did he let raid his refrigerator? How many of them laughed at him now? A collage of failure. Maybe he started too old. Maybe he should have gone after the pee wees. Get them before they became loyal to the game. The sadness was tangible, a blanket fallen over their neighborhood thickest in this very room. Wayne hated the air of resignation. Of surrender. It was like death.
'You hear about that little girl?' Wayne asked in order to switch topics. If death was already in the room, they might as well deal with it.
'Lyonessa.' King rubbed his face and waited for the next pounding.
'She wasn't even in the game.'
'She was in it whether she choose to be or not. Her brother, Lonzo…'
'Black.'
'Black. He puts her in the game. Same with me and Nakia. So I take her off the board.'
'How she doing?'
'Nakia? She good.'
'You being done on visitation?'
'It ain't like that. I can see my baby girl when I want.'
'But?'
'But… you see the life I lead.' On the defensive, King lumbered back and forth, his anger fueled by the fact that he was angry at the wrong people. Or there were so many people to be angry at. In a moment he could make a few phone calls, rally some knuckleheaded boys and rain down pain on Black or whoever else needed hurting. Whoever. Else. Many nights the thought tempted him.
'You married to your mission.'
'I'm on call 24/7. And…'
'… you've made your share of enemies.'
'Folks that would take things out on my family. And my friends.'
'Your friends seem to be doing a good enough job of that on they own.'
'Yeah.' King stopped. 'Man, it feels like they got me on some sort of timetable to get better.' He turned to Wayne, who did his best to hide his smirk. He had a way of putting things in perspective. The man was frustrating. Could make his point and make you smile. It was his heart. Wayne had one of those hearts that made you feel better just by being around him.
'They mean well. We want you well. But you not.'
'I'm trying.'
'I know.'
'Dred's on the move.'
'I'm just saying… We gonna need all the friends we can get. You need to give them a chance to show how sorry they are.'
'You worse than Ecktor, man. What, you, he, and Big Momma all have a meeting to get your stories straight?'
'You're a good man, King. With greatness in you. Sometimes you have to be encouraged to do the right thing. To live into that greatness.'
'I still love them. Both of them.'
'We all do. They still family.'
'Make sure they're okay.'
'You planning on going somewhere?'
'I just know I won't always be around.'
'I got it handled.'
Life never stopped. King reached past Wayne to grab hold of Prez. The boy smiled, locked in a playful headlock. His emotions spent, it was the most he had in him. But Prez took it. Wayne hustled Percy to hurry on. Sadness leadened the boy's steps. He hurt for everyone and didn't know how to be there. For King. For Lady G. For Lott. For Rhianna. For Wayne. They were his family, the way family should be. And they hurt. He needed to do something or else they might all fall apart and go their own way. Wayne locked up the building.
King was the first to notice the car slow. It wasn't the car which drew his attention, but like a piece of his soul returning home which alerted him. For King, life slowed to a crawl. His nose flared. Spit flew from his mouth. A sudden heat swept over him. He seemed to sweat from everywhere at once. For a brief few seconds, there was a sudden calm. His eyes grew wide as his mind took in what he was seeing. He hoped his voice wouldn't crack as he called out. 'Get down!'
Dred raised his gun. King recognized the Caliburn immediately and the sense of another betrayal overwhelmed him. The report thundered. King's ears rang. His balance thrown off, time slowed. A bullet slammed into his shoulder and spun him around, like a warm knife slid into him with ease. Another pop followed as a second bullet tore through the side of his neck. The smell of blood was the odor of death. Perhaps his body went into shock, but King did not feel any pain, only the peace of acceptance washing over him. Perhaps it was relief. The earth fell from underneath him and shadows engulfed him.
Across town, from within Nine's embrace, Merle cried out 'No!'
'What is it?' She wrapped her arms around him even tighter.
'The dolorous stroke.'
'Then the end draws near.'
CHAPTER EIGHT
The Security and Housing Unit — often called the Shoe — housed everyone who was under the age of eighteen detained in the Marion County Lock Up. In the protected block of juveniles, its guests spent twenty-three hours a day in cells. Artificially set by their lights, their days were out of the prisoners' control. They were told when they could eat and when they could shower. Privacy was a dream of another life.
The previous night Rondell 'Mulysa' Cheldric dreamed he was a child, lost in a forest, trying to make his way home. The brush grew thicker as he ran. All he knew was that something chased him. Though unseen, the prey's sense of an impending threat, that a creature stalked him and had been after him for a while, remained with him. His lungs burned with each breath. The muscles in his legs ached. Pain shot up his shins. The joints of his shoulders grew sore. Exhaustion overtook him. A weariness that seeped down to his bones. Slumped over in a collapsed heap, he waited. The predator still in the shadows. Nearby. Salivating at its soonto-be-had kill. Mulysa woke as he always did: bone-tired and resigned.
In juvenile, he used to imagine himself as a top-secret spy caught by enemy agents and imprisoned. His days idled along with daydreaming plots to make daring escape. His imagination was his true escape. His fantasy was, if nothing else, consistent. When he was younger, he imagined it was his father that was the spy, always called away on important missions. As he got older, within a few years actually, after a lifestyle filled with danger and intrigue, though heroic, he decided that his dad had been killed in action. Only in the last year did he conclude that fantasy was for children.
Life in the Shoe was about boundaries and limits. The cell closed in on his mind. Lonely, confined, a lack of privacy; the tedium alone could drive someone to madness. The darkness made noises. Tears sobbed into pillows. The rutting sounds of rage and power being rammed into any who gave the appearance of weakness. His life was a prison.
He was two men: Mulysa and Rondell, battling it out, and Rondell was about dead. Reduced to an animal going about with survival instincts on high alert, constantly on the lookout for any of the innumerable enemies he'd made. He was a fallen man. Weren't but two ways to go from here: up, or embrace the darkness and finality of his life. And the game itself was slow suicide. All of the devilish things he'd done, each act a step in his journey toward here. Being locked down, swept under society's rug, allowed him to see the bigger picture, and his life for what it was worth.
A big steaming pile of shit.
Today, he was due in court. His public defender assured him that this was just a matter of going through the
