The next time I woke up, Jazz was standing over my bed. Her color was back and she was looking directly into my eyes. I stared at her for a minute. Her grey-brown eyes were the exact opposite of my brown-grey ones. Like a photonegative. Her eyes had always looked weak, scared and vulnerable to me. Mama, Charity and me had strong eyes. And people didn't fuck with us. None of us. People fucked with Jazz all the time. All the time. I hated it when I was little, and now that I had my weight up, I was going to make sure that never happened to her again. That whole crew was going up in flames.

Every single one of them was going all the way up.

"Nephew."

She always said nephew like she ran me.

And she kind of did.

Everyone else had scared the shit out of me when I woke up and they were standing over me, but I was actually happy to see Jazz standing there when I opened my eyes. I put my thumb to her lips, letting her know that I hadn't forgotten what I promised her. I was still going to take care of Rico, as soon as I could.

Jazz kissed my thumb and continued to gaze steadily into my eyes.

"You're not going after Rico."

"Yes I am, Aunt Jazz."

"No, you're not." Her eyes bore into mine, and I lowered my eyes a little. Unlike mama, Jazz never had to raise her voice to get her point across. I think it was her eyes that had people who didn't know her fooled into thinking that she was cutthroat. But Aunt Jazz was the softest one out of everyone in our family. Me, Charity and mama were the only ones who knew that, though.

"Aunt Jazz...he has to go."

"No, he doesn't." Her face and her voice...her whole vibe was so peaceful, it was like she was sneak disarming me in plain sight.

"Yes, Jazz. He killed my baby." A tear dropped down my face. She wiped it away.

"No son, he killed my baby."

I lowered my gaze all the way down from hers then. I didn't want her to see in my eyes what a terrible mother I thought she was. Angel was my baby. She always had been.

"Kenney," she put her slim finger under my chin and lifted my face toward hers. "I'm not gonna let you take away the only child that I have left." I looked away again. "You're all I have left, son. And you're not taking my last child from me."

She rubbed at my scar and I fought the urge to push her hand away.

"We're gonna get through this together, me and you, ok?" I nodded. "I'm gonna get clean and stay clean, and you're gonna get up and walk again. Do you understand the plan, son?" I nodded. "You know your part?" I nodded. "What's the plan, Kenney?"

"You're gonna get clean and stay clean, and I'm gonna get up and walk again."

She nodded solemnly. Her heart was all over her face. She was right. I couldn't take the only thing that she had left away from her. She wouldn't make it.

"I need your help, and you need mine, right?"

I looked directly into her eyes. "Yes."

"Don't do anything stupid, nephew. Don't you leave me out here like this. I need you."

I nodded and held her hand. She sat down by the bed, her hand in mine, for a long time in silence. Eventually I fell back asleep.

When I woke up again, Charity was back. Jazz was back in her chair by the door. Charity didn't look sorry about pushing on my IV, and I wasn't sorry about cussing her out.

"Hey little brother."

"Sup."

"You alright now?" Charity rested her hands onto the bedrail and then laid her head down on them, and gazed up at me. She smiled and batted her eyes. Not on purpose, just because that's what she did. My sister looked so sweet and harmless. All the time.

My whole family was one big illusion.

"Yeah, I'm aight. You?"

She nodded and we grinned at each other. Then we both looked over at Jazz, who was sitting there watching us with a slight smile, and a slightly concentrated look. Anyone who didn't know would think that she was sitting there enjoying spending time with her sweet niece and nephew, but I knew she was thinking about getting high. She gave me that look all the time right before she asked me for a rock. Jazz realized that I was staring right back at her and quickly lowered her eyes.

Charity caught the exchange, but probably didn't know what had just happened.

"Hey Aunt Jazz, remember when Kenney used to dance?"

Jazz chuckled. "Yeah..." Then she stared into my eyes. "I can't wait for you to dance again, nephew. Let's make that happen. Real soon."

I nodded and then looked down at my legs, willing myself to at least do a little tick for Jazz because she always loved to see me breakdance, but nothing was working in my favor that day.

"Little brother, you should have been in a boy band." My sister had set Jazz up. I knew it as soon as she said that. Charity looked over at me and I knew that she was about to say some shit. "Instead of serving fucking crackheads wasting your fucking life, Kenney." She said crackheads like they were rodents that needed to be exterminated, and then looked dead at Jazz. She shook her head disgustedly, and then looked back at me. "Wasted talent."

Charity knew exactly what she had just said, and who she said it in front of, and for the first time ever I realized that Charity blamed our aunt for everything. She was pissed at Jazz for what I had become, apparently forgetting that what I was, was how her and mama ate and kept a roof over their heads for years. Her words attacked Jazz like a million bee stings. I could see it all over Jazz's face.

