Eve Read Free

Felon’s. He was still moving work for Felon while he was hustling his wares, but it was still some under-handed shit.
    When Felon put Spooky on, he had promised to promote him once he had proven his worth. The promotion was taking a little too long for Spooky, so he went on the offensive. Spooky was only fifteen years old and still lived at home, so his bills were minimal, but to him he still needed shit. Spooky was a dude who had Gucci tastes, with a Kmart budget. He needed to come up.
    When Spooky had told his man Sean about what he had planned, Sean’s exact words were, “You’re gonna fuck around and get murdered.” Sean would have no part in that scheme. Spooky hadn’t really given it much thought, though. He felt that Sean was just being a pussy, while he was a nigga with heart. At least that’s what was going on in his ignorant-ass mind.
    He figured that if he were to ever get caught, he might be able to talk his way out of it. Felon was far from a sucker, but he was a good dude. Spooky figured he’d give his boss a lame-ass excuse about trying to show that he was on a come-up and needed the extra bread. Felon might beat the hell out of Spooky, but he would probably let him keep his life.
    Butter was another story altogether. A lot of niggaz in the hood is gangsta, but Butter was downright mean. That boy got some kinda strange thrill out of seeing people hurting. Spooky had once heard a story about how some kid had called Butter’s sister a bitch last summer. When Butter caught the kid, he made him run out onto the I-95. The kid had made it almost all the way across when an eighteen-wheeler mangled him. It was a good bet that if Butter was set on the case, Spooky would surely meet a very similar fate. He just had to make sure that he stayed one step ahead of Felon and his bulldog.

2.
    Evelyn sat on the edge of her bunk, finishing off the last of the five cornrows that snaked over her head. She was trying to focus on the braid and finish reading the copy of Tracy Brown’s Black that she had borrowed from one of the other girls. She almost found herself crying as the main character’s life had taken a turn for the worse, but she was too gangsta for that shit.
    â€œPanelli!” barked the brutish-looking guard. She looked more like a gorilla than a lady. “Pack ya shit, bitch. Time to roll out.”
    Evelyn looked up from her book and rolled her eyes. Normally she would’ve checked the dyke guard, but not today. It was one of those rare occasions when she decided to hold her tongue. She was being released that morning, so the minimum-wage slave could say whatever she wanted.
    For the last five hundred and forty-seven days, she had made her home within the walls of DJF. It was one of the few female juvenile detention centers in the state of New York and one of the toughest. Evelyn had been laid up in the facility for about a year and a half. The gun that they had found in the car hadn’t even been hers, but she wasn’t going to tell the police that. Death before dishonor. That was how Twentys got down.
    Evelyn gathered the last of her belongings and stuffed them into her duffel bag. She made her way around the dorm, giving “dap” to some of the girls that she was cool with. Some of the other women shot her jealous glares but didn’t bother to say anything. Evelyn had proven to the other girls there that you don’t fuck with Eve.
    Old Pete came down the walkway, pushing his broom, sweeping up dirt that wasn’t there. Pete was a local from a nearby town. He was also a career criminal who couldn’t seem to get it right, and a degenerate dope fiend. Pete was one of the few men who worked in the facility. Some of the girls would let Pete sleep with them for small favors or extra privileges. Eve didn’t get down like that. Pete had come at her once and she almost caught another charge. Since then she hadn’t had a problem out of