Black grabbed a handful of her hair and dragged Netta to her feet. He cocked back his fist and cold cocked her over and over again, for good measure. He watched as she crumpled to the floor, blood oozing from her mouth and nose. He stood over her limp body, verbally chastising Netta.
“Bitch, you dead! I’ll teach you about tryin’ to play me, yo,” Black growled while delivering bone-jarring kick after kick to his fallen victim’s rib cage. Quickly Netta felt the agonizing pain of bones breaking. As she lay there withering in pain, too badly injured to make an escape attempt, Black prepared himself for the second phase of his attack.
Going into the hotel closet, he retrieved a wire hanger. Black quickly dismantled it and then doubled it, fashioning it into some sort of makeshift weapon.
“Since you wanna be a hoe, I’ma beat you like the hooker you is, yo,” Black threatened. “When I'm finished with you, yo...They gonna have to give you a closed casket funeral bitch. Nobody steals from Black and lives!”
Menacingly he stood over Netta. He brought the hanger high over his head, then brought it down hard on her back. Simultaneously, Netta let out a blood-curdling scream. Her screams for mercy only excited him. He repeatedly lashed her until he drew blood. Black beat her unmercifully. He blacked out while dispensing his brand of street justice.
In the back of the ambulance, her recollection of the attack shook Netta to the core. Although she was restrained to the stretcher, Netta began to go into a series of violent convulsions. This caused the paramedic to spring into action. She tightened the straps on the stretcher so Netta couldn’t flail her limbs, thus further injuring herself.
“Calm down baby, everything is going to be all right; we almost there,” the paramedic told her, while gently rubbing her forehead.
Softly she spoke to Netta as she waited for the convulsions to subside. Once Netta was in a more stable condition, the paramedic began to look through her personal property that the police had handed over to her. She was curious about the patient’s name. The paramedic wanted to be able to check up on her after they dropped her off at the hospital emergency room. She really cared if Netta lived or died. Already she was deeply vetted in Netta’s well-being.
“Shanetta Jackson, huh,” she said silently as she looked at the Maryland driver’s license.
The photo caused the paramedic to do a double take. She looked back and forth at her patient strapped to the stretcher, and the driver’s license. She soon realized just how unrecognizable the woman really was. Under normal conditions, she could tell that the young lady was a very attractive dark skin sister. Nothing like the grotesque figure she was currently staring at.
“Shanetta, hold on baby. You’re going to make it. You hear me?” the paramedic assured her, while speaking the words of life into existence.
Moved by her own words, the paramedic gently squeezed her hand, like a concerned parent. To her surprise, Netta faintly squeezed her hand in return, applying the minimum amount of pressure. It wasn’t much of a response, but a response was a response.
Her reaction bought a smile to the woman’s face. In a show of emotion, tears welled up in his her eyes as Netta began to show signs of life for the first time since they found her.
Through swollen eyelids, Netta couldn’t quite make out her caretaker’s facial features, but she sensed the presence of a loving female paramedic. Barely able to see, the image was dark and shadowy. However, it wasn’t anything for her to fear. It wasn’t like the evil presence she had encountered in the hotel. She knew this person wouldn’t do her any harm.
However, Netta was in so much agonizing pain she began to drift in and out of consciousness. Her life began to flash before her eyes. She looked back on recent and distant memories, the most vivid ones were tragic. All the negative images seemed to flood her mind. Like the brutal murder of her elderly caretaker and grandmother figure, Ms. Mae. The woman was Netta’s saving grace. She practically raised Netta, instilling in her morals and what little sense of decency she had.
“Looks are God-given, so be thankful. Praise is man-given, so be humble. Conceit is self-given, so be careful.” she remembered Ms. Mae saying. Her words of wisdom seemed to stay with Netta throughout her entire life.
Netta could see the old woman’s inviting smile, her head full of gray hair, and rich dark skin. The heavenly image that she saw of the lady she loved so dearly was comforting.
Suddenly, the glimmer of light was gone. Netta breathed deeply as a sense of relief washed over her body.
Her chest cavity expanded and deflated with such regularity that it eased the paramedic’s fears. This was a good sign. Now there was hope for Netta, where there once was little or none.
Netta existed in a suspended state, coherent yet incoherent. Every survival instinct inside Netta pleaded with her subconscious to stay awake. However, it was another matter trying to comply with that request. She didn’t have an ounce of energy left in her body. The brutal beating she had endured exhausted her, both physically and mentally. She was holding on to life by sheer will power.
Netta had experienced pain in the form of hurt and heartache, more often than she cared to remember in her life. She had suffered through enough hardships to last a lifetime. But this was something totally different. That had been emotional and mental anguish. She had never been physically incapacitated like this before. Her body exploded in pain in places she never knew existed. She was trapped in her own personal hell, which in this case was her body.
Yet, she had the audacity to keep fighting, to believe that everything was going to be all right. Whatever was happening,