"Nah," I quickly came to Jazz's defense with stinging words of my own. "Boy bands are lame as fuck. You're the only one who listens to that white boy shit around here."

Charity blinked at me for a minute, and then sat back in her chair and smiled evilly at me like game on. I laid back into the pillows and stared at the closed curtain. I wondered how the world was looking out there, but tried not to think about it too hard.

"Charity..." my aunt's voice was quiet and timid when she addressed my sister. I had never heard her sound that way before, talking to anyone but Rico. Even though her eyes looked weak to me, her voice had always been strong.

"Yes ma'am?" Charity turned to my aunt with fake respectfulness, but Aunt Jazz could see right through it. So could I. Charity had made it clear the last time she opened her mouth that she didn't respect Aunt Jazz at all, and possibly never would again.

I looked over at Jazz and was surprised to see that she looked determined, like she wasn't thinking about getting high anymore, but was now thinking about how to stay clean and earn her own respect back.

My aunt was a G in her own quiet way.

"Do you remember how your daddy used to sing all the time? Just like Teddy Pendergrass. Had your mama wrapped around his little finger..." Jazz looked over at me. "That's how he finally got her, you know. Sang to her. Every day. Sang his little heart out until she finally said yes." Jazz smiled faintly at the memory.

Charity's eye twitched. It always did when people tried to relate to her by talking about how much they loved or missed daddy.

"Yes ma'am?" Charity was pissing me off with that fake shit. She was doing it on purpose. My sister was wrong and she knew it.

Aunt Jazz didn't skip a beat. "Well, did you know that Kenney can sing, too? Real good..."

My eyes bugged and I looked over at Jazz like she had lost her mind. I hadn't been that dude in a long time. Some things gangstas just didn't do. Singing and dancing was at the top of that list. Right under running and talking. Around my way, gangsters weren't happy and joking and rapping and shit. We didn't have time for all that bullshit. We had to stay focused.

Or Rico most definitely would set our ass on fire.

Jazz had Charity's attention now, though. A slow grin spread across Charity's face. "Reeeeaallyy..." I gave my sister a warning look.

"Maybe next time Kenney's over at your mama's house, you can convince him to sing for her. She'd love it." Charity's face softened as Jazz continued to give her the same steady, disarming gaze. "Nobody sang to your mama in a long time, shA. Too long..."

We both looked at Aunt Jazz and then back at each other. Silently, we called a truce.

Eventually I fell back asleep.

When I woke up again, it was dead quiet. Charity and Jazz were sitting on opposite sides of the room, doing their own thing.

"Y'all can watch TV if y'all want." As far as I knew, no one had turned the TV on since I'd been there.

We weren't really a TV family, though. There had always been too much else going on around us. Wallace liked to watch sports, but that was about it. He was a huge Bulls fan. I always said that one day I would sit down and watch a game with him, just to see what he liked about it, but I never had time.

I had all the time in the world now, though.

The extra morphine that Charity had squeezed into me earlier that day had me high as shit and itching like crazy. I tried to sit as still as I could without fidgeting. I didn't want to look like I was feenin' because I didn't want Jazz to start, but it wasn't working.

Charity watched me for a minute, and then chuckled when she realized what was going on.

Mean ass.

My sister was genuinely, from the bottom of her heart, mean as hell. People just didn't even know. Jazz watched me, too, and also started fidgeting a little.

"Um...Aunt Jazz..." Charity stood up and stretched. "Let's go for a walk." She had also peeped Jazz's sudden need to make the chair...and the floor...and her shirt...more comfortable.

As soon as Charity suggested that they leave the room, Jazz went pale and shook her head no. Then she went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her.

Charity rolled her eyes. "I'll be back." She came back a few minutes later with a nurse who adjusted the morphine drip and gave me something for the itching. The nurse looked kind of confused about how the needle got shifted the way that it was, but she didn't say anything.

Charity's mean ass chuckled again and sat back down by the bed.

"Hell is Jazz doin' in there, Kenney?" Charity growled as soon as the nurse left the room.

I shrugged. Aunt Jazz would go in there and stay for literally hours. Hell if I knew what she was doing in there, but she never took anything with her into the bathroom, and Charity and Wallace had both searched her stuff before they left her things with me, so Charity's guess was as good as mine.

Charity leaned in a little and looked back at the bathroom one more time like she was about to say something, and then sat back in the chair like she changed her mind. She was starting to get on my nerves. They both were, actually, but Charity was the only one that I would have sent home.

