Around the Way Girls 11 Read online

  Around the Way

  Girls 11

  Treasure Hernandez,

  Clifford “Spud” Johnson,

  and India Johnson-Williams

  www.urbanbooks.net

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Meal Ticket

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Party Girls

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  Do or Die

  CHAPTER ONE - KALI

  CHAPTER TWO - FLY GIRL

  CHAPTER THREE - JAMAICA

  CHAPTER FOUR - KALI

  CHAPTER FIVE - JAMAICA

  CHAPTER SIX - FLY

  CHAPTER SEVEN - FLY

  CHAPTER EIGHT - JAMAICA

  CHAPTER NINE - JAMAICA

  CHAPTER TEN - KALI

  CHAPTER ELEVEN - JAMAICA

  CHAPTER TWELVE - KALI

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - FLY

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN - JAMAICA

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN - KALI

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN - FLY

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN - KALI

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN - JAMAICA

  CHAPTER NINETEEN - KALI

  CHAPTER TWENTY - FLY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE - JAMAICA

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - KALI

  EPILOGUE - KALI

  Urban Books, LLC

  300 Farmingdale Road, NY-Route 109

  Farmingdale, NY 11735

  Meal Ticket Copyright © 2018 Treasure Hernandez

  Party Girls Copyright © 2018 Clifford “Spud” Johnson

  Do or Die Copyright © 2018 India Johnson-Williams

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without prior consent of the Publisher, except brief quotes used in reviews.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-6228-6637-3

  ISBN-10: 1-62286-637-1

  eISBN-13: 978-1-6228-6638-0

  eISBN-10: 1-62286-638-X

  First Trade Paperback Printing March 2018

  This is a work of fiction. Any references or similarities to actual events, real people, living or dead, or to real locales are intended to give the novel a sense of reality. Any similarity in other names, characters, places, and incidents is entirely coincidental.

  Distributed by Kensington Publishing Corp.

  Submit Orders to:

  Customer Service

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  Phone: 1-800-733-3000

  Fax: 1-800-659-2436

  Meal Ticket

  Treasure Hernandez

  CHAPTER ONE

  “How in the fuck could this shit have happened? My son really never did anything to anyone and this done popped off. I can’t believe it. That fool who shot him is gonna pay. If he and his mother think I’m just gonna sit here and not give a shit about this, they wrong. I swear on my life, the streets gonna run red with their blood when I get done!”

  En route to the hospital, Yanna Patrice Banks was enraged. She was trembling with every deliberate word she spoke. Her lip quivered, and her heart was pounding. The Hennessy buzz the mother of two had no less than twenty minutes before was now completely gone. Keeping one hand firmly placed on the steering wheel, she used the other to search the contents of her purse. After removing a knife she kept just in case someone needed some act right, she tossed it on the dashboard. “I mean it. My baby is a good boy. He didn’t deserve this. Motherfuckers gonna pay. I swear I’ma cut me a bitch tonight.”

  “Yanna, please stop all that cussing and drive like you got some sense. You gonna mess around and get us both killed. And, for God’s sake, stop talking about who you wanna cut.”

  “Auntie, right about now I don’t give a fuck.” Yanna swerved around several cars that she felt were moving too slow. Repeatedly she honked her horn and flashed her high beams at a few more.

  “Well, you should. What good are you or, for that matter, am I gonna be to that boy if we both dead and gone? Now, like I said, slow down.”

  Refusing to take her auntie’s cautionary advice, Yanna did the complete opposite, in fact, speeding up. She had run every red light as soon as she got the frantic call from her neighbor. Her maternal mindset was reckless.

  With the hospital finally in sight, she roared up toward the entrance in her truck. Just a few hours ago, she would have never been so hard on her brand-new truck, but right now she couldn’t care less if somebody hit, scratched, or towed it. Not caring about the uniformed security guard pointing to the NO STANDING sign, she barely slowed down. Defiant, she blocked the emergency trauma room entrance of the hospital anyway.

