I Can Touch the Bottom (17 page)

Stackz was on ten, furious when he got into the truck with Ava and the kids. “I told him don't fuck me. I warned that son of a bitch not to play with me,” he shouted, looking at Ava dead in the face before putting the key in the ignition.

The kids had recovered from the shock of seeing the little girl's bike thrown up against the wall and were horse playing in the backseat. But all that ceased immediately seeing Stackz getting in the truck. They'd seen their mother and grandmother have enough arguments and near physical fights to know when to become invisible. The kids said nothing as their aunt looked at them with warning eyes to settle down and be on their best behavior; they did just that fearing Stackz.

“He thinks this a fucking game? Is Hasbro stamped on my forehead, or something like I'm somebody to play with?” Stackz's rage intensified as Ava remained silent.

Stackz maneuvered his way out of the Chuck E. Cheese's parking lot into traffic. He had no patience with other drivers as he darted haphazardly from lane to lane. He knew something was fishy when he hadn't heard from Pissy about the ticket for the meltdown and disappearance, but trusted him because of their longtime affiliation and family ties; obviously a big mistake. He wanted to get Ava and the kids back to her momma's house as quickly as possible so he could figure out his next move.

Ava wanted to say something to soothe Stackz's temper, but thought it was best to keep quiet in fear of him recalling the circumstances of how they first crossed paths and the underlining reason his Jeep Commander ultimately had to be ghost in the first place.

Knowing he now had to make preparations to get rid of that possibly hot truck himself, Stackz's mind-set was preoccupied. Totally off his square, he was forgetting one of the main rules of being about that life. Stackz wasn't paying attention to his surroundings. If he had been, he'd seen the black Mercury Grand Marquis following them. On a mission, Rank sat in the passenger seat shotgun as Leela drove.

* * *

Leela and Rank had shown up just in time to see their intended target getting rough with some man, then storm off to his ride, seemingly in a rage. Leela thought she saw Ava and her children inside of Stackz's truck with tinted windows when they whizzed by, but was not sure. She hated Ava's new man with all she had, blaming him for taking Devin away prematurely. She knew Devin had it coming that night, and he definitely wasn't the only man she was messing with, but her soon-to-be baby daddy was the only one willing to take her out in public, proudly showing her off. And for that, she missed him.

Making sure she kept up with the clean Range Rover, Leela grew more agitated that her children had been hanging out with her sister and Stackz, probably not once wondering where their own mother had been and if she was okay. Just as she hated Stackz, she despised Ava even more for ruining her life in general and causing their mother to turn on her. Gone off a handful of pills she'd chewed up to get in her system more quickly, she swerved, trying to keep up with Stackz. Now three cars behind, she asked Rank if he was ready to make his move and take Stackz out of the game once and for all.

“Fuck all that, you been in my stash, ho,” Rank snapped at Leela, worried about his rapid decline in pills.

“So what if I have? I needed something to even me out. A bitch got shit on her mind too,” Leela snarled, switching lanes when Stackz did.

Rank shook his head, not having time to argue with Leela's good thieving, trifling, pregnant ass. He was focused on Stackz's truck as he peered over the dashboard from his slumped down position. “Okay, dig . . . At this next light, be ready to pull up on the side of his ass,” Rank order Leela.

Stackz, Ava, and the kids blindly had no idea what chaos was about to take place in a matter of seconds. While Stackz was still going about Pissy, Leela got closer. Rank was ducked down in the passenger seat geeked up like always off E-pills. Glancing over, he noticed Leela grinding her teeth and her arms trembling. She was gone in her head due to the pills she had taken from Rank's stash, and it showed. Nothing or no one mattered to Leela right about now but getting revenge on Stackz and her low-down, dirty, backstabbing sister.

“Make sure you kill that nigga. He don't deserve to live. He took our people outta the game, so he need to go too. Remember Devin and Mickey. Do it for them, Rank; kill that nigga.” Leela hyped him up to commit murder as the next light grew closer in their sights.

