Around the Way Girls 8 Read online

  Around the Way Girls 8

  Tina Brooks McKinney, B.L.U.N.T., and Meisha Camm

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Got Me Twisted

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

  Chapter 1 - Good In The Hood

  Chapter 2 - Mission Possible

  Chapter 3 - Time for Some Action

  Chapter 4 - Lockdown

  Chapter 5 - Sleeping With the Enemy

  Chapter 6 - Partners in Crime

  Chapter 7 - What’s Done In the Dark Must Come to Light

  Chapter 8 - Him Or Me

  Chapter 9 - Mixed Emotions

  Chapter 10 - Fresh on Arrival

  Chapter 11 - Rude Awakening

  Chapter 12 - Choices

  Chapter 13 - New Beginnings

  GREED

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Copyright Page

  Got Me Twisted

  By Tina Brooks McKinney

  Chapter One

  EBONY QUEEN

  It’s strange how one bad decision can have a domino effect on so many lives. This thought resonated in my mind as I watched them lower my mother’s body into the ground. It was not the send-off I would have chosen for her, but beggars couldn’t afford to be choosy. Thanks to my mother’s error in judgment, I was so broke I couldn’t afford to pay attention, let alone bury her in the style she’d become accustomed to. Hell, I was lucky to get this much. New York City, just like other cities, was strapped for cash, and budget cuts were the only things people were talking about. Vital programs were being scratched, so instead of having a three-man crew whose job it was to bury the indigent, I had a man and a shovel who was anxious to get this part of his job finished. I should have felt grateful for the meager service, since it was the best the city was willing to do, but I wasn’t. I wanted to believe my mother was dancing on streets made of gold, but it was hard to do when her body was encased in a shitty box.

  My mother, Candace, was a true diva. If she wasn’t already dead, she would’ve had a stroke knowing her final resting place would be in a plain pine box. She believed diamonds were another article of clothing and she raised me the same way. It broke my heart just thinking about the simple brown dress she wore, also provided by the city. I never felt so alone and miserable in my entire life. Guilt plagued me but there was nothing I could do about it.

  My neighbors gawked, coming out of their fancy apartments, to witness my disgrace as the feds came and confiscated everything we owned. I was twenty-one and had never worked a day in my life. But I never had to because my mother had a plan, a vision that ended the day she was killed. I thought I was prepared for every contingency in life, but I was sadly mistaken. All my training was contingent on having money, and I was broke as a joke without a pot to piss in or a window to throw it out of.

  My mom’s only brother, Leon, sent me a bus ticket to Atlanta and a couple dollars for spending money. He would’ve come to the burial; however, he was busy burying his wife Kym, who was killed the same day as my mother. I reminded myself that I should have been feeling grateful to him since he offered my grown ass a place to stay, but I wasn’t. I was angry, bitter, and to be honest, I wanted revenge. I wanted everyone involved in my mother’s death to suffer the same way I was suffering.

  My mom used to call me her ebony princess. She said I took the best from her: my dark brown skin, straight brown hair, and a big old butt. She told me I would grow up to be a queen. Of course I told her I was already a queen, and she quickly countered by saying there was only one queen bitch in our house, and I wasn’t it. Now that she was gone, I inherited the title but there was no throne. I didn’t feel like the queen as I looked around at the few people who gathered to pay their final respects.

  “Are you okay?” someone asked me, gently touching my shoulder. I recoiled from the touch. None of the faces surrounding me looked familiar, and I hated them all, but it didn’t matter. “I’m fine,” I mumbled, but I really wanted to yell and scream, Get the fuck away and give me a moment! I was sick of people asking me the same question over and over again because they didn’t want to know how I really felt. They expected me to put some smell-good on it so I lied, told ‘em I was fine. When I really wanted to say, Hell no, I ain’t okay. My mother is dead.

  Another thing they said that was getting on my damn nerves was, “Is there anything I can do?” Hell yeah. Bring my mother back and while you’re at it, tell the feds I want our shit back. Those slimy fuckers took everything. My mother’s jewelry, furs, clothing—hell, the bastards even took her shoes. They boarded up the front door of our penthouse apartment and sent my black ass packing with only the clothes on my back.

  This should not have been happening to me. My mother’s boyfriend, Mel, the lyin’ piece of shit, was nowhere the fuck to be found. He’d promised my mother he would protect us, but the bastard removed all evidence of his life from our house the moment the news of my mother’s death hit the wire. I was gonna find the little-dick mother-fucker and make him pay for leaving us. The very least he could have done was make sure his woman had a proper burial.

  Though I promised myself I wouldn’t cry, it wasn’t working. How could I not cry? My life, as I knew it, was over, and I was ill prepared to do anything about it. My mother loved money, but she obviously wasn’t good at keeping it because there was nothing left. I tried to stand tall, I wanted her to be proud of me, but I couldn’t help it. On the outside I looked like a queen. On the inside, however, I was a sick, twisted sister. Everyone I loved and trusted had let me down. This was not the life my mother planned for us.