  Yanna turned the engine off and illegally parked. Hysterical, she abandoned her auntie, jumping down from the vehicle and bolting through the door, just as her injured son was being unloaded from the back of an ambulance. She couldn’t stop her tears from falling, and she felt her heart racing as she strained to catch a glimpse of her son. When she finally saw him, it was as if the wind had been knocked out of her. His shirt was drenched with blood, and an oxygen mask covered his face. Yanna wanted to see his eyes. The streetwise mother wanted him to know she was here and everything was going to be all right. However, things were moving at a swift pace, much too fast for affirmations or emotions.

  “Quick, hurry, bring him into trauma room four.” The emergency unit nurse motioned to the paramedics. With a stethoscope around her neck, she ran alongside the stretcher. Yanna was, of course, trailing close behind as the nurse took charge. “A team of doctors is already waiting. Hurry for the patient! He appears to be going into shock.”

  “His pulse is dropping rapidly, and we can’t get a heartbeat,” one of the paramedics responded with extreme urgency. As he struggled to get the heartbeat, he realized the boy was bleeding heavier than before. He immediately knew there was something seriously wrong. Though he’d worked at the high-anxiety job for years, seeing these types of serious wounds still made him extremely nervous. Knowing their young gunshot victim was clinging to life, he started to sweat. “It’s getting worse! This isn’t looking too good. He’s bleeding out. He’s bleeding out! We need to hurry and get the bleeding under control. I need some help over here!”

  JoJo had regained consciousness. He was moaning out in sheer pain. The pit of his stomach was burning, and the teen couldn’t open his eyes. He couldn’t seem to breathe. He couldn’t move his legs. He tried, but he just couldn’t. Suddenly his arm went limp and fell to the side of the stretcher, causing everyone to panic even more, especially Yanna.

  “Oh, naw! Oh my God.” Yanna’s diamond tennis bracelet, which JoJo had just blessed her with a few days before, sparkled underneath the bright emergency room lights. It was as if this were an awful nightmare she was having, as she screamed out in painful denial. “Oh my God! Why, God? Why me?” It was almost more than she could take, watching her teenage son seem to be losing his battle to see another sunrise. “Please help him! Please! Please! He’s just a baby! Come on, y’all, help him! Help him! Do something,” she demanded in an ear-splitting voice, with tears pouring out of her
eyes.

  “Wait a minute, miss. I’m sorry, but you can’t go back there.” Though her tone was sympathetic, the gray-haired nurse held up both hands.

  “But that’s my son. I need to be back there. I need to let him know I’m here.”

  The nurse stopped the anguished Yanna dead in her tracks at the swinging metal double doors that led to the triage area. “Don’t worry, miss. He’s in good hands. The team back there is the best in the city. And I promise you, just as soon as we know something, one of the doctors will be right out to speak with you,” she assured the boy’s mother.

  “Aw, fuck. Why did this bullshit happen in the first damn place?” Yanna hyperventilated as her sobs echoed loudly throughout the walls of the crowded hospital. Holding her chest, Yanna panted in an attempt to catch her breath. It felt as if someone had their hands wrapped around her throat, pressing on her windpipe. The bright overhead lights started to make her swollen eyes sting. The mild, temperature-controlled waiting area suddenly felt as if the heat were on “hell.”

  Yanna was emotionally drained. JoJo was her only son, her heartbeat, her rock. Now her child was on the other side of the door fighting to stay alive. The thought of that was almost too much to endure.

  The frenzied mother collapsed into the arms of her auntie who, out of nowhere, had just come inside the building. Dressed in tight jeans and stiletto pumps, Yanna was close to blacking out entirely. “Why? Why is this happening to my baby? It wasn’t supposed to be like this. It wasn’t part of the plan,” Yanna cried repeatedly, wishing she’d never let JoJo sell drugs to pay the bills and help feed the family.

