Playing With Wolves

Twelve: How the Long Night Starts

"Daaaaaamn, Toby. You must be puttin' it down on your new girl for her to be buying you gold like that. 'Cause I know it ain't from your grandmother."

Why do I have friends with big mouths?

I knew wearing this chain, even with it tucked under my hoodie, would give me attention I didn't need. I had to unzip my jacket for two seconds— TWO SECONDS—and that was all Charles needed to see a piece of gold peeking out from my collar. I tried to take it off and leave it home, I really did, but every time I do, weird shit happens.

When I noticed it was on me the night I found it, I took it right off— because that was some trippy shit.

But when I laid back in my bed to try to go to sleep, my body felt like it was on fire. I blinked and my whole body was covered in sweat. I was rubbing ice on myself all night and didn't get any sleep. By the time my alarm went off, I was annoyed, drained, and still sweaty. I put my hand on my nightstand to balance myself as I got out of bed, and I guess it touched the necklace. The moment it did, my body cooled down and it felt like nothing happened.

I moved my hand on and off that thing like 58 times to see if what I thought was happening was actually happening.

And it freaking was.

So, I've been wearing it all week. I don't even take it off to shower. I ain't trying to risk it. Dealing with my nosy ass friends is more tolerable than risking what would happen to my body if I wasn't wearing this chain.

"Leave it alone, Charles. I don't wanna talk about it."

"And why not?!" He kept pressing me. "Is she ugly?"

"Charles, I said drop it. Okay? There is no girl. I ain't sleeping with anybody and I don't want to talk about or hear about this chain no more. Got it?" I shoved my hands into my pockets and stared straight ahead at the park's entrance, ignoring the looks Charles, Tima, and Ric were giving me.

"Aight then, damn. Be like that." Charles mumbled and we all went back to waiting silently on Alo— and it seems like we've been doing this more and more every week.

He called us out of the blue almost an hour ago that we all needed to meet him at the park tonight at 11:30. It's about to hit 12 o'clock and there's no sign of him.

"Y'all know what he call us for this time?" Tima asked.

"Hopefully some more cash." Ric said. "I blew through that last envelope."

We all turned our heads to look at him. Out of all of us, me and Ric were the sensible ones when it came to money, whenever we were able to get our hands on it, at least. It didn't sound like him to blow through two grand.

"Bruh," Charles said. "You came to the mall with me that day and ain't spend shit. What did you blow two grand on?"

Ric shrugged. "My paychecks been going to Ma, so I really haven't been able to spend money on myself. I guess I kinda just snapped and ordered a whole bunch of shit."

Tima and Charles kept asking him questions, but he really wasn't giving any specific answers, and he's not going to. The one thing Ric and I have in common is that we like to be quiet. We don't like people in our business and when they go snooping, instead of being loud and aggressive like Alo and Charles, we'd rather just silence our way out of confrontation. Now that I think about it, I haven't talked to Ric like I have Alo and Charles. And my boy don't look like himself.

A loud whistle came from the park entrance, and we turned around to see Alo walking up.

"What's the deal, Alo?" Charles asked as soon as he walked up to us. "You got us out here in the cold again waiting on you. There better be another envelope waiting for us."