The door slammed shut, and Rose strolled up to the store entrance to go inside. When he stepped in and looked around, shit was off. He’d been to the store many times, and the Korean behind the counter always talked shit to him as soon as he entered. Today, shit felt vacant. Rose walked up to the counter, but there was no one there. He was pretty tall for a ten-year old, so he placed his hands on the counter and used his arm strength to lift himself up and peer behind it. The Korean was on the floor staring back at him with lifeless eyes.
“Shit!” Rose hissed, immediately putting his feet back on the floor.
The sound of something hitting the floor near the back grabbed his attention, and he spun around only to see a little hand slip down to the floor and into the side aisle near the door. He pressed his back against the row of candy bars behind him and craned his neck, taking baby steps closer. When Rose reached the end of the aisle, his heart dropped. He wasn’t new to violence; he was raised up in that shit, but the sight in front of him made his stomach flip.
He knew Mickey from being in the same class as her, and everybody knew Minka was her baby sister. Both hands falling on his head, Rose’s eyes darted around. In that moment, he was just a kid, not the little hustler everybody knew from around the way. He ran as fast as his little feet would carry him, back outside to Finn’s whip still running.
“The fuck is wrong with you?” Finn’s brows pinched as he peeped how shaken up his little homie seemed to be.
Sirens wailed in the distance and Finn now knew that the popping sounds he heard coming down the street weren’t just somebody’s ride backfiring.
“That nigga killed the Korean, and it’s two little girls in there shot too,” Rose explained, panting wildly.
“Shit!” Finn ran his hand down his face. “Did you recognize ’em?” He pulled away from the curb and hit the block.
“Yeah, it was that little girl Mickey and her sister Minka,” Rose told him.
“Fuck, those are Max’s daughters. Shit.” He punched the steering wheel and grabbed his prepaid cell from the cup holder in the center of his car.
He went a block over and parked so that he could watch the store when the cops rolled up. The last thing he needed was his name on paperwork, Rose either. They weren’t witness to shit!Finn dialed Max’s number. His phone rang a couple of times before a bunch of noise filled the airwaves and his rough voice came over the line. He had to be in the middle of some shit with all the loud niggas talking in the background.
“What’s good, youngin?” Max greeted him, sounding like he was smoking something.
“Yo’, Max, we just rolled up to the Korean’s on 3rd. You might wanna get over here,” Finn relayed over the phone.
“Aye, turn that shit down!” Max hollered to somebody in the background, and immediately, shit went dead silent. “What you talkin’ ’bout, kid?”
“I was up here to get some blunts, and somebody fired shots. Javon’s smoked-out ass was running away when I pulled up. I sent Rose in to grab our shit, and he came back out and said your girls were in the store.”
“Say less. I’m on the way.” The line went dead, and Finn’s gaze drifted over to Rose.
He was still a little spooked by seeing them in there laid out like that, and he fidgeted beside Finn.
“Aye, you did good. Max is going to handle this shit,” Finn assured him.
The two were an odd dynamic. Finn was fourteen years old, but he had looked out for Rose all these years. His parents were both fucked up out here, addicts and alcoholics with no regard for their son’s life. His moms was smoked out, and his dad ran off when he was five years old. His mother had a boyfriend every year until she met Sherman’s bum ass. Rose didn’t even get what the point was of their relationship.
All they did was get high. When he was home, they were always drunk, fighting and tearing the fucking house up with their other junkie friends. Rose hated going home, often locking himself inside his room. Posted on the corner, they watchedeverything unfold. Cops, paramedics, detectives and a forensics unit were all on the scene.
Max shut down everything when he arrived with his crew. Everybody knew them, and knew that they were clipped up at all times. The cops around these parts hated Max and his team for everything they stood for. What he learned was that nobody cared about the people where he lived. Thrown scraps from the world, lived in dilapidated housing most of the time, motherfuckers thought they were supposed to be okay with living like that. Max wasn’t having it. He paid the crackheads or the homeless on the street to keep shit clean around the block and make sure so much as a candy wrapper wasn’t blowing in the wind.
He and his crew were like some new age Black Panthers. There were plenty of occasions when someone in the community had been wronged, and Max made sure that shit was set right, even if he had to drag them out of their own fucking house. He made an example of plenty of niggas, so they knew not to test him. He was alpha male, a man’s man, and he lived by a certain code that these little young ones coming up behind him couldn’t even grasp. Finn and Rose were both the last of a dying breed. Max was a town legend, so to them, he was the blueprint. When Max’s wife, Mila, showed up on the scene, shit was a wrap. The sound of that woman’s voice and her high-pitched wails when she realized both of her children had been gunned down was enough to make anybody cringe.
“This is so fucked up.” Finn ran his hand down his face and shook his head.
Rose just stared on, shaking his head as they wheeled the bodies out one by one. The Korean, then Mickey. The last one that was wheeled out was little Minka, but she wasn’t in a black bag like the other two.
“My baby… oh my God, is she alive?” Her mother sniffled and wiped away her tears.
Max was right at her side, staring down at his baby girl with concern all over his face.
“The bullet grazed her head, but she should be fine. I think she passed out because of shock,” one of the paramedics said to her.
Gratitude filled Mila Ward in that moment, and she draped her body over her child.
“I love you, Minx. Mama is here, baby. I’m coming with you to the hospital.” The medic nodded and continued with the girl to the ambulance.
Mila turned to her estranged husband. Separated recently because she was fed up with Max and his lifestyle, she was grateful to have him in this moment. She always felt things would blow back on her and their kids. He put more time into the streets than he did at home with them. When they loaded Mickey into the back of the coroner’s van, she had to cover her mouth to stifle her sobs. Max pulled her into his arms, holding her close and kissing the top of her head. Mila wept until her chest ached. She grabbed both of his arms and brought her gaze to meet his.
