“Hey, are you Lewis?”
Heaven peeled her eyes away from the book she was reading, Mistress, by James Patterson and stared into the blue eyes of a punk-rocker-looking chick with pink hair and several pieces of white and pink striped straw slid through the three holes in each ear.
She held two new blankets in her hand the way a server would a tray of drinks.
Heaven laid her book facedown on her bed. “Yeah. Why?”
“These are for you,” she said, thrusting the items inside the cell.
Heaven’s brow rose. “I didn’t request—”
“Listen, lady,” the girl hissed impatiently, her eyes flashing in irritation. “I’m not here to go back and forth with you. I have other things to do. I was sent here to deliver these to you, so you need to take them. Now.”
Heaven huffed, sliding her feet into her shower shoes, then standing. She walked over and took the items from the girl. And, then, as quick as she had come—she’d disappeared.
Heaven frowned carrying the blankets over to her locker, but then she thought to check to see if there was anything hidden in them.
She gasped as her pulse raced.
Inside one of the gray blankets was what she’d asked for.
A Taser.
And smartphone.
She smiled. It had taken him a week to get them to her, but somehow—once again, he’d managed to make it happen. I’ll have to remember to suck his dick real good next time I see him, she thought, sliding her hand in between one of the blankets and caressing the Taser. She knew she couldn’t hold onto the electroshock weapon indefinitely. She’d have to get it the hell out of her cell—fast.
And she would.
All she needed know was a way to get to Struthers.
Another smile eased over her lips. She knew exactly what she—
“Hey, Miss Heaven,” Clitina said, chopping off the plan slowly rooting in Heaven’s mind. “What’chu doin’ today?” she asked, leaning up against the frame of the cell.
Heaven turned to her. “Hey, Tina. Nothing much. Probably relax for a bit. Read and listen to music. I have to go scrub nasty-ass toilets at six.”
Clitina made a face. “Ugh. I wouldn’t clean a fuckin’ thing.”
Heaven shrugged. “It beats being in lockup, hon. I’m not even mad about it, anymore. It’s a shitty job—pun intended, but someone has to do it.”
“Mmph. You good, Miss Heaven, ’cause I know I ain’t wipin’ up nobody’s shit. Dickalina tried that with me when her nasty-ass man came home drunk one time ‘n’ shitted all over himself. She gonna ask me ‘n’ Candy to help her clean ’im up. Candy’s dumbass helped her. What kinda woman you know, Miss Heaven, gonna ask her daughters to help her wash her man’s long dick ‘n’ the crack of his ass, when she know we both love dingaling?”
Heaven blinked. “Tina, girl, I can’t. Y’all have a lot going on over there.”
“Don’t we, though,” she agreed. “But, uh. I’m so fuckin’ bored right now. I wanna get off this unit. No harm, Miss Heaven, but y’all bitches is boring as shit over here. I need me some action. I need to be where the live bitches at.”
Heaven nodded knowingly. “You want to go to Four East, I bet.”
Clitina bounced up and down. “Yass, yasssss, Miss Heaven. The hood, boo. You already know.”
Heaven shook her head. “Girl, you a mess.”
“Mmhmm. And I love it messy too,” she said. “I can’t wait to go out to the yard, so I can turn up with my niggas.”
Heaven opened her mouth to say something, but then quickly shut it. She simply didn’t have the energy. “So have you spoken to your mother?” she asked instead.
Clitina sucked her teeth. “Fuck no. She still actin’ stank. I hope the rest of her edges fall out. But Candy told me her ‘n’ Day’Asia comin’ up to see me in two weeks.” She lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “She said she gonna bring me up some Sour Diesel. I told her make sure she wrap it good, too ’cause I don’t want her soakin’ my weed in none of her nasty cootie juice . . .”
Heaven blinked.
“And Day’Asia gonna bring a bag of Molly for Weena’s fiend-ass. That bitch know she a borderline junkie, but I don’t really like to tell nobody’s business, so I’ma shut these lips on that.”
Heaven gave her an incredulous look. “So these drugs are to do what? Sell? And how are they getting this stuff to you?”
Clitina gave her an uh-duh look. “In they cooties. Where else?” She sucked her teeth. “And no I ain’t sellin’ it. I ain’t no dealer. I told you I like to smoke, chill, ‘n’ steal shit off the racks. Not sell no damn drugs.”
“Oh, okay. Whew,” Heaven said sarcastically, wiping her forehead. “I got worried there for a minute. I thought—”
“Tina, I need my six soups back by tomorrow,” a slender, pretty Caucasian girl said, stopping in front of Heaven’s cell. “Please.” She wore a white V-neck T-shirt, sleeves rolled up over her shoulders. One of her arms was entirely tattooed in black roses and red hearts.
Odd. But striking.
Clitina scoffed. “Bitch, hit the floor with it. You better slurp on these six soups between my legs ’cause I ain’t got nothin’ else for ya cracker-ass.”
The woman’s cheeks flushed pink. “Well, you don’t have to be a fuck-face about it. Just let me know when you can get them to me,” she said, before she quickly walked off.
Clitina scoffed. “Fuck-Face? Oooh, she lucky I’m tryna go outside right now or that bitch woulda got stomped, Brick-City style.”
“It’s not that serious, Tina,” Heaven stated calmly. “Pay her what you owe her and let it go.”
Clitina frowned. “All I asked for was two soups ‘n’ that bitch gonna tell me I gotta give her six back. All she gonna get is them two nasty-ass soups she gave me.”
Heaven shook her head. “Tina, that’s not how it works. You have to pay the taxes on anything you borrow; you already know this.”
Clitina bucked her eyes, then blinked rapidly. “Um—wait for it. No. Hell, no. Anyway. Like I was sayin’ before Casper came up tryna set it off. I’ma get turnt all the way up. I’ma smoke until my lips turn black. Shit. Weed is good for the soul, Miss Heaven.”
Heaven lifted a brow and tilted her head. “You—”
The CO called out over the PA system for movement out to the Big Yard.
“Ooh, let me go, Miss Heaven. I ain’t got no time for lectures right now. But you need to come outside ‘n’ get yo’ life. These hoes already think you think you too good. And you know I already had to drag that Spanish bitch last week for talkin’ shit ’bout you.”
Heaven gasped. “Ohmygod! That was you?”
Clitina smiled, all teeth and pink healthy gums. “Mmmhmm. I got that bitch while she was real wet ‘n’ soapy, then swung her down to the floor by her wet hair and punched her titties up ‘n’ stomped her all in her—”
“But you bit her,” Heaven stated.
Clitina gave her a look and shrugged. “Oh well, she should’na been flappin’ her lips all crazy. She lucky I was being nice that night. But I let that Mexican bitch know don’t talk no shit ’bout you.”
“She’s Puerto Rican,” Heaven corrected.
“And that bitch still eat burritos,” she snapped. “So don’t go takin’ up for her.”
The announcement for last movement to the yard blared over the speaker again, and Clitina took off down the tier, leaving Heaven standing there like a deer paralyzed in a car’s headlights, about to get hit.