Joyce
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"Shut up!" I demanded.
"You know, to be tied up and being held prisoner, you sure do got a smart mouth." Mali'ki's assistant snickered.
"And for you to be the pet of a big drug dealer, you sure do look homeless and on crack." I snapped back at him
"Says the girl with dried up snot on her face." He mocked
"You little bitch." I mugged. "Where's Mali'ki, I'm tired of you."
"If you must know, he said he'd call me and let me know what to do with you. Until then, shut the hell up."
"It's been an whole day and he hasn't called!"
"It's fine." He sighed irritably.
I just shook my head in an uneasy way.Something wasn't right. He always call, whether it was to give orders, or to just scream. He would call.
If something had happened to him, I could easily out smart this dumbass and get away flawlessly.
If he was still alive however, and I did escape. It wouldn't matter if he caught me, because I don't have anything else to live for.
He already killed my sister. Lucas clearly doesn't give a fuck about me, and Jermey is somewhere living his best life.
When he threatened to kill Kris, I didn't think he had the balls to do it. He had tried to scare me into talking by holding the gun up to my head, so I thought he'd do the same with her.
But that wasn't the case, and sadly it was my fault.
So now I have to live with the fact that I was the cause of my sisters death. And it eats me alive.
So if he did kill me, he'd be putting me out of misery.
"Can you call?"
"Why do you wanna hear from him so bad?" He groaned.
"I don't, I wanna hear from Lucas." I lied.
From being here for the past few days, I've noticed that Lucas hasn't called my phone or even texted me.
He obviously didn't care about my whereabouts.
I leaned my head over to where it was against the wall, and replayed the happy moments of our relationship before I cheated.
But in my defense, we had grown out of each other and I thought he didn't want me anymore.
So, I tried to prepare my heart by talking to someone new. When the day would come and he'd finally decide he was done, it wouldn't hurt as bad and I'd have someone who could lift me back up.
It was just suppose to be a small fling, but I fell in love with Jermey.
Those temporary feelings turned to full blown emotions, our small hook ups would always end up with me laying in his arms, and my heart that once had fully belonged to Lucas, was now shared.
But there was a saying that, 'if you have to choose between 2, always choose the second because if you really loved the first, you wouldn't allow the second to make an appearance in your life'.
So was I really wrong for cheating?
Lucas had cheated in the past, but it was at the very beginning of our relationship, so I never really held it against him because he had grown from it.
But now, sitting here with my thoughts in a rush, it had hurt me badly.
It's apart of the reason why I never fully trusted him.
He never did it again, but it was the principle of him finding other girls beside me attractive.
So with the tables flipped, me being the cheater and him being the victim, I knew he'd never fully give me his all like before.
I knew we were done.
As many cute dates and movie nights we had, our bond like before, was history.
I think it was the fact that we both didn't want to let go. We knew we weren't happily ever after anymore, but being apart was more difficult than forcing a relationship.
"What you thinking about?"
"Why my relationship ended, and how I got here." I said barley over an whisper.
"Need to talk about it?" He offered, taking an seat on the floor next to me.
"I don't even know your name, why would I want to talk to you about it?" I asked looking at him.
He smirked and nodded. "Understandable. And my name is Zeek."
"It doesn't fit you." I stated simply.
"Joyce doesn't fit you, your not joyful."
I bit the corner of my lip and shrugged. "I get that a lot. It doesn't phase me."
"So what's your story then?" He asked, never losing contact with my eyes.
"My story?" I chuckled. "What is this? Therapy?"
"Nope, but you obviously have one, and I wanna know it."
I laughed and closed my eyes.
"You don't. You think you do because your curious, but you really don't. When I tell people my life story and why I act the way I am, they don't know what to say. The look in their face normally is priceless!" I giggled.
"Try me." He stated seriously.
I simply looked over at him and raised an eyebrow.
"I don't get why you wanna know so bad. What's your reasoning to playing Dr.Phil?" I joked.
"I'm playing Dr.Phil because I wanna know why you seem so distant.."
"Well if you must know Zeek, I was once actually Joyful. I was a bubbly child, which is where I got my name." I smiled thinking back on the beginning of my childhood.
"When I got older, my personality never changed. The people on my street would give me all types of candies and sodas because I was the happiest kid around, and everybody needed a bit of joy in their life."
"I got straight A's in school, my hair was always done, and I had the newest clothes and shoes. My mom was always at home everyday with a big table of food on the table for Kris, Honey, and me."
"Honey?" He questioned.
I nodded. "My youngest sister."
"One day while it was pouring down raining, me and Kris waited at the corner for her. That was our meet up spot after school, it was where our dad would pick us up."
