Mekense & Malik

Mekense five years earlier...

The music blurred my vision.

Cigarette smoke caged my lungs and I wasn't even the one smoking it. My best friend, Joy, was no longer at my side but at the back of the club flirting with the guntas that caught her attention. Unlike my friend I didn't come to the club to party, flirt or even do drugs, I was there for my idiot brother who had been MIA for weeks. 

He wasn't missing, but blackout drunk and being taken advantage of by some strippers trying to make it in New Rack. I didn't blame the girls, New Rack was never one to be kind to the females of their world but taking money from my brother meant taking money from me. 

New Rack was essentially an island that the government shipped drugies and drug dealers to for the safety of the 'sane people' of the world. There was an island for every crime a person committed, such as murder which was north of New Rack. I had only ever heard stories of the murder island and they all consist of a crazy person killing another. The islands were created back in the early 2000 but the government told no one.

Very early in the stages of building New Rack my mom was convicted of drug use at the age of sixteen and had a twenty-year sentence. My dad was already in New Rack serving a life sentence for being the cause of 20 person overdose on coke. They both met on Rack and quickly had my brother and then me. The government never cared about us kids and the public was lead to believe that all the men were balls-less, they kept us on New Rack to control population growth back on the mainland. 

I wanted to get away from New Rack but my brother wanted nothing more than to stay in Rack. A nineteen-year-old girl trying to be sobber had no place at Rack where drug and crime was the law. The schools in New Rack was the best in the world to keep us quiet but after high school, we were left high and dry in the drug industry. Education in New Rack wasn't number one priority so there would only be five students in the entire school.

Music boomed through the speakers as people lost themselves in drugs and alcohol.

If there was anywhere my brother would be it would be here in rack city club. I forced and pushed my way to the DJ booth, surprised no one felt the gun in my Gucci bag pushing against them. I banged on the glass wall that separated me from the DJ and watched as he turned to me smile. He pressed the autoplay button and pointed to the door on the side of the box. I walked to the door and he opened it for me, I walked in and pulled down the hem of my crop top.

The DJ was one of my brother's many dealers hence the bulletproof glass box he put himself in if a shootout ever happened at the club it was because of the DJ. The DJ was a white man which was rare with my brother's sellers, not because we were racist or anything it was simply because drugies don't respect white dealers and we couldn't be having our dealers dying because of stupid drugies.

"Jason," DJ boy said before I said anything. He stretched his hand out for me to shake, I looked at his hand then back up at him. I wasn't in the mood for anyone's way of trying to get to know me, I was already late for a meeting with a special drug dealer. 

"I didn't really ask you for your name, do you know where my brother is?" I asked.

"And your brother is Karim?" I nodded, "In the back with the strippers."

I opened the door and was about to exit the booth when a hand came down on my wrist and pulled me back into the booth. I turned alarmed.

"What's your name shorty?" Jason asked.

I stared at him for a minute before pulling my hand away and walking out of the booth. I made my way to the back of the club at the VIP section which was also called 'the back'. My name was most likely permanently in the VIP clipboards of every club thanks to my father. When I walked up to the bouncer he only watched me up and down before stepping out of the way allowing me to walk into the VIP section.

Almost immediately I was surrounded by strippers and prostitutes, the kind of girls my brother loved; slim waist, thick thighs and a big booty. The girls were glued to me as I walked down the hall looking for my brother. The room was lite red thanks to the red light bulbs and walls that were painted white to highlight the colour. Love chairs were everywhere in the room only a few feet away from each other.

Further down the hall were rooms.

I wasn't going to scar myself and go into every single room looking for my brother. Girls were touching me all over my body and it was only because they were girls that I didn't sock them in the face. I was never against the girls and they work they did, they had a job that was highly respected in New Rack, a job that took girls years of experience to get.

I held one of the girl's by the arm and pulled her forward. "Do you know where Karim is?" I asked the very scared girl.

"Second room to the left." She said as she pulled away from me.

I followed the girl's direction and found my brother on the ground surrounded by six nude girls and five dressed in lingerie, I had time to count them. His right-hand man, Trey, sat on a couch looking down at the girls and my brother as they slept, he didn't even look up at me when I walked in. In his hand was a knife, hand carved for him to protect himself and my brother.

"You should move him, Mekense," Trey said without looking at me.

"Trey." He said as he finally looked up and pointed at my brother. I blinked taken aback that he actually knew my name, I was speechless for a minute thinking of a sarcastic reply but I didn't come up with one.

"I know," was my response as I walked to my brother in the middle of the sleeping girls. I kneeled down and started pulling on my brother's arm to wake him up, he stirred a little bit then opened one eye.

"Mickey," my brother sleepily groaned. I gave him a two-second smile before getting off my knees and putting my hands on my hip. I felt Trey's eyes on me but I didn't look up. Trey had an effect on girls that made them pretty stupid, at first I thought it was only me but I saw him use his looks on Joy and was heavily relieved.

"Dad sent me for you," I pulled my phone from my back pocket and checked the time, "Said he wants you home by twelve or your not getting a cut in the deal that was going down tonight," I said.

Karim flew up from the ground in all his naked glory and looked at me alarmed, "That's tonight!" He shouted. I turned to Trey and pointed at my brother.

"Have him home before twelve," I grumbled. I should have looked away as soon as I said that but I kept staring at Trey, I admired his blue eyes that always seemed odd with his chocolate skin and loose curls on his head. Trey reminded me of an uptown Bryson Tiller without the good music and daughter.

I finally looked away and started heading towards the exit when I heard Trey called my name, "You single? I mean I could take you out for some tacos or something," Trey chuckled. I turned and watched him carefully, most of Karim friends were lying manipulating thieves with nothing but money on their mind, but at that moment in the back of a club under red lighting, Trey seemed different.

"Deliver my brother to me at twelve and we'll see."