**WARNING: GRAPHIC DEPICTIONS OF VIOLENCE AHEAD**

I woke up and Jazz was still asleep. I woke up again and she was still knocked out. This happened like three times before I started to wonder when the last time was that she had been to sleep. About the fifth time I woke up, Charity scared the shit out of me.

            I jumped away from her. "Damnit Charity!" These ma' fuckas were gone stop standing over me staring at me in my sleep. I knew that, fa' sho.

            "Sorry, Kenney. How do you feel?"

            "Like shit."

            "Yeah?"

            "Yeah. What do you want?" I wasn't in the mood for small talk.

            "I brought some more clothes for Jazz."

            "Thanks."

            Charity looked over at Aunt Jazz, still asleep in the chair and then back at me. "Is there a place that she...can get dressed and stuff?" She meant not in front of me.

            I pointed to the bathroom. "She can take a shower over there, and do whatever she wants. I don't use it so..."

            Charity's eyes widened and I paused, looking at her, wondering what the hell was her problem. She just stood there and stared at me, waiting for it to register that I may be stuck using a bag for the rest of my life. Finally, it did.

            "Ssshhit..." the word was quiet and deliberate. "Shit."

            "I know..." She put her hand on my arm.

            I shrugged her hand off of me. "No, you don't know Charity. Shut the fuck up."

            She just stared at me. I wasn't sorry either. She knew I wasn't in the mood for her ass when she walked through the door.

            "Kenney..."

            "Fucking Rico." I shook my head, looked at Jazz and then shook it again. "I can't wait to get out of here. First thing I'ma do is get rid of his ass."

This was all on Rico. Chance was just a soldier following orders. Rico called it. Called everything. I knew, because I had been a soldier following Rico damn near my whole life.

Charity was still shaking her head. "Kenney, no."

            "No? Do you know who the fuck he is? He has to go, Charity. I'ma set him the fuck on fire as soon as I get out of here."

            "Shit," Charity whispered quietly and stared at me. "Don't..."

            "Fuck out my face wit' that shit today, Charity. Every morning when I wake up I picture him goin' up in flames. I know I'ma walk again because I'm finna string his ass up just like Tiana's daddy, and watch him burn. Breathe that shit in just like it's fresh fucking air."

             It was lost on me that somewhere along the way I had turned into Rico, but it wasn't lost on Charity. I had been trying so hard to play it cool for the women that I didn't even know how I was really feeling until right at that moment. I did picture Rico going up in flames, every morning, and that was how I knew that I would walk again. But I wasn't consciously thinking these things, until I lit into Charity. Once the truth started crashing out, though, I couldn't stop it.

Poor Charity caught the whole wave. The whole thing. She was the only one there and awake to catch it. She just shook her head and looked away.

            "The hell you shakin' your head at? He deserves to die. He killed Angel. He fucking set my baby on fire and his ass is gone burn. the fuck. up."

            I slammed my hand against the bed rail with each word.

            "This fucking bed can't hold me for long, and don't look at me like that, either Charity. You know who the fuck Rico is. I picked her up. My baby. Charred. I couldn't even see her fucking face. But I could feel her move. You didn't know that, did you Charity? Because you weren't there. I picked her up and took her to the doctor my damn self. I couldn't even take her to the hospital because our whole life is too fucked up. Everything is too fucked up. None of you ma' fuckas were around to see that shit but me. To know that's what I had to do to keep the whole family free. I had to take her to the doctor and just...pray to God that my baby died on the way because there wasn't shit else I could do for her."

My voice cracked, but I was still seeing red. Nothing but red. Who the hell did Charity think she was to tell me shit about what the fuck I needed to do to handle Rico? She didn't have a damn thing to do with him, or us.

"No hospital could have done a damn thing for her, Charity. And they didn't have to, because she did die. She finally stopped breathing right in my arms. But you didn't know that because you weren't there."

            Charity was crying now, and was holding up her hands in front of her like she was trying to shield herself from my words, but the gate was open now. She opened it. And she was going to stand there and listen to this shit, all of it so she would never fucking act like she knew what the fuck was going on again.

            "Rico is a monster, Charity. He has to die. The same way he killed Angel. He was laughing when he showed her to me. Her ashes, her blood..." I almost lost my breath remembering. "That's...that's what was on my hands when the doctor took her from me, Charity. You didn't see that shit. I did. So don't tell me what the fuck to do when I get out of here. Rico's head is priority number one. I might just cut it off so he can watch me fuck up the rest of his crew when I'm done with him." I looked Charity in the eye and she knew I was dead ass serious. "When I'm done with him, I'm torching the rest a them ma' fuckas, too. One. At. A. Time. Everyone saw what happened to my baby, and not one of them did a damn thing to stop it. A baby. They're all gonna die, Charity." I looked at her like there was nothing she could do about it. "All them son bitches 'bout to die. Every last one."   

            Charity was sobbing now, and I just watched her. I wasn't sorry for telling her that shit. Now she knew. And now maybe she would shut the fuck up like I asked her to do when she first walked through the door.

            "Fuck this shit..."

            I was about to go off again, but a quiet gasp came from across the room. Me and Charity both heard it, and we both looked over at the same time. I stopped talking immediately, and Charity forgot just that quick that she was even crying.

            Jazz was sitting straight up in her chair, hand clutching her chest, and she was white again. Chalk white. This was Charity's first time seeing our aunt like that, and she looked like she was about to lose it. It was too much. For all of us. It was just too damn much.

            Jazz just sat there and stared at us. Her eyes were...something that I knew me and Charity would never unsee. For the second time since they brought Aunt Jazz to me, I thought she was having a heart attack.

            "Fucking Rico!"

            I slammed the bedrail once again with my hand full of needles, and then harder one more time after that. I slammed it so hard that the whole bed shifted toward Charity. She jumped out of the way, and then all of a sudden my heart monitor started beeping like crazy. Everything went hazy and all these doctors came rushing in. Jazz freaked out with so many people running past her and ran into the bathroom, locking the door behind her.

            Charity was crying again and shaking her head no when the nurse kept telling her to get out. The last thing I saw was a man with his hands on my sister, pushing her out of the room. I was trying to get at him, to get him off of her. I wanted to punch him in his fucking face.

            When I woke up, everything was calm again, and Jazz was back in her usual chair, still pale as death, still watching us. Charity was standing over me.

            Again.

            "Little brother," she said calmly as soon as I opened my eyes, "you're not doing shit to Rico."

            I tried to sit up and snap on her again, but she ran her finger across my hand and gently pushed into the IV. She was so smooth about it, Jazz probably couldn't even see what she was doing from her seat by the door. Charity was crazy as shit. She always had been.

            "You're not." She shook her head and smiled sweetly at me, so that Jazz wouldn't know what she was saying.

            She pushed a little harder and I chilled all the way out. I knew my sister well enough to know that this was only a warning shot. I sat back into the pillow and watched her, wondering what she was about to do next, knowing that I couldn't do shit about anything right then anyway, and let her say her piece.

            "You're dumb as fuck, Kenney. You always have been. You can't beat Rico. You just can't."

            She watched me, waiting for me to say something, waiting to have to push harder on that needle to get me to calm my ass down. She probably would have broken it in my hand, right in half, if she had to.

            It must have been the morphine that she was pushing on, because I became oddly cooperative.

            "I'm cool, Charity. Get the fuck out."

            Then I fell back asleep.