  “Yanna, stop it. Hush! You’re making a scene.”

  “You think I give a fuck about any of these niggas in here? My baby is back there with blood coming from every-damn-where. I’ma say what I wanna say.”

  “Yanna, I understand that, but you still can’t carry on like this. Now, come over here with me and let’s sit down. Let’s allow the doctors to help my great nephew.”

  As she snatched away from her auntie’s grip, the anguish Yanna was feeling was apparent to everyone within earshot. “Naw, Auntie, I swear, if I could turn back the hands of time, I would. I’d trade in all the shopping sprees, the trips to the casino, and this jewelry I’m rocking.” She snatched her gold chain off her neck, throwing it to the ground in desperation. “And that new Range Rover I’m driving; that too. I’d give all that bullshit back if I could only have my baby boy in one piece, not lying back there with two big bullet holes in his body!”

  “Listen, Yanna, stop this. Keep your voice down, child.” Auntie Grace sat in the dreary and drably decorated hospital waiting room, clutching her Bible. After opening her purse, she wiped away her distraught niece’s tears with an old, tattered handkerchief she kept tucked in the side pocket. After somewhat calming her, she suggested she try taking it down a notch or two. “Everyone’s looking at you over here performing. I know you worried, but please!”

  “What?” Yanna shouted. She poked out her lips and sucked her teeth. “I don’t care if they look at me ’til their eyes fall out their head. I’ma shut up when I want to, point blank and period! That’s my son back there all shot up fighting for his life, not theirs.” She gave real fever mean-mugging everyone sitting near her, including her auntie. Judging by her tone and facial expression, no one wanted to risk tangling with the agitated mother bear.

  The longer her impromptu rant continued, the more she cried out in regret. Yanna resembled a raccoon as her eyeliner dripped down her face along with her tears. Normally she would never be out in public looking such a hot mess, but this night was definitely not normal. “JoJo ain’t deserve none of what he’s going through, not none of it. I wish I could see that no-good bitch and her son. It’s both they fault my baby back there fighting for his life.”

  “You know what, niece? I’m going to, as you young people like to say, keep it real. Even at my age,” Auntie Grace quietly reflected, handing Yanna her Bible, “it’s simply amazing to me how things can go plum berserk so quickly. I mean, one minute you’re riding sky-high on top of your game; and then, within a momentary blink of the eye, your soul is practically scraping the ungodly rock bottom of this wretched earth.”

  “Dang, will you please stop with all that church talk?” The weeping Yanna shoved the black leather book back into her aunt’s hands. As she anxiously awaited any news about her oldest child, who was just yards away with two gunshot holes the size of golf balls in his chest, she was not in the mood for any lectures. “JoJo might die back there and you out here trying to take me to church! Old woman, bye! Kick rocks!” Yanna stopped crying long enough to give her auntie the hand.

  “Now stop all that hand mess y’all young folk be doing and all that noise! Just stop it. And you can’t really be sitting here blaming what happened to that boy on them.” Auntie Grace hated that she was getting so frustrated with her niece’s showing out. She couldn’t believe that Yanna was in such denial about the role she played in her son’s current predicament. It was no big secret that JoJo had gotten caught up in the streets just so he could help his mom. It was obvious to all what had played out over the past year or so. Plain and simple, Auntie Grace blamed her niece, and so would everyone else in the family. “You can’t be serious right now. I love you and the kids, but come on, Yanna.”

  “‘Come on, Yanna,’ what?” Without shame, she turned her head to face her auntie.

  “Now tell me, sweetie, was all that rotten, blood-soiled drug money your firstborn showered you with worth it? You running around town buying this and that, acting like a ghetto princess. Was it all worth it? That truck, that jewelry, those expensive purses and clothes?”