Stackz had called T. L. and was barking into his phone as he came to a complete stop at the red light. Still preoccupied, the normally cautious Stackz was off his square mad at the stunt Pissy had pulled. In his own world, he paid no mind to the black car abruptly swerving over alongside him in the turning lane. Ava, still being silent, felt something bad come over her all of a sudden. Turning her head to look in Stackz's direction, she suddenly let out a bloodcurdling scream as the light turned green. Ava couldn't believe her eyes as she looked out of the vehicle. Rank was hanging out of the passenger-side window of a car pointing a gun up toward the truck and Stackz, while Leela was at the wheel.

Not one, or two, or three, or even four gunshots rang out, but seven in total as Stackz's foot simultaneously lifted off the brake. Bullet-shattered glass flew everywhere as Ava instinctively grabbed the steering wheel swiftly, veering the truck away from the car Rank was riding in. Stackz dropped his phone in his lap while yelling at Ava and the kids to get down and hurry. As low as possible in hopes of being out of harm's way, Stackz hit the gas while trying to reach for his gun that was underneath his seat to return fire.

Not being able to follow Ava's instructions on being quiet any longer, the three under-the-age-of-seven children were hysterically crying in the backseat. Ava somehow had managed to commandeer the SUV to the right, narrowly missing ramming into an oncoming car that now had the right of way. It had become total anarchy within a split second inside the Range Rover for Stackz, Ava, and the children. Stackz's truck jumped the curb and ended up coming to a stop a few inches away from a bus stop bench.

Rank had emptied the clip of his gun but was so amped up on pills he kept squeezing the trigger. Leela kept one hand on the wheel, using the other to snatch Rank by his shirt, pulling him back inside of the car. Smashing her foot onto the gas pedal, she floored it into traffic at a high rate of speed, turning left and disappearing into the far distance.

* * *

Stackz and Ava jumped down out of the truck. As remnants of glass fell to the pavement on Stackz's side, he felt a small trickle of blood drip down over his eyebrow. Not taking any more chances, he held his gun at his side on high alert just in case whoever was ballsy enough to pull such a stunt had any intentions on doubling back. Not immediately worried about himself, he opened the rear door on one side while Ava opened the other. With their hearts racing with fear for the little ones, they began searching the hysterically crying children for any signs of trauma. Other than a few minor cuts from flying glass, some that had struck Stackz in the face as well, all seemed to be good. Visibly shaken, tears streamed down Ava's face as she leaned against the truck to catch her breath. Stackz made his way around to the passenger side. The same exact way he'd checked the children, he checked Ava. Holding her in his arms, he asked if she'd been hit. Thankfully the answer was no.

“I saw him right before he started shooting. All I could do was scream,” Ava broke all the way down, sobbing into Stackz's chest.

“Who did you see, Ava, who?” he quizzed, pulling her away from his body, looking into her face for the answer.

As the children look on terrified, their aunt was completely losing it. Ava's body was shaking. Her lips began to tremble. She started to feel dizzy. It was as if the night air was strangling her. Her throat grew dry, and she couldn't swallow, let alone speak.

Stackz was not new to people being in shock. In his line of work, occurrences like this, and sometimes fatally worse ones, popped off all the time. Placing both hands on her shoulders, Stackz shook Ava until she snapped out of what she was going through. “Ava! Ava! Listen to me, who did you see? Tell me! Who the fuck was it? Who?”

Struggling to get her mouth to form the god-awful words, she finally pushed them out. “Rank! It was Rank shooting, and Leela was driving, Stackz. My own sister was driving! She needs to be dead for what she just did. How could she, how?”

Stackz didn't say a word. At first he stood there not believing what she'd just said about her sister. As the reality of it set in good, he was infuriated all over again. Rank was one thing. He expected for him to make his play and seriously had to tip his hat for trying to go so hard with it just then. But Leela? Ava's own sister, driving a nigga around to shoot up a car with her kids in the backseat, like . . . So the fuck what? Like Ava, Stackz's emotions grew numb for any chance of allowing Leela to live. He'd seen a lot of grimy things jump off in the streets from crackheads, junkies, drunks, crooks, and criminals doing just about anything, but Stackz had never seen a woman that would sink so low as what Leela had just participated in.

“Come on, we gotta get out of here.” Stackz helped Ava get back in the SUV as people began to gather around and ask questions. He thanked God the truck was still drivable as they pulled off. As he drove, Ava turned around, promising the still whimpering kids that everything was going to be okay and not to cry. But deep down inside, she knew that wouldn't be the case.