"Sis, what are you still doin' here?" I looked at her tiredly. Enough games. Somebody needed to tell me what the hell was going on.

She shrugged. "Just...chillin'."

Charity wasn't a "chill" kind of girl. She liked action, and freedom. She had a very hard time sitting in one place for too long. She always had, and I could tell that she was about ready to climb the walls. That's why she kept fuckin' wit' Jazz.

"Why won't Jazz go anywhere without Wallace?" I stared her in her eye to let her know this time I was wide awake and wasn't letting it go until she told me what was up.

Charity looked back at the bathroom door again and then back at me. Then she leaned in and whispered something that I knew for sure I heard wrong.

"Rico killed Ruby."

"What...?" I said it real calm and cool. I think the morphine helped.

Charity nodded. "He beat her, Kenney. And just...didn't stop." She paused and looked at me for a minute like she was wondering what the hell went on around me growing up, but when I didn't show anything at all one way or the other, she moved on. "Kenney..."

"What Charity?" If that wasn't the damn point, I wished she would hurry up and get to it.

"They can't find him," she whispered and looked kind of scared, like Jazz. But she looked like she was more scared for me than scared for herself.

I looked back at the bathroom door and nodded, suddenly understanding. Jazz was probably in there hiding. Or sweating out her shit and didn't want us to see. Or both. We would have to do a better job of letting her know that she was safe.

"Go knock on the door and ask her if she's ok."

I willed myself not to zone in and stay on the fact that I couldn't do it myself.

Charity rolled her eyes again but did it. As soon as she got to the door, Charity screwed her face up, turned right back around, and walked right back to her chair. She sat down without saying anything.

"What?"

"She in there throwin' up."

"Oh..." We looked at each other and silently agreed to leave her alone and let her do what she needed to do however she needed to do it. "So...where is he?"

"Nigga," she stomped her foot and sat forward in her chair real quick. "Didn't I just tell you they don't know where the fuck he at?"

I was tired. Real tired. "Sis..." My patience was gone. All the way gone. "You said dem folk can't find him, but...nobody said anything? Nobody? Nowhere?"

"Nope."

"They raid the house?"

"Naw, Kenney. They still don't go back there. Not all the way back there. Remmey still holdin' down the block. And the business. Chauncey...still doin' his thing." I nodded. "It happened up in one a them stash houses, way up..." Charity did her finger like she was telling somebody to keep driving up the road, but I knew what she meant. Up by Huntsville, probably. "I bet they think Rico lives out there now." I watched her while she talked. She was telling the truth. "They been all over up there, but you know nobody gives a fuck about what happens over by us. Ain't shit changed just because you got shot up, superstar."

I sat back into the pillows and stared up at the ceiling, trying to think of all the places that Rico could possibly be.

"They're wilin' on the block, Kenney. Like four of your lil potnas came up missing. They said two was from drugs, but the other two..." Her voice trailed off.

"Ain't got no potnas." I was still staring up at the ceiling.

"Jazz thinks Wally B can do somethin' about it if Rico shows up." Charity shook her head and chuckled, total contempt in her eyes.

"Hell is you still doin' here, Charity?" She skipped right over that question the first time.

This time, though, Charity sighed loudly and finally told me what I really needed to know.

"Wally and me have assigned days to watch Jazz. He doesn't want her to...go back out on the street and get fucked up." Charity shrugged like she didn't care one way or the other what happened to Jazz, but I knew she did or she would have never agreed to spend all day watching her. "They're going crazy out there, Kenney. She can't go back to the house or she will get fucked up." I nodded. "So we watch her during visiting hours, to make sure she doesn't try to be slick and leave. But clearly she ain't tryna go nowhere." Charity rolled her eyes. "After visiting hours, Wally B thinks security can do something about it, since the hospital gets locked down at night." She did that evil cackle again, like she thought Wallace was dumb as hell for thinking security could stop Rico, of all people.

She was right.

Nobody could stop him if he really wanted to get at us.

Nobody.

I sighed and stared back up at the ceiling.

"Thanks, sis. Thanks...for helping me keep eyes on her..."

It was hard to admit, but now that I had all the information, I knew I couldn't keep Jazz safe all by myself. Not with my back all messed up like it was.

"She's my aunt, too, Kenney." Charity wouldn't look at me. She didn't want me to know that she cared. My sister was such a perpetrator. After all those crocodile tears she was crying, begging me to help her help Jazz. Oh, she gave a shit. Fa' sho.

I looked back up at the ceiling and watched the tiles dance around until I finally fell asleep.