Chasing Bliss

G STREET CHRONICLES PRESENTS

CHASING BLISS

by

Sabrina A. Eubanks

Copyright 2011 Sabrina A. Eubanks

Published by:

G Street Chronicles

P.O. Box 490082

College Park, GA 30349

www.gstreetchronicles.com

[email protected]

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This is a work of fiction. It is not meant to depict, portray or represent any particular real person. All the characters,
incidents, and dialogues are the products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any
references or similarities to actual events, entities, 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, entities, places, and incidents is entirely
coincidental.

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Acknowledgments

God is great. He is first, foremost, and all things. God is always there. He is our one constant,
never changing and always loving us. God is our non-judgmental very best friend. If you call to
Him, He will answer. God brings water from the rock. He gets His very own paragraph in this. I
love Him and I’m grateful way past this lifetime. Thank you, Father, for this wonderful journey.

Undying love and respect to my parents, Mary and Julius Sr., I miss you and wish you guys
could have seen this—but I’m sure you do. Thank you for my foundation. Love always to my
brother, Jay. You’ll probably never be able to wrap you mind around how much I care. Thank you.
Thanks also to my wonderful, much loved son. Mommy loves you, D.J…you make me smile in
the rain. You are my sunshine. Jayson and Joli, you are more light in my life. Auntie loves you.
Stay on your grind.

Thank you to my small, intimate, circle of friends and family that hold me down and always
have my back: Vera, Vickie, Brenda, Desiree, Karyn, Millie, Kim, Elias, and Levone. Love you all
so much, it almost hurts to look at you. Thank you all for loving me.

Thank you to my publisher Mr. George Sherman Hudson and G Street Chronicles for putting
me out there and seeing something special in me. Let’s get it! To Shawna Grundy, my VP, for
doing such a great job, and for listening to me bitch and moan even when I say I’m not bitchin’
and moanin. Thanks, girl.

As always, I saved my last acknowledgment for all my readers. I wish you guys nothing but
good things in life. Thanks for all the love and support. Mad love from me always. Okay, I’m takin’
a deep breath for your shout out… get ready…

GOD BLESS THE READERS!!!!!!!

Wow! That was loud… did you hear me?

Dedication

For everyone who ever had my back in my darkest hours

… and for D.J.

Prologue

C
hase Brown had never been moved much by the power of prayer, but he was sure as hell praying now.
There, in what were apparently the last moments of his life, he discovered the truth: You really
do
see your life flash before your eyes. His life story did not unwind like one of those grand and glorious old epic
movies; rather, it was a jarring assault, just starkly vivid sparks of random memory. He saw hundreds of bits and
snatches of everything he’d done: things he’d done right, things he’d done wrong, and things he should have
done differently. Then there were the things he never should have done at all.

What should have happened in the blink of an eye, though, seemed to stretch out unnaturally
in some sort of strange, revised measure of time. Chase wondered why his thoughts were so
scattered, why he couldn’t think straight. Everything was flying around in his head with such
swirling, blurring speed that it was impossible to get his thoughts to gel. He felt dizzy, and his heart
hammered in his chest.

Violence had always been an abstract to him, and he always associated it with his older brother,
Cyrus. That’s not to say he was a stranger to it himself. Chase had grown up around violence, had
seen friends and family fall prey to it, and had inflicted a generous amount of it himself; though
rarely had he been on the receiving end, unless it was from Cyrus. And, the violence he doled out
himself was for Cyrus. The shit he did for Cyrus had niggas scared to death…but obviously not
this
nigga.

Objectively speaking, there really was no reason for the guy to be afraid of Chase. After all, the
man holding the .45 on Cyrus Brown’s little brothers was Herc Mercer. He and his boys went back
a long way with Cyrus, but as of late, most of their history was far from pleasant. They’d started
out as friends and business partners when Chase was still in junior high. Chase knew Herc, Rome,
and Khalid—knew them niggas well. He knew things were turning sour between them, but he
never in his life did he think he’d find himself looking down the barrel of Herc’s infamous .45.

Herc waved the gun in front of his face a bit. “Stop daydreamin’ and answer the damn question. I swear, I
ain’t never seen a man drift off with a gun in his face. Where’s Cyrus, Chase? Is that muthafucker hiding from
us?”

Chase narrowed his eyes and licked his lips. He looked Herc straight in the eye when he lied to
him. “I don’t know.”

They stared at each other, neither wavering for a second, and Chase felt sweat trickle between
his shoulder blades.

Herc looked at him dubiously. “What did you just say?”

