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CHAPTER15
Onyx
“You sure you’vegotta do this alone?” Blue asked from his perched position near the bikes.
I stopped walking to consider his words.
I’d let a day pass since the attack onBottomsonly because I had to; I needed the dark of night to obscure my approach. With everything that had happened though, I wasn’t even surprised to find Blue out here, beer in hand, alone.
He probably needed the quiet.
“Yeah,” I told him. “I do.”
I didn’t have to ask how he knew—it was just… one of those things.
“What about what Alicia said?” he countered. “About needing to have somebody with you?”
I shook my head. “It’s a chance I’ve gotta take. I don’t want any of y’all dying because you got involved. Anymoreof y’all.”
No one had said anything like that to me, but I didn’t need any help feeling guilty about it. ThePredatorshad suffered casualties because ofmybullshit.
“It’s our fight too,” Blue reminded me. “You’re not the only one with beef with Renard. Especially now. I can get ten shooters ready to roll with you,right now.”
“I’m the only one he decided to send a message to though,” I said. “I’m the only one with threats getting made against the people they…” I shook my head. “Yeah.” I nodded. “I’m sure I’ve got to do this alone.”
“Against people theywhat?” he challenged with a grin, then took another swig from his beer. “You know you can say it, right?”
I scoffed. “I’m not so sure.”
“Well… I say you can. Should. When you come back for her.”
“If.”
“When,” he challenged, standing up. “It’ll kill her if you don’t.”
“Theywill kill her if I don’t go,” I countered. “And we can’t just run, can’t just live looking over our shoulders. I have to end this shit, in a way that once it’s done,it’s done. Completely. Not some more shit that… picks up another thirty years from now.”
Blue chuckled. “I definitely hear that. ThisGardenshit… it’s truly,truly…fucked.”
“That’s an understatement.”
He blew out a sigh. “I don’t think I really understood what y’all meant about the ‘activated states’ and ‘hypnosis’ and all of that until Tati explained what happened atBottoms. I thought shit like this was just in movies.”
I nodded. “Truth is usually stranger than fiction. And definitely way more messed up.”
“Yeah… it seems that way,” he agreed. “You talked to Teo and Retta?” he asked. “Did you see what they could do for you?”
I held up the duffle bag loaded with the spoils of my visits with both of them.
He nodded. “Good. Let me give you this last thing then,” he said, approaching me. “You… were right. What you said about me, the other day, about me not knowing how to cope with this, what to make of it… you were right. Idon’tknow,” he admitted. “But what I do know is, one way or another is … you’re my brother. And not just blood—ink too. And I believe, anybody with this blood, and this ink, has gotta be anabout that actionkind of motherfucker, so… end this shit,” he said, looking me right in the face. “End it and then bring your ass back here, ’cause we’ve lost enough. Me and Tati,we’ve lost enough.Our members, our fathers, we lost Tali,” he said. “We can’t lose anybody else. You say you’ve got to do this on your own—I respect that. But you come back after.”
I nodded over his words, but then thought about it for a second and chuckled. “That’swhat you wanted to give me, nigga? Really?”
He laughed a bit too.
“Nah, what I’m giving you is my insurance that if by some chance, youdon’tend this shit tonight? You can rest assured, that motherfucker will never get his hands on Tati. ’Cause if you don’t end it… I will.”
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