  Mel, my mother’s sponsor, was a small-town drug dealer from lower Manhattan. He harbored aspirations of growing his operation into something much bigger, but he hadn’t found anything bigger than a corner to sling dope from. Mom pumped him up, gave him the courage to go out on his own and as a result, he provided for us. The feds questioned me for hours, and I didn’t tell them anything. The truth of the matter was that even though I was my mother’s best friend, her ebony princess, I didn’t know anything. The only thing I did know was my aunt Kym was involved, but the feds already knew that.

  The man with the sho
vel shouted, “Let us pray.” He brought my attention back to the present. However, I didn’t know what to pray for. I felt I should be realistic, but my mind wasn’t cooperating. I didn’t want to move to bumfuck Atlanta, but the answers to all my questions had to be there. Besides, my uncle was the only person who stepped up to help me. All the other wannabes my mother associated with were nowhere around. I wanted my mother and my life back. I wanted the fairy-tale ending my mother predicted I’d have.

  The tears fell and it was like a dam breaking. Through my tears, I watched the city employee throw dirt on my mother’s box. My heart pounded as I watched in horror. Visions of bugs and shit passed before my eyes, and I felt like fainting. Her grave would be marked by a simple rock. The only thing I had left of my mother was a satin pair of Jimmy Choo shoes I had smuggled out of our home.

  “I’ll be back, Mom, I swear. I’m gonna get you an elegant marker befitting a queen, I promise.”

  Chapter Two

  RESHUNDA WYLDE

  “Dad, can I drive the car today? I have graduation practice tonight after school and I don’t want to catch the bus in the dark.” I knew the answer to the question before I asked it, but part of me wanted him to say no because it would mean he was at least paying attention to me. I didn’t care about graduation practice. In fact, I didn’t care about much since my mother died. I’d graduate because I knew I needed at least a high school diploma, but anything after that didn’t seem as important to me. I didn’t feel like celebrating, even though I knew that’s what she’d have wanted.

  “Yeah, the keys are on the counter.”

  My dad was grieving as well, but instead of leaning on me, he avoided all contact. It had been two months, and he still kept his pain inside, but it was hurting us both. My best friend Valencia was trying to keep me on point. She was the one who talked me into going to graduation practice. She said that we needed to fake it until we made it . . . or some shit like that. Although Valencia also lost her mother, her situation was a lot different from my mine. Her mother was in jail, so she could still communicate with her if she chose to. My mother, on the other hand, was dead. My dad said he hoped she was rotting in hell for all the pain she caused, but I preferred to think of her in heaven watching over me.

  “All right, I’m gone.” I didn’t expect a response from him. He didn’t talk much anymore. He loved me, I was sure of it, but I was bothered that he didn’t understand we were both grieving and needed each other now more than ever.

  Crying had become second nature, and I was tired. My mother meant the world to me, and I didn’t know how I was going to make it through life without her. To make matters worse, I was having trouble adjusting to having my cousin, Ebony, from New York living with us. Her mother was also killed. A double homicide, and to make matters worse, Valencia’s mom was the only suspect in custody. Ebony resented Valencia because of it and this presented a problem for me.

  Ebony was cool and all, but we only had a two-bedroom apartment, and I was beginning to feel like it was Ebony’s room and not mine. She wore all of my clothes and rarely lifted a finger to wash them. Dad said we didn’t have enough money to buy her some new things, said we had to make do with what we had. Humph, easy for him to say, he didn’t have someone else’s nasty ass wearing his drawers.

  I suggested family counseling, since my mother was the backbone of the family, but he claimed we’d be fine in time. I was still waiting for that to happen. I swatted away my tears as I drove the few blocks to Valencia’s apartment. She lived on the other side of the railroad tracks and it was like stepping into another world. I didn’t like getting out of the car so I called her on her cell.

  “Come on, hussy, we’re going to be late.” I pulled down the visor to inspect my face. My eyes were red, but there was nothing I could do about it now.

  “I’m coming, I just need to put out the trash.”

  She was huffing through the phone like a Hebrew slave. Put out the trash? That’s a man’s job. I thought to myself. I saw her coming around the back of the building, wiping her hands on a piece of paper.

  “Yucky-poo, don’t be putting your nasty hands on the seats,” I shouted.

  “Bitch please, ain’t nothing wrong with my damn hands. Besides, you act like this car is all that.” She got in, slamming the door and folding her arms over her ample breasts.

  I smiled. Valencia was beautiful. She was tall, slim, and light-skinned, and when she got mad, her whole face turned red. I enjoyed pushing Valencia’s buttons just to see her face change. It was comical to me.

