"They talking about that wh.o.r.e, Andrea," said Lita.

Gena started laughing. "She came like that, Rasun."

"Well, d.a.m.n! I thought she was getting paid to wear that."

"My bucks, they've grown up, haven't they, y'all?" said Qua. Everybody toasted to Qua's squad of young boys.

"d.a.m.n, I really thought you paid a motherf.u.c.ker to dress up like that," said Rasun.

"Maybe soon all of them will dress like that," said Reds.

"I hope so," said Ra.

"If you pay 'em enough, they'll do anything you want," said Ramier, looking at Bridgette, remembering the night he and two of his boys did her in a hotel room. Sis was a serious gun. He couldn't take his eyes off of her.

"Qua, come on. Let's go upstairs." Black and Rik got up from the table. "Q, you coming or what?" asked Black.

"Gena, stay here. I'll be right back," said Qua.

"Why do they always say stay here?" Gena asked Lita.

"They don't want you to follow them 'cause they don't want to get caught."

"I'm tired. What time is it?" Gena looked at her Rolex, answering her own question.

"What time is it?" asked Pam.

"It's four o'clock," she said, looking at her cousins standing over by the bar. "I'll be right back." She left the table and walked straight over to Bria and Brianna.

"What are you two doing here? How did you get in? You're only sixteen."

"We came with this guy," said Brianna.

"Bria, I don't know why you're standing there with an att.i.tude. You should be at home. I can tell on you, you know," said Gena.

"You gonna tell anyway, 'cause that's how you roll. So what difference does it make?" she said, staring Gena eye to eye.

"Have you been drinking, Bria? Oh my G.o.d. Both of you have been drinking. You need to go home now," said Gena.

"Why? You go home," Bria said, as she walked away looking for her ride home.

"She got so much to say for someone who never says anything to me at all. She lucky I don't hurt her in here," said Gena.

"Gena, don't pay Bria no mind."

"Brianna, what are you doing in here? You're not supposed to be in no club. If Gah Git knew . . . " Gena didn't even want to think of what would happen to them. "I bet she knows you're not in the house and is worried half to death."

Suddenly, Gena thought she was in a western film in the middle of a cattle stampede. Her heart stopped as the sound of gunfire unleashed itself above. People were scrambling trying to find safety. Bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap, bap. Screaming could be heard above and below, and a mad rush for the lower level caused people to trample over one another and fall down the stairs. Gena grabbed Brianna's arm and took her behind the bar.

"Stay down!" she said as the girls huddled about for safety. The gunfire was ongoing, and Gena could distinguish the sounds of several different guns. It was true blue pandemonium. The music had suddenly stopped, and Gena realized that the quiet before the storm was the result of the DJ's panic in separating the plug from its outlet while scrabbling under his turntables in a move focused completely toward survival.

The lower level was now filled with all those who had been upstairs. A last shot was fired and silence reigned. Slowly, almost as one, the members of Black's birthday party began lifting their heads and looking about, but none moved as if to do so would violate the certainty the silence inspired. And through the silence, Gena heard her own certainty calling to her.

"Gena! Gena! Gena!" It was her man. He was covered with blood, but he was alive, and that was all that mattered.

"Quadir!" Gena popped up from behind the counter.

"Baby, come on! We got to get out of here!"

"I'm so glad you're okay, baby. I was worried. I was so scared! Qua, look at you. You didn't get shot, did you?" Qua seen that she was shaking as if a seizure was imminent.

"Gena, calm down." He suddenly noticed something wrong with the picture, as though anything could be wronger. "What are you doing here, Brianna?"

"I don't know, but this is not where I am trying to be," she said with a personable att.i.tude.

"Qua, what happened?" Gena was still rooted to the spot as Pam and Lita ran over to them.

Lita's expression changed rapidly from hope to loss and back to hope again.

"Q, where's Rik?"

Quadir stopped, turned around to her, and took Lita by the shoulders. "Lita, Rik got hit. He's upstairs. Lita, I can't stay. You got to help Rik, baby. You got to stay with Rik and don't tell the police s.h.i.t. Black got hit, too."

"What?" said Pam as she pushed her way to get to the stairs.

"Oh, my G.o.d! Qua, what is going on?"

"Gena, baby, I don't know."

"Is it safe to go outside?"

