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  I dedicate this novel to Symullia “Gram” Neely. I am so blessed to have known and loved you for twenty-nine years. I will never forget you, and my love for you is so deep that it will burn inside of me every day that I am gifted to walk this earth. You were a spitfire, you took no nonsense, and you called it exactly the way that you saw it. It was your world, lol. If I can live with half of the strength that you exuded while you were here, I will be unstoppable. I can vividly remember you picking me up just to sneak away to Birch Run and shop for the day when I was a kid. I remember you picking me up every Sunday for Galilee. I remember you picking up all the grandkids to take us to Ponderosa. You wouldn’t eat anywhere else. That was our spot, lol. You would have thought it was a five-star chophouse, but back then it was equivalent. I remember you talking Mama into letting me go out with friends when I became a teenager. I remember you talking Papa into giving me money out of his stash for homecomings and proms. You even sent me halfway around the world to Japan, simply because I asked. When I turned eighteen you gave advice, hard advice, that I wasn’t ready to receive at the time, but now as a grown woman, I hear it all and I value it. That advice is like gems that I can place in my crown of womanhood. I am filled with your wisdom because you made sure that you gave it to me no matter how often I resisted. I love you. I always have. I always will. You are my Gram, and there is not a day that will pass that I won’t miss you. You will forever live in my mind and heart … in all of our minds and hearts. I am so happy that Quaye had a chance to know you. There is no one like you. They don’t make them like you anymore.

  When I envision you, I think of you and Papa in Heaven, sitting on your Susan Street Porch. Papa has a beer in his hand and you are looking over your “Numbers” book. Meanwhile, the both of you are watching over all of us. You’re probably shaking your head at some of our choices, lol, but don’t worry—we always keep you in mind. You did your job phenomenally.… we all have our “Symullia Neely Philosophy” tucked away inside our hearts. No worries, we’ll pull it out when we need it. So rest easy next to Papa. It comforts me that you’re reunited and a part of God’s kingdom. Your pain is gone. He has a new angel on his team, and what a lovely one you are. I love you so much. Tell Papa I said hi and give him a big ol’ hug from Quaye. Rest peacefully together, my guardian angels.

  I can’t say it enough.… I LOVE YOU, Grandma.

  PROLOGUE

  Three months, seven days, six hours, and twenty-two minutes. That’s how long it had been. “One day at a time. Every day counts, every hour, every minute, every second,” Bleu whispered as she sat in her car, surrounded by the darkness of night while gripping the steering wheel for dear life. There was urgency in her tone … panic … fear, because although she was completely alone, she was afraid of herself. Her heart pounded furiously. With the power of thoroughbred horses it beat, causing her shirt to rise and fall with her distressed breaths. She could feel herself weakening as the tears slid down her face. Mascara marred her flushed cheeks. Snot rested on her trembling lip. She needed help. Three months, seven days, six hours, and twenty-three minutes. It was how long she had been clean. She distinctly remembered the last hit she had taken like it was yesterday, and the thought of the euphoric rush it gave her caused her to become aroused. Her nipples hardened and she clenched her thighs because the possibility of feeling that type of high once more was seducing her. Her knuckles turned white as she held on to the steering wheel with a death grip. She wished that she could glue her hands to it, to stop herself from doing the inevitable.

  “Please, God, please,” she whispered, but she knew there was no use in praying. She had prayed for everything her entire life only to end up empty-handed and disappointed. The devil had ahold of her. It was like her soul had been compromised from the moment she had taken her first breath. That was the only explanation for her hard-lived existence. Nothing came easy, and anything good that came to her was quickly taken away. One blast. That was all it would take to end her misery. She had not thought about getting high in three long months. In fact, a huge celebratory trip had been planned to commemorate the accomplishment. She had done it. She had kicked the vicious drug habit that had taken ahold of her. She had lasted three months, seven days, six hours, and twenty-four minutes, but now it was calling her.

  She reached into her bag and pulled out the package. It was eerie how the rock cocaine seemed to sparkle in the Baggie. She poured the small rocks out into her palm and marveled briefly. She licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry as her body craved the drug. She could feel the hair rising on the back of her neck. It was like a thousand bugs were crawling up her legs, starting at her toes and making their way up her thighs to her spine. She itched, she wanted the hit so bad. With her emotions on 10, she was susceptible to sabotage. Overwhelmed by desire, she turned her purse upside down, causing all of the contents to spill over her front seat. Grabbing the water bottle from her cupholder and a ballpoint pen out of the mess, she was on a hunt for paraphernalia. She rolled down her window and poured most of the water out. She was like a surgeon as she drilled a hole into the side of the bottle. She bit the end of the pen, causing the ink vial to come out, hollowing out the shell of the pen. She had done the routine so many times she had it down to a science. Most crackheads would just hit the rock straight out of the pen, but Bleu liked to think she was above that. That desperate toke would only lead to burnt lips and fingertips and she had her looks to uphold. In the thick of it she had glass pipes, but the poor man’s version would work just as well … she was chasing the high and it didn’t matter at this point how she caught it. Her eyes searched through the mess on her passenger seat until she found a condom and a cigarette. When she had picked up the habit she told herself that nicotine was the lesser evil compared to what she could have been smoking, but in her heart of hearts she knew that a true addict always kept cigarettes handy. The ash residue from cigarettes was necessary to make a functioning crack pipe. She held the cigarette between both lips while her hands opened the condom. She threw the sticky rubber out of her window and then used the foil wrapper to top off the water bottle. She emptied the ashes onto the top of the foil and then inhaled sharply as she placed a nice-size rock on top of it all. Her eyes were as big as golf balls as she applied the flame. Her long red stiletto nails far fancier than those of any crackhead anyone had ever seen. The rings on her fingers were far too expensive to be on the hand that was hugging the makeshift pipe. This wasn’t supposed to be her life; Bleu was supposed to be so much more, but as the tears slid down her face and the smoke accumulated inside the bottle, she couldn’t help but think of how this tragedy had begun … it all started with just a little Adderall and speed. Who would have thought it would have ever gotten this bad? Three months, seven days, six hours, and twenty-five minutes were all wasted as she wrapped her lips around the hollow pen.…

