DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Drummer Boys Got Initiated

This should probably be an explicit chapter, but I'm too tired to make the radio edit...maybe I'll do that tomorrow. So I'm just giving an explicit warning here for now. It's hot. And violent.

The song, Hot Girl Bummer...love it. Perfect for the way Bodie is feeling at the end of his initiation. About Jasmine and the crew. He's just gotten in and he' s already through.

Bodie, a little more than twelve years ago

I ain't ever looked over my shoulder in my own hood. TJ and I have been like brothers since we were five years old, and that made me a friend of the Sixers. Nobody in this hood crosses people that Daemon Turner considers family.

But the last few days, I've tensed every time I hear rough voices coming up behind me.

TJ got jumped in last week. He limped around the next day to show me his new gang tat on his neck—the Letters MOB with the number six inscribed inside the O. He said the beating wasn't that bad, they plied him with liquor and weed afterward, and took him straight to the tat parlor.

But he is the gang leader's brother, so he might have mostly gotten a pass on his initiation. I'm not sure if I can expect the same treatment. I know mine is coming any day, and I know Dae likes to make it a surprise to see how a brother reacts under pressure, so I'm kinda tense right now. I've been in my share of fights, but the point of a jumping in isn't to fight back. It's to take it like a man.

I relax when I realize the voices behind me belong to my little punk neighbor from across the street and his friends. I pull out my key as I take my porch steps three at a time and unlock the door beneath the pale porch light. It's a Saturday night—I just finished unloading the day's product, but I'm still home before my mama. She has a good part-time gig waiting tables at a high end restaurant in mid-town...the kind of place where people buy bottles for the table and the bill runs up quick...and so does the tip. She makes a lot a cash for two shifts on the weekends, but she closes on Saturday nights and never gets home before 1am.

It's not even eleven yet. I have time to grab a shower before I head to the stash house to turn in my take. I kinda dread doing it, because every damn time I finish a week all sold out, Daemon gives me more to sell the next week. It's not cool to come back on Saturday's with too much product in hand, but it's getting harder and harder to get to class, work my cover job as a landscaper, and run around all over North Atlanta servicing all my customers. Something's gonna have to give. Definitely no more marching band for me in the fall. Maybe no more school period.

I didn't want to check my burner on the street in case I was about to get jumped, but I've gotten a bunch of texts between the train and here. Three cold texts from unknown numbers who have crazy fucking convoluted gamer slang, but they all mean the same thing—asking for a sack of weed. I laugh at their white boy paranoia and text back,

Mission Failed.

Try another brother.

I go careful-like, but dealing is just business. I ain't got no time for spy-games and anonymous drops and shit. I tell all my customers if they want to pass my number on, they need to let me know, and I need a call from the new prospective client, not a text. This ain't no on-line, automated pharmacy. I need to get a feel for a dude.

However, once they are established, a buyer can ask me straight out for what they want by text. No worries about being blunt, my burner phone is prepaid and not attached to me at all.

I scan down my texts. There's another from an established client who knows the drill.

Stoner: