“Joe?” I ask, stepping forward.
Her dark eyes meet mine, and she shrugs. “We gave him some water out of that bottle, and some herbs to help him see the error of his ways.”
“Which bottle?” Saint asks suspiciously.
“The one that was on the table over there,” Loyal says, pointing to the table off to the side, the one where we keep our antibiotics.
“Was it a blue one with a busted lid?” Omen says, trying to contain his laughter.
“Yeah! That’s the one.”
Saint and Omen burst into fits of laughter as we stand there and watch them lose their shit.
“Ohmygod, ohmygod,” Omen hoots. “That’s the bottle Saint pissed in because he couldn’t be bothered walking outside. Aw shit.”
Loyal and Joe both look disgusted, Hitchens starts to sob and the rest of us burst into laughter with them.
“Fuck it, who cares if he’s tachycardic, fucker is gonna die soon anyway,” Switch says in his loud as shit voice.
Hitchens starts screaming again, fighting against his restraints, the tendons in his neck clearly visible as the man starts hyperventilating.
“So, what did you say were in those herbs?” Chewy asks, eyeing Joe.
“She’ll never tell you, Dayz,” Pops says, jumping down from a ladder off to the side.
“What the hell were you doing up there?” Rhodie asks, confused as hell.
“I was tormenting.” Pops says casually.
“Tormenting?”
“Hitchens. It seems his mind has gone all loosey goosey. Fucker is jumping at shadows.”
“And the herbs did it?” Rhodie frowns, looking between his woman and her grandfather. If he’s anything like me, he’ll be confused as hell. I have no idea what Joe’s herbs and Hitchens’ breakdown have to do with anything.
Pops rolls his eyes and sighs when no one gets what the hell point he’s trying to make. “It seems our sunshiney Joe has a hint of Creole voodoo in her, ain’t that right, girl?” Pops asks Joe, slinging his arm over her shoulders and giving her a squeeze as she smirks up at him. “I bet she learned from her momma, who learned from her momma, who learned fromhermomma, all sorts of fun ways to make a man lose his damn mind.”
All eyes move to Joe who shrugs, “All the herbs we use are medicinal. But we sometimes add a little bonus to them.”
“Lagniappe.” Loyal grins at her friend.
“Right, well, I mean, he’s already losing his shit, and he ain’t long for this world. We may as well expedite proceedings,” Damian says, ignoring us as we all turn to stare at him.
“Law speak, huh? Lemme guess, your momma owns a law firm?” Chef asks in a bored voice.
“No. I do.”
We gape at Damian who seems completely oblivious as he wanders around Hitchens and then jumps at him when he least expects it. The man screams and a dark patch starts to grow on the front of his jeans.
“Can we kill him yet? His screaming is pissing me off,” Blanche growls.
“Omen? You’re up,” Marx says, waving a hand at my brother.
Omen looks shocked, his gaze moving between Marx, our Prez, and Chewy.
“What? This is your place. I don’t just go around killing people willy nilly on other people’s turf.”
“Babe, that’s exactly how we met. You came onto my turf, took over the interrogation and killed a man in my shed.”