  1

  One year ago

  The buzz of the fan blew through the small liquor sto
re as Bleu carried a case of beer, balancing it against her hip as she walked. The summer heat made the inside of the store feel like an oven, and her shirt stuck to her back as she worked up a small sweat. It was sweltering and even the flies were too exhausted to buzz around in the suffocating temperatures. It had been a melting summer. A heat wave had swept through the Midwest and Bleu was miserably displeased.

  “Bruno, I came here to pick up my check, and you put me to work!” she grumbled as she carried the heavy boxes and placed them into the cooler.

  “I got you; I got you! I’ll add a couple bucks to your pay. That fucking Max called in. Saturday is my biggest night. This idiot calls off on the day the deliveries come in. I swear I don’t know why I keep him around,” Bruno, the store’s owner, said as he pinched his fingers together while waving his hand as he chastised.

  “Because he’s your son,” she replied with a smile as she blew her side bang out of her face to stop it from sticking to her forehead. She stepped into the beer cooler and threw her head back in relief. The sudden drop in temperature provided a temporary relief. It had been a long summer. She had just graduated from high school, and instead of celebrating her new independence with friends she was about to say good-bye to, she had spent the past few months working day and night just to afford college. Unlike her classmates, nothing was being handed to her. She had been accepted to UCLA on a partial scholarship, but she could still barely afford to attend. Bleu would be eating ham sandwiches and Oodles of Noodles just to get by, but it didn’t matter. L.A. was her getaway. It was her ticket out of Flint, Michigan. Born and bred in a city of hustlers and killers, she loved her hometown, but it was a known fact that the nothingness of it all would kill her slowly if she didn’t pursue her big-city dreams. She peered back at Bruno, who was signing for the beer shipment, and then placed her headphones in her ears. She slid her back down the wall and took a seat right there in the freezer, grateful for the cool air.

  John Legend crooned through her iPod as she bobbed her head and lip-synced to the soulful tune as she gave herself a break.

  “Fuck it. I’m not supposed to be here anyway. Thirty minutes won’t hurt,” she mumbled. She sat down and leaned against the freezing wall, zoning out as she counted down the days until she made her departure from Fli-city. In one week flat she would be a ghost. This was the last check she would pick up before telling everyone to kiss her ass good-bye.

  She crawled over to a stack of boxes and pushed them aside until the vent behind it was exposed. Reaching inside, she pulled out an old can that contained her entire life’s savings. She couldn’t keep it at home. Too many people ran in and out of her father’s house to ever keep all that she had earned there. The music in her ears drowned out all sound as she pulled her money out of the can. It was every dollar that she had made since her freshman year of high school. California had been her dream ever since she was a little girl and she had been saving for it as long as she could remember. As she flipped through the bills, she realized that she had saved $11,000, a dollar at a time. It wasn’t much and would probably be spent on books and supplies within weeks, but she was going anyway. She was headed to L.A. with a dream that only an eighteen-year-old could believe in. There was beauty in her youth … she saw the world through optimistic eyes where everyone else around her saw cynicism. She was young and fearless. She was tired of the poverty-stricken streets and gunshot sounds outside her window. She could practically hear the sound of the ocean already.

  BOOM! BOOM!

  She sat up in alarm. The sound of gunshots chased away the sound of imaginary waves.

  She snatched the earbuds out, thinking that maybe she had been mistaken. Maybe a truck’s exhaust had backfired, or the loud clang of the Dumpster being emptied had interrupted her. Frozen in fear, she breathed rapidly as her heart ached with sudden uncertainty. There was urgency inside of her sounding off, telling her to flee … that danger was near. Then she heard it again and this time there was no mistaking it.

  BOOM!

  Gunfire.

  She frantically crawled to the entrance of the freezer.

  “Fuck you shoot that nigga for?! How the fuck we supposed to get in the safe if he dead?!” one of the robbers asked in frustration.

  Bleu’s eyes watered as she saw Bruno lying on the floor, a pool of crimson spreading beneath his body as he gurgled on his own blood. His eyes were wide with fear as his fingers reached for her.