  “I’m just sayin’, why ain’t your daddy putting out the fucking trash?” I pretended not to notice her anger as I pulled away from the curb.

  “I put the trash out myself to save the roaches the trouble of carting it out their damn selves. They leave shit all over the place when they try to carry it themselves.”

  What the hell? Was she serious? I shot her a questioning look and she caught me.

  “Oh God, don’t tell me you thought I was being serious.” Valencia was laughing so hard she rolled over on the seat.

  My cheeks heated up when I realized she was fucking with me, again. “Shit, how the hell was I supposed to know. We don’t have no roaches in our house.” I started laughing too ’cause I actually pictured roaches carting shit out under her door.

  “Girl, you’ve got to step up your game or else folks gonna be tellin’ you all kinds of shit and your dumb ass will believe it.”

  “I don’t believe everything I hear . . . I just listen more when it’s was coming from you.” We were silent for a moment. That was the closest thing to a compliment I was gonna give her so I hoped she recognized it.

  “Word.” She nodded, accepting the compliment. We pulled up in front of the school and parked.

  “What’s up for tonight? Got any plans?” I asked.

  “Not really, after practice I was just gonna go home. Why? What’s up?”

  “Ebony wants to hang out at the mall, so I told her I was going to swing by and scoop her up so we could hang.”

  “All right then,” Valencia said with a sad look on her face.

  “You can come with us.”

  “Naw, I’ll pass. You know me and your cousin don’t get down like that. Besides, I don’t have any money, and I don’t do window shopping.”

  I locked the car. I was getting tired of being caught in the middle. I felt like I had to make a choice between hanging out with my best friend or my cousin, and I hated that shit. My cousin didn’t have any friends in Atlanta, and she used it against me when there was something going on she wanted to do. We walked to our respective classes in silence. I was excited that we were down to the final weeks of school; however, it made me sad that my mother wouldn’t be around to see me graduate. She talked about the importance of having a high school diploma almost every other day. She wanted more for me than she had for herself. When I walked across the stage, I would be doing it for the both of us.

  “All right, I’ll see you at practice.”

  “Peace out.”

  Chapter Three

  EBONY QUEEN

  I was waiting for Uncle Leon to leave the house so I could do some snooping. I wanted to see if he still had my Aunt Kym’s things in his room since all the other rooms had been checked. I was hoping to find out who her Atlanta connect was. I wasn’t satisfied living in the dump my uncle called a home and I was ’bout to make things happen for me to change my situation. With any luck, he might know who killed my mother and provide me with a means to make some quick money.

  I knocked on my uncle’s door to see if he’d left the house while I was sleeping. Since I’d moved in, Leon rarely left his room except to go to work. If he ate, he took his meals in his room. “Leon, can you run to the store and get me some tampons?”

  “Huh?”

  Damn. I was disappointed that he answered. “My period, it started and I need some tampons.” I was lying my ass off, but it was the first thing that came to mind.
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  “Shit, don’t Reshunda have some?”

  “I checked in the bathroom but I didn’t see any. I’m bleeding really bad.” I snickered.

  “Aww damn, that’s entirely too much information,” Leon groaned. I knew it would get to him. Men hated to hear anything about the complications of being a woman.

  “Did Aunt Kym leave anything in the bathroom?” I prodded.

  “I threw all her shit away—ain’t none of it left in here.” He didn’t bother to open the door, and I could tell by the tone of his voice he was done with the conversation. I didn’t mean to upset my uncle, but I didn’t want to waste my time rooting around in his room for something that was not there.

  “Don’t worry about it; I’ll use some toilet paper.” I was slightly disappointed but I was not down for the count. I had one other option to make the type of money I needed to make, and that was dancing. I’d been taking dance lessons since I was three years old and those lessons were about to pay off. Though I was sure my mother wouldn’t approve of me dancing, I couldn’t think of anything else I was able to do short of selling myself on the street.

  Finding the club my mother often spoke of was easy. Finding the nerve to go in was an entirely different ball-game. According to the Internet, Cheetah was a private strip club with all white dancers. My mom said drugs flowed freely into the club and because of the clientele they weren’t hassled by the police. The ratings weren’t great but I intended to turn things around if they would have me. I grabbed the door handle and slid inside the dimly-lit club. At first, I was overwhelmed by the smell of smoke but I quickly adjusted to it. I searched for a bathroom so I could change my clothes.

  I’d taken MARTA, Atlanta’s subway downtown and had to walk over two blocks to get to the club. I expected a bouncer or someone else to stop me at the door but I assumed that since it was mid-afternoon, it wasn’t necessary to have someone sitting at the front counter. I slipped into the bathroom unnoticed. I was literally shaking as I pulled off my clothes and touched up my makeup. I was expecting someone to come in and grab me at any moment, which intensified my nervousness.