Nyla

Nyla POV

  "Nyla GET YOUR BEHIND UP OUTTA THIS BED!!!" Nyla Murry's mom's voice yelled over top of her head.

Her voice was the only one to be heard at 6 in the morning, throughout the dingy walls of their barely standing apartment building. They stayed in the slumps of Harlem, New York. The only people up at this time of night was infants and crackheads, her mother including one of them. WAP! She smacked Nyla right in her face before she could sit up straight on the rough padded twin bed.

"GO GET MY LOVE MEDICINE!" Nyla's mother screamed.

Nyla could laugh aloud at the words she used. "Love Medicine," it was everything but. She knew better than to laugh in her face, she'd only get another slap to the face, or worse burned with an iron. 12 year old Nyla got up without a word and rushed to her dresser to put on her dull gray sweatpants and an oversized t shirt.

"YOU ALREADY HAVE ON CLOTHES! STOP PUTTING ON EXTRA AND GO GET MY LOVE MEDICINE YOU DUMMY!" her mother yelled.

Nyla ignored her at that point. She always wore extra set of clothes. She had her reasons, reasons no one knew of except her best friend Jules and her mother. When Nyla had her shoes on, she took the money out of her mother's boney hands and rushed out the door of the cramped apartment and sprinted down the street. She knew better than to be lollygagging at the crack of dawn where the robbers and killers were waiting and itching for a victim like a hunter on the first day of hunter season. The guys around her neighborhood seem to be hunters, savages at night to midnight. They were like people off the movie Purge. They didn't care if they'd watched you grow all your life or if your mother even wiped their butts when they were babies, if you were out late at night you were a target. The only thing that kept Nyla safe while she was running down this street was the fact she knew Sloan Killer Mitchell. Sloan Killer Mitchell was one of the most notorious kingpins over Harlem. His names got safes unlocked, caused funerals and most of all earned respect. Every nigga feared him and respected him, he was a coldhearted bastard to everyone. He even had policemen on his payroll. One thing everyone knew was not to mess with his money, his family or his Nyla. Rumor had it that he'd killed his best friend over some money, he'd emptied a whole clip on him. Yet, Nyla was treated like his daughter though he didn't have one. No one knew why Sloan loved Nyla so much. Nyla didn't even know, she just figured because she was best friends with his son that he was nice to her but there were times when Jules would even be weirded out by how nice his father was to her being so he wasn't to him. He was strict with Jules being that he wanted him to run his empire after him. Jules was in fact his only son, so he had a constant burden on him to walk, talk and act like a kingpin at only 13 years of age. He was being groomed, is what Sloan called it. Everyone already treated Jules like some kind of royalty but in Nyla's eyes, he were just Jules, her crazy best friend. Nyla reached the rusty red trap house door panting, only a little. She'd done this every day since she were 7, after her father passed. She knocked on the door twice, a code you weren't the law.

"Password?" The deep familiar voice that went by the name of Bug, asked.

"Ain't-none. I need a baggie," her child-like voice said.

The door cracked open and they swapped the cash and drugs with one quick handshake.

"Be safe," he said.

"You too," she said turning, and sprinting right back up the street.

In Harlem, they never said "bye," or "see you soon," They said "Be safe," cause you never knew what day was your last. Nyla vowed the day she left for college, she'd never look back. She'd often daydream about going off to college, becoming a doctor, retiring and living out in the Bahamas for the rest of her life. She wanted to get away from this place faster than a white couple passing two black guys on a dark vacant night. She craved to live in luxury, also to have her mother get clean and go to rehab and be her old normal self again. She wasn't always mean and a junkie. She only became that way after her father had passed. Nyla tried not to tear up thinking of her father. When her father were alive everything had been so simple and perfect. They lived in Manhattan, her father was a businessman with a nice job was what she remembered. He wore the most expensive suits, they had the most amazing condo, she had her own big room, with a queen sized bed and a 70 inch flat screen TV. Her mother was the sweetest mother and most amazing housewife. Her family was only what you'd see off a TV screen. Her father would go to work around 6 in the morning, kiss her forehead before he left and her mother would wake her later in the day around 9 with breakfast already made. They'd say grace, they'd talk about everything, laugh and play until she'd have to get dressed for school. Her mother would bath her, clothe her and do her long, soft, jet black hair into ponytails and drive her to school in her Benz. After school, her mother would pick her up, they'd go home. She'd take a bath while her mother were preparing dinner. After she were in her PJs, she'd rushed downstairs and jump into her father's arms who, on que, would be just getting home. He'd kiss all over her face and tell her he loved her over and over until she stopped giggling and said it back. He'd put her down and kiss her mother and make her giggle like a school girl. Her parents were so in love back then. Her father would take a shower then put on his night clothes while she'd help her mother set the table. After he got out the shower, everything would be prepared and they'd say grace. They'd eat, laugh and talk of about their day to one another. After dinner, her mother would clean the kitchen while her father were reading her a bedtime story. His deep smooth voice would send her right to sleep. That was the same routine up until she turned 7 years old. A routine she never got tired of, a routine she cherished and longed for to this day. Their family were once upon of time perfect, up until one day, her father didn't come home.  Her life shattered in pieces when her father's best friend Moon showed up to the door and her mother fell to the floor shaking and trembling, weeping and screaming beating Moon's chest all while praying to God it was all a dream. Nyla's father was there everything. She didn't realize how much they depended on him and needed him until the police took the house and all their money, which was what her mom told her. Her mom, who was only a housewife, with only a high school diploma, settled for this slump apartment in Harlem with the left over money her father had in a safe. She managed to feed, bathe and clothe Nyla, but only for a couple months before she met Able, her crackhead boyfriend of 4 years, who got her hooked and she'd never been the same since. Nyla entered the house and her mother snatched the drugs and ran into her room and locked the door. Nyla wouldn't see her for another 3 days