Stackz and Ava drove in silence. No longer mad about Pissy's betrayal, he couldn't believe the nerve of Leela. Whenever he caught up with Rank, he prayed Leela was there too so he could make her pay for all her sins. For every tear Ava and her three babies riding in the back of his truck shed, he'd make her suffer tenfold.

Arriving at her mother's house to drop off the traumatized kids, he first drove around the block, making sure the brazen duo were not somewhere close plotting, once more, in hopes of ambushing them. Before getting out of the truck, Ava searched through her purse, finally finding the spare key. Looking up at the house, she took notice there were no lights on in the single-family dwelling. Assuming that her mother was still over at her friend's house having some drinks and playing cards, Ava had Stackz sit in the truck with the kids while she ran in and made sure what she believed to be true was.

Still very much shaken and on edge that her own flesh and blood could be so cold and callous, Ava nervously ran to the porch of her mother's house. Peeking over the railing, she looked on the side of the house, not knowing if Leela was maybe there waiting in the shadows to try to kill her yet again. Putting her key in the front door, Ava unlocked it, then went inside the dark house. Calling out to her mom, she went from room to room, turning on lights as she went along. Ava knew her mother had a bad habit of overdoing it at times and wanted to make sure she hadn't enjoyed her break from watching Leela's three babies so much so that she was passed out cold somewhere on the floor.

After Ava's minisearch was complete, she left the living room and kitchen light on so her mother wouldn't come home to a dark house. Locking the door, Ava darted back to the truck. “I'm sorry, bae. She's not home yet, and we can't leave them here by themselves,” she explained to Stackz.

“I know. Now listen, we're going to your crib real quick. I want you to get whatever else you might need for a few weeks because you're not going home until this bullshit is taken care of with Rank and ole girl.” Stackz referred to Leela as ole girl, so the kids didn't know he was talking about their soon-to-be-dead mammy. “After you go grab your things, we'll just double back. Your mother will probably be home by then. Then I'ma drop you at the crib 'cause me, Gee, and T. L. gotta link up.”

Ava knew what that meant and prayed to God they caught up with not only Rank but Leela as well.

* * *

Fifteen minutes after leaving Ava's mother's house, they pulled up at her place.

“Make it quick, baby,” Stackz said to Ava as she got out and ran to her front door.

When Ava got upstairs and turned on the lights, she noticed right away somebody had been in there. She was instantly pissed. Her first mind told her to go back outside and get Stackz, but she bravely ventured on, praying whoever had been there was long gone now. When Ava got to her bedroom, the first thing she looked for was her jewelry box, which was gone. As her body tensed up in anger, she looked around, quickly realizing nothing else had been touched or was missing with the exception of her work bag that had a few extra blank scripts in it and her framed achievement certificates scattered on the floor with the glass smashed. Then and there, she knew Leela was the culprit. It was the only probable assumption. A real burglar would've cleaned the place totally out. They would've taken the flat-screen TVs and everything else that wasn't screwed or bolted down, not taking the time to get as personal as to care about pissing on her accomplishments.

Ava went downstairs and saw the window over the sink had been jimmied open from the outside. The only other person besides herself that knows how to get in that way is Leela. Whenever she'd be locked out, she'd roll the Dumpster to the side of the house, stand on top of it, and lift the window up. After Ava put two and two together, she hurried and gathered all her valuables that she didn't want to leave behind, just in case her crazed sister had the audacity to return. Making sure she double locked the window to at least make it a challenge for Leela if she did come back, Ava left the house.

After putting her things in the rear of the Range Rover, she hopped back in the front seat. “That ho broke in my house. She took my damn jewelry, my work bag that had a few extra scripts in it, and did some other petty bullshit.” Ava was disgusted with her so-called blood's antics. “Me and that bitch are the only ones that know how to get in like she did. Trust me, it was that rotten womb-ass ho. Leela is a snake bitch. She didn't even care her kids were in here when that nigga shot at us.”

Ava broke down crying once more. Stackz reassured her all would be taken care of as soon as they dropped the kids back off at her mother's house. Ava wiped her tears away, finding some comfort in his words. Putting her seat belt back on, she looked in the rear at Leela's sleeping kids, glad they didn't hear the harsh words she'd spoken about their mother.