Yeah, nigga. I see you.
"Fuck you done got yourself into, lil' nigga?" he asked, his voice carrying a mix of amusement and concern as he looked at the bandage on my head.
Synthia lifted her head and spoke before I could. "Your stupid ass brother shot himself! Is this regular behavior?"
Roxx didn't even blink. "I guess you could say that, but he used to do a lot of stupid ass shit when we were younger. He used to give our mama hell, thinking he'd die from doing stupid shit all the time. He ain't never been afraid of a dare either."
Synthia pursed her lips and put her hands on her hips. "Hmph. He's going to need stitches, right?"
Roxx stood aside so we could walk ahead of him toward the entrance to his dungeon. "I ain't a damn doctor, but I doubt it."
The door to the dungeon was adjacent to his home entryway. From the outside, it looked like a normal door—nothing special. But if anyone got curious and tried to open it, they'd be met with a metal door and a combination lock on the other side. Only a few people knew the code: me, Roxx, and our parents. Reese wouldn't get it until he was released from prison. He had no use for it now.
It was a safety measure. If shit went haywire—if the feds came knocking, if rival niggas tried to run up—the dungeon became a fortress. Roxx had stocked it with medical supplies,weapons, food, water. Everything you'd need to survive for weeks if necessary.
I wasn't against having a dungeon. It made sense, logically. But to me, it always felt unnecessary—until Roxx proved that it wasn't.
Like now.
Roxx punched in the code, and the metal door clicked open. We stepped inside, and I heard it lock behind us automatically.
The room was sterile—white walls, white floors, fluorescent lights that made everything look too bright. In the far corner sat a hospital bed, and next to it, a woman in scrubs. The doctor.
Synthia's eyes grew wide, taking everything in. She looked like she'd stepped into a sci-fi movie.
"What the fuck is this place?" she whispered.
"Somewhere safe," I said simply.
The doctor stood and walked over to us, her expression professional and detached. She'd seen worse than a grazed forehead, I'm sure.
"Let me take a look," she said, gesturing for me to sit on the bed.
I obeyed, and Synthia hovered nearby, her arms crossed over her chest. She started firing off questions—asking about infection, scarring, whether I needed antibiotics. The doctor answered each one patiently while cleaning the wound and applying gauze.
"You won't need stitches," the doctor finally said. "Just keep it clean and dry. Change the bandage daily."
"See?" I looked at Synthia. "Told you I'd be fine."
She rolled her eyes. "You're still psychotic."
Roxx had disappeared by then—probably back upstairs. That nigga wasn't a babysitter, and he didn't feel the need to linger.
Once the doctor finished, I stood, and Synthia and I made our way back through the metal door. Roxx buzzed us out, and we stepped into the cool night air again.
"Long as you don't talk about leaving me, it won't happen again," I said as we walked toward the car.
Synthia stopped in her tracks. "Have you always been this crazy?"
I stopped too, turning to face her. "Have you ever taken food from a lion?"
She scoffed and shook her head. "Is that even possible?"
"Would you try it?"
"I think between the two of us, you'd be the one to try some crazy shit like that." She paused, her brow furrowing. "Trecee never mentioned this side of you at all."
"I don't care about her like that."