"Baby, I don't know. Where's the Benz?" asked Qua.

"On Market Street, two blocks down, right on the corner of Fifty-eighth."

"This is what I want you to do. Wait for me upstairs. Wait for me!" he said as they reached the top of the stairs. She handed him the keys. "Gena, stay inside."

"I will. Qua, please be careful, baby." Pam and Lita were frantically searching for Black and Rik among the bodies, lying under tables, or slumped in booths. Gena, surveying the carnage, couldn't believe what her eyes told her was the truth: there were five to ten people lying dead in pools of blood, others were hit and injured. Gena, unable to move, looked from one face to another, hoping to see Black or Rik.

Pam stopped dead, seeing the suit, knowing the shoes, recognizing the jewelry as her mind was telling her she'd found the one she searched for, her breath frozen in her throat. Finally, she screamed. "OmiG.o.d! No! No! Baby, please, no! Not Black!" Brianna was nauseous as Pam stood there looking at flesh parts covered in blood. But through the blood, the parts of his body that no one ever saw, the organs whose job it was to keep Black walking, talking, smiling, reproducing, thinking, and functioning under the covering of skin that protected them, were now outside his body. The skin blown apart by the force of the infrared glock .45 covered the walls. It looked as if the protective covering keeping everything together had been shredded off of him. He was gone, Black was gone. Gena heard another voice call out, "OmiG.o.d, Rik!" Lita was shouting, "Please! Where you at, man! Come on, Rik! Answer me!" at the top of her lungs.

Gena saw a chair moving, hope filling her and replacing the horror. "Lita! Over there!" She pointed toward the corner. It was him. It was Rik, under a table.

"Lita, don't move him. Wait for the ambulance. Don't move him."

Lita found her way to him. "Okay. Okay. Rik, baby, can you hear me?" She gently covered his hand with hers, continuing to murmur gently.

Pam was in shock, unaware of anything going on around her. People were trying to get out of there, giving thanks to G.o.d it wasn't them on the floor. As they glanced at the bodies and the blood, no one stopped to acknowledge the others who were looking for loved ones, friends, and grieving over what they found.

"Here's Qua," Brianna said, hanging out the doorway.

Gena looked at her friend, "Lita, I got to go." But Lita didn't respond, she took a deep breath, ordering herself to function. "Okay, Gena."

"Can you help Pam?" asked Gena.

"Pam? Pam who? My man might die, Gena. s.h.i.t, can she help me, 'cause Black is gone and I don't want to lose mines! Please don't leave me, Tyrik!" She held his hand and started crying. "Where the f.u.c.k is the paramedics?" she hollered.

Gena grabbed her friend's shoulder trying to calm her down before she left. "We'll page you." Brianna and Gena ran over to the Benz, where Quadir had the doors opened, ready to speed them away.

"Black is dead." At that moment, Quadir went cold. He couldn't think.

Dead? Black? He couldn't believe it. He didn't want to believe it.

"What happened, Qua?"

"I don't know. It happened so fast. They just started shooting at us! d.a.m.n, why Black and Rik?" he hollered as he pounded his fist on the steering wheel.

Together, Rik and he were standing on the wall directly across the bar where Black was. The mirrors on both sides of the wall bounced a red light. Rik watched the light as he told Quadir to look at it. The mirror told the ending before it even began. The light ended at Black. As soon as they called out to him, the bullets rang. Within seconds a bullet pierced Rik in the chest causing him to spin and take a hit in the back before falling down on top of Quadir. Quadir reached on the side of Rik for his gun. Tyrik used all his strength to grab his friends arm.

"Don't go up, Qua. If both of us die, who's gonna make it?" he asked, as they stared each other in the eye.

"You ain't gonna die. Stop f.u.c.kin' with me, baby." Quadir looked at his friend who was half on the floor, half on him. "Don't die on me, Rik."

Quadir wondered whether or not his friend was gonna make it. He was shot real bad. Checking the rearview mirror, his train of thought was completely interrupted. "What is Brianna doing here? Brianna, what do you call yourself doing? You're sixteen! You're not supposed to be out in no place like that! See what could have happened to you?" Gena had never heard Quadir use such force in his voice.

"I know," she sniffed. "I came with this guy, that's all."

"Who's the guy?" said Qua, ready to wring someone's neck.

