“What are you doing here?” I ask him cautiously.
“Let’s go.”
He takes a couple of steps towards me but I push him off so he can’t grab me. “I’m not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on!” I yell at him, my frustration has hit a whole new ceiling.
Roman’s fingers wrap around my arm and he drags me out of the school. He throws me on the back of his bike without another word to me and without listening to a single one of my protests about treated this way. I should have known I couldn’t question him like that in front of a civilian.
We rode in silence for a few moments until we pulled down the street where my mom and I live. The street is blocked off by tape, police cars and ambulances. Roman stops the bike right outside of the tape to let me off.
“What is going on?” I yell fearing the worse. There has to be a reason why I was dragged out of school to come see this, right? I didn’t get dragged out of school to play hooky.
My mom wouldn’t allow me to do that.
There’s no way.
I hop off the bike and begin running towards a gurney they are zipping up in a black body bag. “Excuse me! I’m looking for mom. She lives in this house,” I point to the house behind me.
I see a whole bunch of people surrounding us and all I see are a sea of blank faces. Not one of them give me any answers as to what happened to my mom.
The EMT is shifting on his feet as he looks through me to get the officer’s attention. “The daughter is here,” he calls over to the officer.
I turn to look to see who he’s talking to. My eyes meet a tired police officer who looks to be about fifty years old and he’s been in the field a long time. He walks over to me with a sad smile on his face. “Are you Bella?”
“Yes.”
“I’m so sorry. There was an accident outside of your house and your mom was shot.”
My head slams back. “What kind of accident are you talking about?” I bark.
He looks tiredly at the EMT guy and he leaves for us to be alone. “There was a shoot out in front of your house. Unfortunately, your mom was caught up in it.”
“I don’t understand.” There’s no way my mom would have walked into the middle of a gun fight to go to her car. Why the hell would she have done that? There has to be more to the story than I’m being told.
“We have the man who shot your mom in custody right now. He’s being questioned. Your dad is on his way to come pick you up. I’m so sorry, Bella.”
At that point, he leaves me standing in the middle of the street with my knees giving out. I watch as they wheel my mother’s body into the car to take her to morgue. Everything that’s happening around me seems like I’m watching a movie. Nothing is computing in my brain.
Beast
Since the little asshole isn’t dying, I’m not doing too much to stop the blood. He’s claiming he’s dying but he doesn’t know the first thing about death. Death isn’t something you joke around with and this prick will know first hand he’s dying when I take his life.
“Yo, Beast! You in here?” Prince calls from the front door.
“Yeah, man. Come quick.”
I can hear him grunting about coming all the way over here and then me making him walk to me. Oh well. Even though he’s the acting president, I’m not going to bend over backwards to kiss his ass. I’m not the ass kissing type.
“What the fuck is going on?”
“Well,” I begin while pointing at Beto’s bleeding body, “he made a deal with Roman’s crew.”
Prince snarls at Beto then kicks him in the gut. “Fuckin’ asshole!”
I point over to the table that’s filled with his coke. “He’s also started sellin’ the shit too.”
He kicks him again and Beto howls out. “I’m so sorry! Please help me!”
Prince and I look over at the coke and then down at him together. “You want our help?” Prince asks. “If you want our help, you belong to the Diablos. Do you understand?”
