Trap Queen.

16♛

                                                           C H A P T E R - 1 6  ▼

      Now, I was kind of confused. Who was Desean talking about? I wanted to give it the benefit of the doubt, but Serena was the first one who popped in my head. I don’t know why, but it just felt like God was trying to tell me or give me a hint.

      “Who?” I ask. A.J. and Desean turn their attention to me.

         “Aye, aye, I can’t tell you none of that yet. That would make the snitch also. But aye, watch your back. Snakes are everywhere these days. But I mean, who can you trust in 2014? People got different definitions of friendship.” Desean kind of talks to he’s known me for years. It’s like, he genuinely almost cares.

      “Well, D, that’s all I came over for. I’ll catch you later. Might call you or text you or something.” I follow A.J. out of the house and back into his car. Now I was extremely suspicious of everything. Anybody could be turned against me. Anyone.

      I put on my seatbelt and Serena was dead asleep. Rah is wide awake, but he doesn’t say anything. A.J. pulls out of the driveway, and we begin to head back to Compton. I look outside the window, but I don’t see a future. I can’t see myself staying in a place like this forever. It isn’t my home. Riverdale is. I adapted to the ways of Compton, but to me, Riverdale is the only place I call home because I felt safe. Here, I feel like if you got the wrong connections you could die today.

      “Egypt?” A.J. asks.

      “Yeah?”

      “Do you stay strapped?” A.J. inquires. I kind of laugh.

          “Hell no. My mom would beat my ass if she knew I even had a gun in my possession.” I laugh a little more.

        “You lucky to have parents that actually care about you,” A.J. says. I can tell that not having two parents that he actually wanted made him feel some type of way. “I wish I had that.”

       “Well, sometimes it’s more of a curse than a blessing. But aye, you got friends that care about you, and that’s all you really need. They don’t have to be blood to feel like family,” I say, smiling. The feeling that I could make A.J. feel better made me feel better too.

      “Thanks, E.”

      When we get back to Compton, I’m more than excited. I can’t wait to get back to my own house, in my bed, and go to sleep. I needed sleep so badly—today was a crazy day already. I wanted to wake up, start a new day, and hopefully everything would be okay tomorrow.

       As we pull into our driveway, I notice something strange. The windows in our house are busted, and the lights are out, and they’re usually always turned on. I furrow my eyebrows, and look at A.J. “What happened?” I ask him, and he doesn’t seem to have an answer.

      Fuck. 

      Without waking Serena up, I get up from the car to go inside to investigate. I slowly approach my front door, barely walking—more like scraping my feet on the concrete. I turn the doorknob, and it’s unlocked. I shut on the lights, and there’s a note written on the wall:

      YOU TOOK ONE OF OURS, SO WE TAKE ONE OF YOURS

        My heart rate speeds up. I began running all around the house, tears streaming down my face. I refused to believe that they did anything to hurt my momma. “Momma?!” I scream, searching all over for her. My voice cracks, and my throat begins to get hot.

       As I walk to the backroom, I see bloody footprints leading there. “No. . . God please, no. . .” The door is already cracked as I walked into momma’s room.

       And there she is, laying in cold blood.

       Her feet were bound together by rope. Her mouth was duct taped, and there were stab marks and cuts all through her arms. She’s in her underclothes, so I know that they didn’t kill her with the quickness. I knew she could’ve been tortured. She had to have been. 

      I don’t know what to do or say, so I just sit there and scream. I scream and don’t do anything else, and maybe someone would come into the room to see what the hell was wrong with me.

       I just lost my momma.