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Zeek
———-
I watched as the joy drained from her eyes, and an empty look voided them.
"But she didn't come." She whispered.
She paused and I saw her quickly wipe her face.
She sniffed lowly and stared at an chair in the corner of the room.
"Kris, my dad, my mom, the police. Everybody, looked for her. She was nowhere to be found. And suddenly, that Joyful child wasn't as jolly as before." She said dryly.
"Her sprit left with her lost sibling. Her grades hit the ground, she didn't care to much about her clothes or hair anymore. Making people happy didn't appeal to her as before. She let people run all over her and stomp out the rest of whatever hope she had left."
By now her face was blood red and her eyes and nose were the color of roses in full bloom.
However, tears did not fall.
"I wondered how someone could take away a small innocent child away from their family without even an inch of doubt. I started smoking weed and drinking when I got to middle school. My family fell apart. Honey was the glue to everyone's humanity. My mom and dad argued everyday, Kris was never home.. The neighborhood was silent at night without her giggles. The drugs and alcohol was what kept me sane. But then I met Lucas." She smiled a bit.
"He was my everything, but then he cheated. It broke me down because I thought he could be the one to hold me high. We got over it though. But the pieces of heartbreak still was there. A year hit from when Honey went missing and I relapsed. I started taking pills that I found in my dads medicine cabinet, I stole liquor from my mom, and I bought weed from drug dealers. Kris found out and alerted my parents. It was all out of love, she wanted to help me, but she made it worse. My mom couldn't live with the fact that her 14 year old daughter was getting high on pills and weed and drinking until her feet were numb, so her and my dad kicked me out." She sighed.
"I was on the streets. Left to fend for myself. The first day I slept on the bench in a park. I woke up to two men on top of me. One holding me down and the other ripping my clothes off. And all I could think off was how badly i wanted My parents to come get me, how I wanted Kris to help me, and how I wanted so badly for Honey to go find help. But nobody was there. I lost my virginity that day Zeek." Her voice cracked and she looked at me with low eyes.
"When I went home to tell my parents, they said I was lying, and that I needed an excuse to, quote on quote, bring my fast ass back in the house."
"When I went to school, Lucas asked me what was wrong and why I was so distant. I wanted to tell him that I felt disgusting and abandoned. But instead, I told him that I got into an argument with my mom. A few weeks passed, I was still homeless. Barley eating.. I started throwing up and growing fat around my stomach. I was young, but I wasn't stupid. That man didn't use an condom." She looked down at her stomach with a look of hatred.
"I told my nurse at school and she allowed me to use an pregnancy test. I was pregnant. And I remember looking down at that stick and wondering where and how I got to that point. I told Kris the next week and once again she told my parents. They flipped out. My mom beat me senseless, she beat me so bad I had an miscarriage.." she trailed off.
"Sleeping under the stars that night, I realized how badly I wanted to end my life. But my sister and Lucas kept me there. Now, Lucas doesn't care about me, and my sister is dead. What do I have to live for now?" She asked before she fully broke down. Tears flowed down her rosy cheeks and she shaked violently.
I watched quietly as she cried. When someone was in a state like this, it was best for them to have some space.
"I'm sorry! I don't cry in front of people." She sobbed.
"Who told you that wasn't okay?" I asked softly.
"Nobody told me, I just taught myself that." She responded using her hands to wipe away her tears.
"Feel better?" I asked.
"Not really, it actually made me feel a little worse."
"But it's the fact that you were able to be open about it."
She nodded and pushed back a piece of hair. "I guess your right."
She stared at me silently and leaned over, wrapping her arms around my neck.
"Thank you for not being shook." She laughed softly.
"I told you." I chuckled, embracing her back.
When she pulled away, I pecked her lips softly.
Her eyes widened and she turned away.
"Sorry, couldn't help it. I like you like this, you know, open and not being a bitch." I shrugged.
"Really?" She laughed.
"Yeah Joy, really." He smirked.
Her cheeks turned an even brighter shade of red and she looked away.
"Of course you like me. How could you not." She joked and flipped her hair.
"See, I don't like that." I laughed.
The rest of the day, we joked around and i actually got to see why she was named Joyce.
I wonder if I could help with all those unhealed scars in her life...
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Shay
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I sat in the corner of the room and crossed my legs impatiently.
"Can y'all hurry? I'm hungry." I groaned.
"We've been here for 30 fucking minutes Shay. Calm down." Lucas mumbled and continued to help Tay tie down Mali'ki.
"Why is it taking 30 minutes to tie down one person." I mugged.
"Is you gone help? No you not, so shut up." He snapped.
"Me? Shut up? You should know by now that I can't hunny." I said in a sweet sarcastic tone.
