Memphis Streets 4: Skeletons

Chapter 12- Lucifer

He's alive.

I'm scared to go to sleep, afraid that I'll wake up to an empty bed, like this is all a crazy dream. I can take a lot of shit, but I won't be able to take that. I lost him once—I can't do that shit again. Mason must feel the same way because after a long session of lovemaking he's lying beside me and staring into my eyes.

Only Mason knows how to transform me from a stone-cold killer to a passionate woman. I'm his bitch. I'm his woman. I'm his everything. I wouldn't have it any other way.

Dawn comes too soon. At any moment, the real world outside my window will intrude. There's so much to tell him—so much has happened since his "death" that I don't know where to start. The wars, the infighting—the deaths.

"Whassup, Leah?" He brushes a kiss against my lips. "What's got you thinking so hard?"

"Bishop," I whisper, my voice shaky as fuck. "He's dead." Mason stiffens.

He waits as if expecting a punch line; but after reading the truth in my face, he bounces out of the bed with an explosive,

"FUUUCCCKKKK!" When that isn't enough, he grabs my lamp from the nightstand and launches it toward the wall.

CRASH!

He looks around for something else to break, but then forces himself to stop. He stands next to the bed, huffing out his rage and pain. He and Bishop were like brothers. I know the news of his death is ripping a hole in his heart.

"WHO?!"

"The Grape Street Crips." He twists around, his face incredulous. "Those crooked-walking muthafuckas came hard at us like that? Where the fuck did they get the balls?"

"The shit took us by surprise."

"Nah. Nah. Those niggas were on the come-up 'cause they thought the king had fallen. They tested your skirts—"

"And they're all gonna feel my blade for that shit," I shout back. He's making it sound like I couldn't handle the job.

"Bishop fucked up and let the wrong bitches get too close to him at Da Club. It was a setup to jack him and his boys' poker game, and the shit must have went to the left."

"A couple of bitches took my man out?"

"The hardest lesson for y'all niggas to learn is to trust no bitch," I tell him. "There were six muthafuckas involved. Five Crippettes and a getaway nigga that I sliced up last night." Mason cocks a brow.

"You put in work last night, Leah?"

"And I will every night until I cut the head off their leader—that fuckin' double-flaggin' snake, Shariffa."

"Why do I know that name?"

"She's one of Snake's ex-wifeys."

"So she's a Queen G?"

"No. She was kicked off her throne a while back so she slithered over to the Grapes and locked down their chief."

"That takes talent. I didn't know Lynch's ass was into recycling." Mason sneers, shaking his head. "The whole damn world has gone crazy."

"Crazy or not, I'm gutting every one of those bitches—nice and slow." My anger has me simmering again. "That Crunk nigga I sliced up sang like a bird. Lynch's chick got the wrong understanding on who runs these streets. I'm fuckin' duty bound to formally introduce myself. You feel me?" Mason bobs his head, though I can tell that the news is still eating away at him.