Hold It Down

Chapter Sixteen | Ride Out

Chapter Sixteen | Ride Out
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Get ready cause you know we 'bout to be a problem

Hope you ready cause you know it's ' bout to be a problem

It's the only way we know to go

Squad up, never roll alone

And we gon' ride on forever

We ride out together - Rich Homie Quan
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Domani

I sat lazily in one of these uncomfortable ass hospital chairs, patiently waiting on my moms and sister to come back from the house, with me a fresh t-shirt. I was covered in blood, not my blood, but blood that had been shed from my people and the shit angered me and made me sick all at the same time. The smell of the dried blood from both my father and Rod was beginning to make me nauseous and before I knew it, I was rushing into the bathroom to empty my guts. This shit wasn't no good feeling.

As I vomited into the toilet bowl, all of the events from just earlier played over in my head. During my uncle Deon's annual memorial service, there was a shooting that happened. We had been outnumbered and took two losses, one being my pops and then my annoying ass cousin Roderick. They didn't suffer any major, life threatening injuries,but Rod took a hot one in the shoulder and my pops caught one in the lower stomach. I just had to thank God for it being what it was, because it could have been a lot worse.

If something serious had happened to them, I would have been guilty, even more guilty than I already felt. I knew that it was my fault for this whole thing, we all knew that is my fault, but no one spoke on it. I'd done one of the stupidest things and got my people shot and placed into danger. It ate me up inside to know that I was the reason for their suffering, but that's just how it was and I couldn't control who the bullet had hit. If I could've taken them myself, I would have, but that's not how shit go around the way.

I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and stood up straight, flushing the toilet with my foot. I couldn't take the shit no longer, so I pulled the shirt off of me and tossed it in the trash, leaving me bare chested in the bathroom. I used some of the water to splash on my face before going back out into my pops hospital room. My grandma and them all had gone to see how Rod was doing, so I was the only one left in here.

"Awe shit," my dad complained as I made it back into his room. He too was bare chested, but he had a huge bandage covering the left side of his torso at the bottom, where the bullet had gone in. He'd already had surgery and the bullet was removed, right now he was just here for medical watch. It wasn't close enough to be critical, but they wanted to be sure that he was good before they let him out, so there was no complaints about that on my end. I wasn't gone speak on how I'd feel if I lost my pops, but that shit would literally kill me inside.

"Pops, what you doin' man?" I voiced as I stepped all the way out of the bathroom and went over to my chair that was at the side of his bed. I sat down as I looked at him, with a confused look. Sweat was forming on his forehead and it made me wonder what the fuck this nigga had going on out here while I was in the bathroom.

"I'm ready to get the fuck outta' this place boy," He said in a strained tone as he tried to sit up on the bed, without bringing too much pain on himself. I watched him struggle for a moment, just to show the nigga how it felt when he launched books and shit at me like I was a fucking animal in a zoo. I still had chest pains til this day from that shit too.