Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (Rewrite)

Chapter 18: Burning Desire

CJ finally made it to Jim's Sticky Ring donut shop and hopped off his bicycle. He took a deep breath and slowly strolled inside the shop.

"Hey!" Tenpenny called out to CJ. "Carl Johnson! CJ!"

"Oh, shit..." CJ muttered to himself. He saw that Tenpenny, Pulaski, and Hernandez were sitting at the table.

"Come on over here, son!" Tenpenny ordered.

CJ reluctantly walked over to the policemen. Tenpenny and Pulaski were sitting adjacent to each other while Hernandez was on the other side of the seat. CJ stood over them as Hernandez looked up to him.

"Move over, let him sit down, asshole!" Tenpenny demanded Hernandez, who slid over to the side to give CJ some room. CJ slowly dropped to the seat.

"So, you finally found time to drop by," Tenpenny told CJ.

"Man, I've been busy," CJ protested. "I've been burying my moms, man."

"Sounds like a fucking excuse to me," Pulaski uttered bluntly.

"Officer Pulaski thinks you're trying to screw with us, Carl," Tenpenny said. His expression then altered from laid-back to strict.

"Now you get this straight," Tenpenny informed CJ with a stern tone of voice. "We own you. You're ours. We can shit on you from such a height you'll think God himself has crapped on you. You understand?"

"He better fucking understand," Pulaski added.

"Yeah, he better had," Tenpenny agreed. "Time to go to work, CJ, and earn your freedom."

CJ just turned his head back in deference and hopped onto his feet. He couldn't catch a break from the cops no matter what he did, and he was feeling very irritated of them always on his back when he wanted nothing to do with them.

"There's a guy holed up across town," Tenpenny informed CJ. "You got that address, Pulaski?"

Pulaski reached into his pocket and pulled out a slip. "Another gangbanging, drug-pushing, cop-killing bitch, just like you," Tenpenny said as Pulaski slid the slip to CJ's direction. "We don't like him and he don't like us."

CJ reached over to grab the slip. "Now you make sure he never leaves the neighborhood - not even in a box," Tenpenny ordered. "Now get the fuck outta here!"

As CJ walked away, he read the address on the slip. He also read the part where Tenpenny wrote down that some Molotov cocktails were hidden in an alleyway in Downtown Los Santos. So CJ hopped onto his bike and pedaled away.

During the bike ride, CJ wondered why C.R.A.S.H. wanted them doing their own dirty work for him, especially for the fact that they didn't even like him and vice-versa. It was all becoming complicated to him.

CJ finally made it to the alleyway of Downtown Los Santos and saw the Molotov cocktails right ahead. As he hopped off his bicycle, he ran to the Molotov cocktails, picked them up, ran back onto his bicycle, and rode off.

CJ read the address of the house where a guy C.R.A.S.H. wanted to eliminate and continued pedaling. He finally reached the residence, which was a house on East Los Santos right across the train tracks. There were also a gang of Vagos around the house as well.

So while on his bike, CJ took the Molotov cocktails and threw each of them at all of the first-floor windows one by one. Soon, the whole building was now on fire, and CJ watched as it began to burn. There was no way the guy could survive that now.

His celebration, of course, didn't last long. As he was about to get onto his bike, he heard a woman screaming at the top of her lungs.

"Somebody help me!" the woman screamed. "HELLLLP!"

Ah shit! CJ thought. Now I have to play the hero!

So CJ hopped off his bike and ran back inside the burning building. As CJ stepped inside, he saw that the flames were spreading around the kitchen and living room. Smoke permeated the whole house and obscured the rooms, making it difficult for CJ to see through.

CJ squinted his eyes and navigated through the hallways until he finally came across the kitchen, where he spotted a fire extinguisher. He grabbed the extinguisher and darted out of the kitchen. He took the stairs to the end and made his way through the hallway, where he came across the room just down the end. There, CJ heard the girl's cries for help.

"Put it out!" she cried.

"Stand back!" CJ warned.

He took the fire extinguisher and sprayed it on the fire that was blocking the doorway. It took a while, but he finally put the fire out and came across the screaming woman.

She was a slim African-American woman wearing a black and red football jersey, a long-sleeved white shirt underneath, red-and-white sweatpants, and a black bandana on her head covering her black hair she had tied to a ponytail.

"Oh God, I'm so scared!" she cried.

Just then, a crash from the hallway was heard. "Oh my God!" the woman cried. "What was that?!"

"Hey, the building's starting to collapse," CJ told her. "We gotta get out of here, fast!"

As CJ guided the woman out of the bedroom, he saw that the walls had fallen apart, blocking the path of one side of the hallways.

So CJ and the woman went around the other room, with CJ using the fire extinguished to put out the fires. He squinted his eyes hard as the smoke fumes were started to impair his vision.

Eventually, the two made it downstairs, and CJ put out a few more flames right before he guided the woman out of the door.

The two finally made it out of the front door, and CJ stared at the unscathed woman.

"Hey, man, I owe you my life..." she told him, giving him a hug. "I was nearly dead there, for sure!"

"Hey, you look pretty shook up, girl," CJ told her. "You want me to take you home?"

"Yeah, please, thanks," the woman told him.

CJ spotted a parked Voodoo outside and decided to hop inside. The woman hopped in with him, and CJ drove off.

"Where you live?" CJ asked the woman.

"Just off Grove Street," the woman answered.

"No shit!" CJ said. "What you doing in Vagos 'hood?"

"I like to live dangerously," the woman replied. "You're CJ, right?"

"Yeah," CJ said as he drove through Jefferson. "How you know me?"

"Everybody in the Grove knows you and your brother," the woman told him. "But I thought you'd run away."

"I never ran away' OK," CJ protested. "I just needed to... get away from shit."

CJ drove down the bridge and made a left turn down the street all the way to the other end.

"This is my place, here!" the woman told him as CJ came to a stop in front of the house right next to the overpass in Ganton.

"Hey, what's your name?" CJ asked.

"Denise," the woman answered. "Denise Robinson. Give me a call sometime, we should go out, or something." She handed CJ a card with her phone number.

"Yeah, I'd like that," CJ said.

He watched Denise exit the car and run to her house. But not before turning around to face him to give him a wave.

"OK, I'll catch you later, CJ," Denise told him, and she turned to run back into her house.

CJ felt satisfied. He had just saved a girl's life and would possibly have her as his first ever girlfriend.

Looks like working for Tenpenny finally did me some good after all, CJ thought.

He decided to head back to his home street in the cul-de-sac. So he drove straight down the road and made a left turn on the alleyway. He drove straight and pulled up in front of his home street.