"His name is Charlie."

Please don't let it be Quick Pockets Charlie, he thought to himself. "Brianna, you stay out of those kind of places until you're old enough to be in those kind of places, you understand? When you turn twenty-one, then you can go where you want. Until then, you need to keep yourself in the house where it's safe so you can get to be the age twenty-one."

"Don't worry. I will."

Just then a car pulled up along the opposite side of the street, and stopped in front of Gah Git's house. A few seconds later Bria hopped and ran up the door.

"What are you doing, Bria?" hollered Quadir, glad it wasn't Quick Pockets Charlie she was with.

"Shhh," she said turning around to see Quadir, Gena, and Brianna.

"Gena, I'ma kill 'em. Let me catch you out again, Bria," Qua fussed waiting for them to get in the door. He pulled the Benz off of Gah Git's block and went to a gas station. He drove on the sidewalk right up to the pay phone so that he wouldn't have to get out of the car. He dialed Rik's pager and within a few minutes Lita returned the call. She was frantic and Qua soothed her and told her he would be right there. He slid back into the driver's seat and sped away.

Lita was waiting for them in the hospital lobby. "Come on," she said. "They got him back here." She led them to a waiting room.

"Where's Black?"

"Black died, Qua. They was putting him in a body bag when the paramedics took Rik out."

"Where's Pam?"

"I don't know, but she . . . she was just standing there until the paramedics took her."

"They took Pam?"

"Yeah, they took her, too," said Lita. "I haven't seen Pam since we left the club. They let me ride in the truck with Rik while they brought him here. Qua, they was sticking him with all kinds of s.h.i.t," Lita said, as she started crying. Quadir held her as Gena looked on, feeling horrible because they could do nothing.

"Lita, come on," said Gena putting her arms around her friend. "It's gonna be okay. Rik is gonna be fine. Rik is real strong and big. He'll pull through this."

"I know, Gena, but he was bleeding so bad, you know. What if he don't?" said Lita.

"You can't think like that. You gotta be strong, baby. You got to be strong for him."

"You call his mother?" asked Quadir.

"No. Not yet."

"Well, somebody has to call his family," said Qua.

"You can call them," said Lita, knowing once they got there they would take over. Qua left to find a phone and called Rik's mom. Within forty-five minutes his entire family had arrived. Gena curled up on a couch and fell asleep. Quadir consoled Rik's mother while she spoke to the Lord and told the hospital staff at the same time about her precious baby, how good he was, how the Lord couldn't take him, and begging the doctor to save her baby. Seven hours later, a doctor walked into the waiting room and called out, "Mrs. Smith?" expectantly.

Tyrik's mom was up like a shot. "Yes, doctor?"

"He's gonna be fine. We removed two bullets, and we moved him into ICU. He lost a lot of blood, but he's stable."

"So, he's okay?" said Mrs. Smith.

"Yes. In several weeks he'll be as good as new. I see no sign of any complications with surgery. The bullets were easy to remove and there was no damage to any of his organs, so he should be just fine. We'll be keeping a close eye on him for the next couple of days, but I'm sure he'll be just fine."

"When can I see him, doctor?" said Lita.

"Well, I think we should let his mother see him and then I think we should let him rest. He's heavily sedated. But tomorrow you can see him."

"Okay, okay," Lita said, upset she couldn't see her man.

"Oh, thank you. Thank you G.o.d, for saving my baby," said Rik's mother as she grabbed the doctor's arm.

"You're welcome," he said, liking this woman for recognizing him.

"Lita, come on," Qua said. "We're gonna take you home."

Quadir said nothing, just drove thinking about him and Rik laying on the floor in the club together. He was so greatful Tyrik was still alive. But thoughts of Black cut deep. He grew up with the man. It seemed like everybody he came up with was dying or in jail. He pulled up along side of Lita's Cadillac.

"Thanks," she said.

"We'll follow you home," said Qua.

After leaving Lita's mother's house, Quadir and Gena drove home. The ride seemed longer than before. Quadir's mind was racing over and over the minutes and seconds before the gunfire began. People who had looked at him real weird or the guy who b.u.mped him. He was the guy shooting, too. The whole night was a setup. The entire night. The guys standing on the wall, with gators on, no women around, not partying or getting down. He saw all of their faces when the infrared light went on.