Chase squared his shoulders and held his gaze. He was scared, but there was no way he was
about to let Herc see that. If he was going to shoot him, he wasn’t going to let him punk him first.
“I said I don’t know,” Chase repeated, careful to keep his voice even. Raising up had no place here.
He knew Herc, and he didn’t doubt for a minute he’d blow his brains out. His best bet was to try
and smooth this dude out by keeping it even.

Herc was glaring at him with murder in his eye, but he spoke to him gently. “I don’t believe
you, son. You know, a man can get in a whole lot of trouble lying to me. Come on, now. Tell me
where Cyrus is, and y’all can walk away like this never happened. See what I’m sayin’? Be good,
baby. Tell me where he is.”

“Fuck you, Herc!”

Chase and Herc both turned in surprise to see Corey standing there, bristling with outrage at the
indignity. His sixteen-year-old manhood was offended, and he was full of piss and vinegar.

“How you gonna pull a gun on us, Herc? What the fuck is wrong with you, man?”

Chase put his hand on his brother’s arm. Things were about to get crazy; he could feel it.

Herc smiled grimly and turned his gun from Chase to Corey.

“Shut up, Corey. Don’t say nothin’,” Chase ordered in that same even voice.

Corey shrugged his hand away. “Naw, man! Fuck this nigga, Chase!” He turned his head and
scowled at Herc, his young, handsome face glowing with indignation; his eyes were ablaze with
it—with bright anger and naiveté.

Chase stepped in front of him to try to diffuse the already out-of-control situation, hoping he
was not too late to change the ending of this story. He could understand Corey’s anger, but he also
understood the fact that if Herc had the audacity to pull a gun on them in the first place, he most
definitely had the nerve to follow through.

Herc grinned and spoke through his teeth. “Who you talkin’ to, boy?”

Corey pushed against Chase. He foolishly feared neither Herc’s size nor his weapon. “I’m talkin’
to you, you big, stupid, motherfucker! How you gonna pull a gun on us, Herc?” he demanded
again.

Chase pushed him right back. Corey’s fast temper and big mouth were finally about to get him
into something neither one of his brother’s could fix. “Shut up, Corey! Stop talkin’! Just shut the
hell up!”

Herc reached past Chase and snatched Corey up by the front of his T-shirt.

“Let him go, Herc!” Chase yelled, pushing his weight against the big man who outweighed him
by fifty pounds, easy.

Herc knocked him out of the way like he was swatting a fly and hit Corey in the face with his
.45.

Corey yelped in pain, but it didn’t take the fight out of him; instead, it only made him angry.

Chase knew his brother well. He knew what Corey was going to do even before his hand
went under his shirt. Corey might have only been sixteen, but he
never
left the house without his
trusty .32. Chase’s brow furrowed in resignation. He was resentful about the unfortunate turn of
events. All he wanted to do was go to the park with his brother and get in a simple pick-up game
of basketball, but this fool had come out of nowhere with his flexing and his questions. He’d even
felt brave enough to come alone, thinking he’d intimidate two teenagers. Chase smiled a sad smile
as he watched Herc turn his gun to point at Corey’s head. He couldn’t just stand there and let that
murderous fool kill his little brother. Just like everyone else, Herc had slept on Chase, paying him
no mind,

Because Herc had his back to Chase, he didn’t see him slip his hand into his back pocket and
pull out his own weapon of choice. Chase quietly put his foot between Herc’s feet and put his left
hand on his forehead, pulling his head back to his shoulder in an oddly intimate embrace. By the
time the look of surprise fully registered on Herc’s face, he was already wearing a broad smile
across his neck. Chase wiped the blade of his silver-handled razor on Herc’s pants and stepped
away.

Corey, who’d been down this road before, wrested himself away from Herc before the blood
could touch him.

Herc didn’t care that Corey got away from his grip, because he had more important matters
to consider at that moment. He instinctively clutched at his throat and unleashed the torrent. He
watched in shocked dismay as his warm crimson life force jetted between his fingers, coloring the
air with its spray and soaking the pavement. “Shit . . .” he gurgled.

Chase shook his head. “You got a couple seconds to find God, Herc. Maybe you should pray.”

Herc gurgled something unintelligible—maybe it
was
a prayer—and then he fell on his side in
a growing pool of his own blood.

Corey leaned down and looked him in his dying eyes. “That’s what you get when you pull a
gun on us, Herc. Don’t
nobody
pull no guns on us. Oh, and don’t worry…we’ll make sure we tell
Cyrus you were lookin’ for him.”

Chase tapped his brother on the shoulder. “It’s not right to mock a dyin’ man, Corey. Let’s get
the hell outta here and leave this nigga to his last breath.”

Out of the crooked timber of humanity,

nothing entirely straight can ever be built.

~ Immanuel Kant