattress halfway into the hallway, while another crouched beside my nightstand, shining a flashlight underneath it.
“Clear.”
“What is this?” I demanded hoarsely. “Why the fuck did y’all break into my house?”
Nobody answered me.
One of the officers walked past carrying my gun in a plastic evidence bag.
Ice slid through my chest.
Fuck!
I stared at the bag, but I could barely see through the haze.
“Ma’am, stop moving.”
“I ain’t moving,” I snapped, even though my entire body was trembling so violently it probably looked like I was having a grand mal seizure.
Another officer emerged from the hallway holding a second evidence bag.
My keys.
Then another.
Rich’s chain.
Every breath started feeling thinner.
I tried to keep my face straight anyway. Tried to force the panic back down where it belonged. Because fear made people talk too much. Made them stop thinking.
Right now, I needed to think, and most importantly, I needed to know where Booda was.
“Get her up.”
The officer standing beside me grabbed my arm before I could brace myself.
Pain ripped through my shoulder as they hauled me to my feet so fast my knees almost buckled underneath me, and for a second, I thought I might throw up.
“Walk,” somebody barked.
“I am walking,” I snapped, even though they were practically dragging me.
My bare feet scraped across the hardwood as they shoved me forward through the wreckage.
The front door hung wide open. Red and blue lights flashed through the windows, washing across the walls in violent bursts. The living room was destroyed. Couch cushions were ripped apart. My coffee table was flipped over. Glass, more than last time, covered the front area and the kitchen.
Jesus Christ.
This was a lot.
My nosy neighbors were outside. I could feel it.
People always gathered for shit like this. Especially when police hit somebody’s house deep in the middle of the night. Half the complex was probably standing around watching right now, pretending they weren’t.
An officer shoved me harder between my shoulders.
“Hurry up.”
My head pounded with every step.
Then I saw several long shadows stretch across the concrete outside the front door as police hauled someone away.
They were surrounded.
My heart stopped.
Booda.
I twisted so hard the officer holding me cursed.
“Wait—”
I tried to see past the bodies moving through the doorway, but flashing lights from outside washed everything together in red, white, and blue. Before I could get a better look, the officer behind me jerked me forward, nearly making me stumble.
The second they dragged me outside, police cruisers came into full view. They lined the curb and spilled into the street as neighbors crowded their balconies, sidewalks, and breezeways in pajamas, bonnets, house shoes, and hoodies.
Everybody was watching. Phones were out.
Somebody whispered my name.
Another person said Giani’s.
“Watch your step,” the officer warned as he shoved me down the walkway.
I barely heard him as I searched cruiser to cruiser, tinted window to tinted window, every dark shape making my pulse jump before crashing down again.
Nothing.
There was no sign of him anywhere.
The officer tightened his grip on my arm, yanking my attention back to him. “You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law—”
The words blurred together almost immediately. My thoughts traveled elsewhere.
Where the fuck was Booda?
I scanned the police cars again, barely noticing the cameras pointed at me now. Somebody across the lot was crying. Somebody else was yelling questions at the officers. The entire complex sounded far away and underwater.
Then my eyes landed on Tink.
He stood off to the side near the curb, holding onto his mother so tightly his fists had twisted into the fabric of her shirt as tears streamed down his face.
His eyes locked onto mine, and my chest caved in. Underneath that grief was something worse.
Disappointment.
Giani was his cousin. And I—I was no one. Just his neighbor. But we had grown close.
I’d watched him change from a young thug into a respectful young man. Had even taken part in that transition.
Somewhere between the cookouts, the conversations in the breezeway, and me fussing at him every time he did something reckless, Tink had started listening to me. Really listening.
That little boy who once tried to rob me with shaky hands and fake confidence had slowly turned into someone softer around the edges. He was more thoughtful and more careful with the choices he made. And now he was standing there, looking at me like he didn’t know who the fuck I was anymore.
That hurt worse than the handcuffs.
Because I was a hypocrite.
Everything I’d tried to teach him only applied to everybody else. Not me. Not the woman standing in front of him with blood on her hands and police lights flashing across her face.
How the fuck was I gon’ teach him right from wrong when I liked taking lives? How was I any better than the people I used to warn him about?
Tink’s face crumpled harder as another sob broke loose from him, and his mother pulled him against her chest while glaring at me with pure hatred.
I couldn’t even blame her.
Not really.
Because standing there in handcuffs with police lights flashing across my face, I was the person I’d sworn I wasn’t.
I finally had to accept that.
Lifting my chin high, I puffed out my chest. Fuck Giani. Fuck Rich. Fuck everyone who was ever against me and Booda. It would always and forever be us against the world.
But Tink—he had done nothing to me. Hurting him was something I knew I’d regret forever.
***
The holdover smelled like bleach, pussy, sweat, mildew, and stale cigarettes, each scent fighting for dominance inside the room.