  “He-hel-help,” he choked out. Tears stung her eyes as she covered her mouth to stop herself from crying aloud. She shook her head as she placed her trembling fingers to her lips. He was reaching for her, begging for her to help him, but all she wanted was for him to stay quiet and not reveal her hiding spot. Bruno was dying, and as much as she wanted to help him, her feet wouldn’t move. Her eyes darted to the two masked gunmen who had invaded the store.

  “Fuck it, we’ll just take what’s in the register!” the other one shouted. He pulled off his mask as he spat, “It is hot as fuck in this bitch. Make sure you grab that security tape.” The look on his face would forever be etched in her mind as he stomped over to Bruno’s body and aimed his gun. Treacherous. These young boys were merciless and fear pulsed through her like a live current.

  Bleu closed her eyes as she anticipated the shot.

  BOOM!

  She jumped, hitting the case of beer behind her, causing it to crash to the floor, announcing her presence. Her eyes widened in fear as she looked for a place to hide, but there was nothing but walls around her. She was trapped.

  “Fuck was that? I told you to clear this mu’fucka out! Go back there and see!” one of the men shouted.

  Terrified, she felt her hands shake violently, because she knew that she was about to die. Flint was full of Tony Montanas. She knew that the men had come with intentions of robbery but had no problems leaving with double murders on their résumés, and she was shaken. Like a deer in headlights, she watched as one of the men came into the freezer, gun drawn, finger curled around the trigger.

  “Bitch, get cho’ ass out here!” he barked as he spotted her. He snatched her out of her hiding spot, fisting her hair as he dragged her out into plain view.

  “Please, please, please don’t kill me. I swear to God I won’t say anything. I swear. Please,” she pleaded. “My name is Bleu. I’m only eighteen years old. I don’t want to die. I…” She had learned that somewhere. She had not thought she had been listening when she had taken self-defense as her elective class in school, but now here she was, rattling off facts to endear herself to these wolves … these men who had suddenly come into her life and turned it upside down a week before she was set to start the rest of her life.

  “Shut the fuck up and open the safe!” the man growled as he grabbed her by the back of the neck and pushed her toward the bulletproof glass. Her feet tripped over Bruno’s big body and she stumbled, her hands sliding through a sea of blood as she tried to break her fall. She panicked as the deep burgundy liquid soaked through her clothes. Her legs were like noodles as she stood, hands stained, as tears began to flow uncontrollably.

  “I don’t know how to open the safe. Please. Just p-p-lease l-l-et me go,” she whispered, stammering over her words as fear caused potholes to interrupt her normally smooth cadence. “I just work here … I don’t know how to open the safe … I’m just a—”

  BOOM!

  Bleu fell to her knees. It felt like a hot iron had been placed onto her lower back and was burning its way through her insides as the bullet traveled through. They shot me, she thought, in a state of disbelief as she placed her hands on the floor in front of her. She gasped, struggling to inhale as she watched the world around her move in slow motion. Searing pain. That’s what it was … undeniable, excruciating, severe pain. It was like none other that she had ever felt before, and she knew that she was dying. She tried to keep her eyes open because she knew that if they closed she might never open them again. Everything around her moved in slow motion as she tried to cr
awl. One hand in front of the other, slow … desperately searching … for what she didn’t know. Perhaps for safety? For help? Bleu just wanted to get out of there, but the oxygen in her lungs was dwindling slowly and the room was beginning to spin. She collapsed on the ground and sipped in air slowly. I’m dying, she thought as she blinked slowly. She had a ground-level view of the scene as she watched the feet of the robbers as they ran around her as if she weren’t taking her last breaths right before their very eyes. They rushed to the cash register. She heard them open the cash register and then empty it, and then they fled out of the store as she gurgled on her own blood.

  The bell above the door jingled as they stormed out, leaving her to die. She was choking, drowning, suffocating, as she struggled just to breathe. This slow burn was torture as she bled out; the pain was so unbearable that she wished death would just take her quickly. She lay chest-down on the floor, her hand resting next to Bruno’s lifeless one as she waited for the end to come. She used her last bit of energy to open her clenched fist, stretching her fingers until she felt the tips touching Bruno’s hand. If she was going to die, she didn’t want to do it alone. As she lay leaking on the cold floor, she realized that she was just another girl from Flint, Michigan. She hadn’t done anything. She hadn’t seen much. She was simply another soul of the city who had been lost too soon. She had almost made it out … but almost didn’t count.

  * * *

  Beep … beep … beep.

  The sounds roused Bleu from the darkest sleep she had ever succumbed to. It was as if she were walking out of a thick fog. She had been in limbo, stuck between life and death. Waking up was no easy feat.

  Her eyes felt as if they were sewn closed as she tried her hardest to open them. When they finally fluttered open, she saw flashes of the world around her. Flowers and balloons surrounded her. She silently wondered who had sent them all. Not many people paid attention to her on an ordinary day. Surely these arrangements weren’t meant for her. She felt the wetness of tears slide down the sides of her cheeks as she willed her eyes to stay open. Suddenly terror filled her. Almost instantly flashbacks of the shooting ran through her mind. BOOM!