  Yanna wanted to lash out at her auntie for what she had just said. She wanted to deny the insinuation that was made. After a few brief seconds, the red-faced mother sniffed, reaching for some tissue from her bag. Wiping her face, Yanna didn’t hesitate to respond, as others in the waiting room area ear-hustled on the low. “No, of course not. Why in the hell would I think any of those things were worth my son’s life? Are you trying to be funny or some shit like that? Because this ain’t the time. JoJo is back there messed the fuck up, and that nigga who shot him is alive and breathing out running in them streets.”

  Auntie Grace shook her head, realizing that Yanna was still missing the point. “First of all, that other boy has been arrested. Secondly, you need to take some responsibility for what you had to do with this, and have a long talk with God.”

  “Talk to God. That’s some real bullshit. If God gave two fucks about me and mines why in the world did he let this happen to my baby? Making him be back there suffering?” Yanna questioned, looking up at the ceiling, arms folded as she rocked back and forth. “I know I was wrong to keep letting him sling those pills, but the money he was making day after day was so good, so he did what he had to do.”

  “Did what he had to do? Is that what you call making that innocent child your meal ticket?”

  Yanna wiped her face yet again. She was not moved by her auntie’s speech. “Look, the family needed it when your so-called God you love so much took my kid’s daddy away from us. So, while you busy talking that shit about a Higher Power, we was in full struggle mode and JoJo stepped up.” Yanna’s tone was cynical as she moved her long blond-streaked sew-in weave out of her face, twisting it into a ponytail.

  “God let all that happen, did He?” Auntie Grace sarcastically questioned.

  “Here the hell we go. Yeah, He did. If you wanna keep it a hundred and wanna blame someone so bad for what my boy and me done suffered through the last few years, you can blame God. Or, better yet, maybe that no-good Tyrus and his crackhead mother, Dawn! JoJo’s daddy got murdered messing around with them lowlifes so, yeah, that’s about right.” She focused on the entrance to the room where they were working on JoJo. “I should have known better than to let that troublemaking hooligan in my house! This shit is so fucked up. Fuck them and fuck God!”


  “Yanna! You best hush up that mouth of yours, questioning the Lord and speaking ill of His name! Don’t you dare blame Him for this awful tragedy.” Auntie Grace jumped to her feet shaking her finger at her disrespectful niece. “This is entirely your fault, Yanna Banks, not the Man Upstairs or those folk JoJo was running these Detroit streets dealing drugs with! Now, what you need to do, instead of flapping that smart mouth of yours, is think back to the role you done played in JoJo turning out the way he is.” The old woman let her have it raw and uncut as the other people in the waiting room listened, shaking their heads. “Truth be told, you might as well have pulled the trigger of that gun yourself! Now, Miss I’m The Stuff, how’s about that for keeping it real and, as you say, a hundred?”

  Pissed, wanting nothing more than to curse out her old, sassy-talking auntie, Yanna sat speechless at her hurtful words and accusations. Yet, as her mind wondered back over the past couple of years, she couldn’t help but question whether her auntie’s words might hold some truth. Maybe she did put too much pressure on JoJo to step up to the plate after his daddy got killed.

  Closing her eyes tightly and scratching her head, Yanna got chills as she thought back to where she might’ve gone wrong raising JoJo. Things were once so perfect in her life. She and her children used to be an entirely different family before drugs became the apparent head of their household. When JoJo started selling, things changed for the better so fast that it was hard to tell him to stop. Yanna had been struggling for so long. Easy street was a much-needed break. Was I that selfish? Did I make my son sell drugs so I could live good? Dang, what did I do? Maybe it was my fault he got shot. What did I do?

  CHAPTER TWO

  Five Short Years Earlier

  “JoJo, call your father. Tell him dinner will be ready in about twenty minutes or so,” Yanna ordered her son while wiping her hands on a dish towel. “Oh, and tell him I cooked his favorite: fried chicken, sweet corn, collards, biscuits, and gravy.”