*** CAUTION: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF EXTREME VIOLENCE AHEAD***

I looked everywhere for Angel. Everywhere. I just couldn't find her. I just...couldn't.

Everyone acted like they hadn't seen anything, but that was bullshit. Somebody had to have seen something. The block just didn't talk. Ever. We talked to each other, but not to anyone else. And up until right then, that had always worked in my favor. But now, nobody was talking to me. Like I was the outsider.

Nobody saw shit.

I just kept looking and looking.

Finally, I started asking the same people over again if they had seen Angel. Starting with the lookouts. I knew they had at least seen who had her. It was their job to see everything. It was what I paid them to do. They just shook their heads again and looked confused, like how the fuck did I just lose a baby that I had with me every damn day. I was asking myself the same question. I was just about to move on when Chance walked up on me real quick. Real quick.

"What it do Kenney?" He grinned at me and dapped me up.

"You seen Angel?"

"Nah." He gave me the same confused stare that the lookouts gave me. "Your baby?" I looked at him like who the fuck else named Angel would I be looking for. "Nah..." He looked past me over my shoulder, and then kind of looked away real quick.

Rico was walking toward us with that damn grin on his face.

"Nephew."

"Rico where's Angel?" Earlier, he had acted like he hadn't seen her, but by now I knew that he knew where the fuck she was.

And he knew I knew.

Rico just kept grinning and nodded for me to follow him around the corner.

I walked real slow behind him and kept looking over my shoulder to see if those lil niggas were about to rush me, but they stayed where they were supposed to be. Rico led me all the way down through the cut and stopped at the workhouse door. My heart disintegrated. Why the hell were we stopped here?

I looked over my shoulder again and saw Remmey walking toward us in the distance. I knew this was a setup, but I followed Rico in anyway. I had to find out where Angel was. I followed Rico all the way to the back of the house, into the kitchen where Chauncey did his thing, and then Rico stopped.

He turned around and looked at me with that Cheshire Cat grin again. His eyes shifted to the oven and I saw Remmey walk through the door out of the corner of my eye.

"Open it." Rico was still grinning.

All I could do was shake my head no. I was frozen in place. I couldn't move if my life depended on it, and right then, my life depended on it. All I could do was keep shaking my head no.

Rico opened it for me.

And Angel was inside.

Burned and unrecognizable. But I knew it was her. I knew my baby anywhere.

I dropped to my knees and made a sound that I had never heard before. I saw Remmey put his hand on the doorframe and lean forward like he lost his breath, and then I heard a whole bunch of commotion coming toward the door. Remmey quickly pulled out his 45, posted up in the doorway and blocked the way in. I didn't know who was trying to get in or why. I didn't know if Remmey was blocking me in, or if he was blocking them out. And I didn't give a shit.

All I could do was cry.

I cried hard, like a little bitch. I didn't even cry that hard when I realized my sister would never wake up. It was like I was under water and all there was, was water all around me. Rico walked up to me real slow and stood in front of me, grinning at me. Then he crouched down in front of me and started whispering in my ear.

"I'm the ma' fuggin King. Nephew." Then he stood up. "And that one ain't my baby, either." He waited there for a long time. Watching me, observing me, waiting for me to do something, say something. But I couldn't do or say anything. I couldn't. I was weak.

I couldn't even lift my head up out of my hands.

After I don't know how long, I finally pulled it together enough to take Angel out of there. When I turned around with the baby in my arms, the youngins, who were crowded around the doorway trying to see past Remmey and find out what was going, all jumped back at the same time at the sight of her. Remmey was the only OG there. Everyone else back there was the new crew. My crew. Remmey moved out of my way to let me through, and so did the rest of them. Remmey wouldn't even look at me or the baby. But I did see him exchange a long glance with Rico when Rico followed me out the door.

Rico followed me all the way back through the house and then just stood there at the doorway, watching me walk back up through the cut with my baby in my arms. I don't even know how I made it out of there, much less to the doctor.

All I remember is that every single footstep that I took felt like it would be my very last one.