As Baylon saw things, Night had his own ambitions, they all did, but Night saw himself as the rightful heir to the throne of the streets and Dred as a pretender to it. Baylon's strategic thinking was what made him valuable to Dred, but not valuable enough. He was being pushed aside, reduced to a consigliere within his own crew.
Dred and Griff turned toward Baylon. After an other check of the streets from the slit of the window beside the door, he nodded. Without instruction, Griff led the way, clutching the bag full of cash, knowing to keep money and product away from Dred. To insulate him. Dred followed. Baylon gave one last glance at the dope dealer who moaned as he crawled back onto the couch. Discarded as soon as he was inconvenient.
The dope dealer stared straight at him. 'Sir Baylon, this is the boundary of your life. Turn back and you may save yourself.' And with that, the man vanished.
Baylon imagined the trajectory of his life as him running. Running through a dark forest, heedless of what lay ahead, knowing that he couldn't remain where he was. His fate chased after him, undeterred and dogged, closing in on him like an inexorable curtain. He fought against the listing hopelessness. He stood on the precipice knowing the time to change ticked away quickly. He closed his eyes and waited, giving into his destiny.
The squeal of car tires shattered the night like a hunting horn signaling the death of their prey. The car slowed to a deliberate crawl. Griff released his hold on the paper bag, whatever warrior sense or maybe just in tune to the scent of violence and blood and death in the air alerting him to action. Without hesitation, he leapt between the approaching car and Dred. For his part, Dred stood there. Not frozen, as if the impending violence caught him short. No, he wore a different face. One of resignation. Of giving in to the inevitable. Of a time coming full circle.
Baylon withdrew his knife. The blade snapped to life with a sharp click.
From the lowered car windows, several gun barrels protruded. The first shot caught Griff before he could reach Dred. The shot caught him in the shoulder spinning him, then a second shot caught him in the side sending him towards Baylon. As Griff's body ca reened toward him, Baylon — perhaps on instinct, perhaps the knife had a will of its own, perhaps many things Baylon preferred to not think about — brought the knife to bear. It plunged into Griff's gut. His accusing eyes widened in shock, fresh pain atop his bullet wounds. He gripped Baylon's shirt, a desperate grasp which pulled him down on top of him. The action drove the blade deeper into him as they landed. Baylon cradled his head. The blood from the mortal cut covered his front. He peered into Griff's eyes until the light left them, but not before his countenance fixed in a look of knowing. There were no secrets from the dead.
Dred arced his fingers down in a wave. The night seemed to split, carved open with the gesture, eldritch shadows catching the first volley of bullets. A shotgun barrel leveled at him. Its thunderous report caused Baylon to cover Griff as if he could shield him from any further damage. The shrapnel tore through the arcane shield Dred had cast and caught him fully in his gullet. The blast knocked him from his feet.
The car sped off into the night.
Baylon stood, surveying the damage. Not realizing his cell phone had found its way into his hand or that he had punched in the digits 911 and babbled non sensically into it. He folded the knife and tossed it down a sewer grate until he could retrieve it later.
Baylon wondered if he had ever had an honest moment in his life. A time of perfect truth. The ritual of dressing in front of the mirror, the care he took in picking out his wardrobe, the fastidiousness of his look was so much wasted effort. He knew it. His men knew it.
'There it is.' Baylon's arms hung at his side. He didn't know how long he had stood there, staring at his reflection as the memories overwhelmed him. 'The cost of my sin.'
'What sin?' Griff asked.
'Bad luck.'
'All your wounds are self-inflicted.'
His life was an inexorable spiral leading to a point he dreaded to think about. Somehow not thinking about it made its inevitability less real. Night and Dred. He and King. He and Griff. He and Michelle. There was no warranty on friendships. They began, they ended, each in their own season. And when they ended, the ripples of those relationships spread into the next. A cycle of pain he would continue to pay for.
'Sometimes I feel like it's cursed. Either of them.'
'The knife?' Griff asked.
'Yeah. All it has ever brought is blood and trouble.'
'The cost of defending yourself.'
'But it shouldn't have to be that way.'
'You still the fairest of them all… punk motherfucker.
CHAPTER NINE
No one knew who threw the first punch and for damn sure who fired the shots that dropped Alaina Walker. Truth be told, even when the video was shown and re-shown on the news later that evening, the mob scene in the park was little more than fifteen to twenty girls wilding, a sea of arms and blurred faces scrabbling in a cluster of aggression. Investigators determined the fight actually started at Northwest High School.
'I need to go ahead and get my GED.' Lady G swatted at one of the lazy bees who flitted after her can of soda. A thin trickle of sweat trailed down the side of her face. The heat of the day already fouled her mood and the incessant buzz only furthered her irritation. She tugged at her gloves.
'What for?' Rhianna's small rasp of a voice scraped at her ears. A sweatband with a skull and crossbones insignia on it encircled Rhianna's head. A dozen jelly bracelets choked each wrist. It didn't matter that she never spoke of things on her mind. She wore them, or rather, they wore her. She shirked whenever men neared, moreso than usual. Chipped nail polish wasted along the fingertips of her ashy hands. Dark circles welled under her eyes.
'I don't know. Maybe go to college.'
'Why? What you gone be? A toxicologist or something?'
'Nah…' Her voice trailed, the tan brick walls of the school seeming suddenly formidable. 'Just talking I guess.'
The park was next to the Jonathan Jennings Public School 109 elementary school, though that didn't stop graffiti artists from tagging the slide or tables with profanities and gang designations, marking their territory like so many dogs pissing over themselves. Nor did it stop folks from coming up here to get high. The pair, along with a few of their girls, sat along one of the two dilapidated picnic tables under the shelter. Rhianna wanted to get her head up a little since Prez hadn't spoken to her since the night at the bridge. In fact, she and Lady G hadn't said a word about it either. It was like if they never mentioned it, maybe it didn't happen. Sure, they'd been questioned by the police and released, but the evening blurred into a haze of half-remembered conversations. Still, the image of the black tarp spread over two distinct lumps of flesh that had once been Trevant haunted her. That and the sight of all the blood. There was no tarp large enough to cover all the blood.
'Come on, now. Beyonce sang about doing for her man 'what Martin did for the people',' Lady G chirped to lighten the mood.
'That song is an earworm. I'm tired of these fools who call themselves singers these days. You see Justin Wiggerlake's ass trying to dis Prince? Come on now.' Rhianna scanned the front of Breton Court for any sign of Prez. Prez was alive enough, still selling for Dollar over here at Breton Court, not that he acknowledged them. He certainly wouldn't describe the ineffable dread he felt whenever he thought about being with the girls as fear, but he, too, kept a discreet distance from them.
'You're still talking about my baby.'
'I'm just sayin'. You never saw Hall and Oates dissin' Earth, Wind, and Fire.'
'Come close so I can cut you.' Lady G rolled up her sleeves, in feigned anger, unconscious of how conspicuous her gloves now seemed.
'Shut up.'
'Someone hold my earrings.' Lady G pantomimed removing her earrings and waited for Rhianna to give into her smile. 'Some fools need to be cut.'
In order to put on a pleasant face for rush-hour commuters, Breton Court had been freshly painted. The