Tay just shook his head and laughed. "Y'all argue like an old married couple."
Lucas scoffed.
"Got something you wanna say?" I stated boldly and snapped my neck towards him.
"Why, so yo lil ass can run off and cry in the corner? No I'm good."
"Nigga fuck you."
"You can if you want to. You be playing though." He smirked.
"That was slick!" Tay laughed giving him an high-five.
"I don't get niggas." I mumbled under my breath.
"Tay did you tell Misha where I was?" I asked, watching as they finished the last of the tying.
"Yeah she understood, but KJ was pretty upset you left so early."
I sighed. I got how he felt. I'd be mad too.
"So after this can I go back?" I asked, this time looking at Lucas. "You've got Mali'ki now."
Tay looked at him too.
"Whatever." He said, but he sounded a bit upset.
Tay raised an eyebrow at him before he started smiling.
"What?" Lucas asked scrunching up his face.
"Oh, nothing." He chuckled.
"So what's going on with Joyce? You heard from her?" Tay questioned stepping back to admire what him and Lucas had done.
"Oh shit. I forgot." Lucas mumbled, pulling out his phone and started typing immediately.
"Somebody been having your brain occupied?" Tay smirked looking over at me.
"Yeah, Mali'ki." Lucas spat.
And I'm not gonna lie, the way he said it, it kind of hurt my feelings.
"Mmmhh.." Tay dragged suspiciously.
"What we doing with him? We can't keep him in the hotel forever, room service will come up here." Tay added.
"He's going back to Dallas, with Mylow." Lucas mumbled as the sound of a text message being sent sounded through out the room.
"When?"
"Tomorrow hopefully." Lucas answered.
"You and Shay can go, I got it from here." He added.
"Bet." Tay nodded and they did some handshake.
"Oh and Shay did I ever tell you that Mason was mad at you?"Tay said turning towards me.
"Is he really mad? Or just like frustrated?" I interrogated.
"Normally he'd be really mad, but in his words, it's you, so he's just kind of pissed." He shrugged as we both began to leave.
"Bye Lucas." I waved.
He had a smug look on his face and had turned a light shade of red, but he nodded at me.
I scrunched my eyes brows up in confusion. Was he acting like this because of that small ass argument?
We've had bigger ones than that, and it never got to the point where he had an attitude. I wonder who pissed in his cereal.
I shrugged it off and hurried to catch up with Tay who was already in the halls.
———-
Lucas
———
Yes I was a little pissed.
Mainly at myself.
Why the hell did I get mad when Mason was brought up? Actually no, I didn't get mad, I got jealous.
What the fuck was wrong with me? Even the thought of her leaving made me furious.
And it was eating me alive because I knew I shouldn't have let emotions mix with business.
I shouldn't care for her.
I shouldn't have let Joyce slip from my mind, she comes first. Not Shay.
"Get it together nigga, what the hell are you doing?" I softly spoke to myself.
"I'm losing my damn mind." I sighed.
I looked over towards Mali'ki who was still slumped over in a rolling chair.
We had patched up his head so he wasn't bleeding anymore, just unconscious.
I needed him to get back to Mylow so I can be done with this job. It had brought to much feelings and emotions when this was suppose to be just a quick opportunity .
I opened my phone and noticed Joyce hadn't responded to my text, like I knew she would. She was probably really mad at me, which was understandable.
I shook away the thought and began to call the warehouse.
After a few rings the line connected.
"Hello?" A woman's voice that I knew all to well answered.
"Wassup Juice, Mylow there?"
"Lucas. Mylows dead. What are you talking about?" She said slowly.
"Wait what? He's dead?!" I answered in a surprised voice.
"Yes, he died 3 days ago. How did you not know this?"
I pinched the bridge of my nose and sighed. "How'd he die?"
"Word around is it had something to do with Mali'ki. Speaking of him, did you get em?" She said in a hushed tone.
"Yeah, that's why I was calling...Well whose in charge now?"
"Well we have to go through his things and find out."
"Yeah let me know."
"Sure thang pretty boy." She stated and ended the call.
In order to find out who now ran the business and controlled everything Mylow left behind, you'd have to go through his spiral. It's where he wrote everything.
He said if he were to ever die, that he'd write down the name of who would control everything in there, along with other people who'd get promoted to bigger jobs.
With him being dead, it made everything ten times more difficult.
So now, I guess I have to wait.
And I don't know how long it'll be before he wakes up, so I needed to know who the new boss was as soon as possible.
Mali'ki was sneaky, it was no telling what stunt he might try to pull next. I needed to watch him closely. Especially with Shay not being to far away from his claws. He'd take her and be gone within minutes...
I couldn't let that happen.
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