Chapter 1
Pure! Get up, now!" My boyfriend Julian shouted as he shook me awake. Groggily, I sat up and rubbed my eyes, tryna figure out why in the fuck this fool was shouting. When my eyes adjusted to the bright light from the lamp in the room, I could see him frantically throwing our clothes in a black garbage bag.
"Juju? What the hell is going on?" I asked, worried. When he didnt respond, I became scared. I jumped out of bed and frantically approached him. "Juju? What did you do? please don't tell me you did anything stupid?" I questioned.
He finally stopped moving around to look at me. "I'm sorry, baby. I had no choice," he responded and went back to shoving our things in the bag, which wasn't much.
"Had no choice? What are you talking about, Juju?" I asked, demanding to know what was going on.
"Look! Now is not the time for twenty-one questions. Just put on your shit, and hurry the hell up!" He shouted, scaring me more. Juju never spoke to me in that manner, so I knew it was serious.
Not wanting to agitate him further, I grabbed my tights that I had thrown across the room door and slipped them on. I grabbed my crocs that were next to the air mattress and slid my feet into them. I looked at Julian as he broke a sweat, gathering all our belongings as he mumbled to himself. I was worried to death. It was nothing new for Juju to get involved witb some type of scheme to feed us and pay our bills. But this looked more serious. I never so him so..... so scared.
"I think I've got everything. You good? come on," he said as he walked out our room door. At the same time, a loud screeching sound came from in front of our apartment. He ran to the window and looked out. "Shit! Fuck, fuck, fuck!" He said through clenched teeth as he slapped the top of his head repeatedly.
"Juju, your scaring me. What's going on?" I asked, terrified.
"Nothing, baby. Fuck," he replied.
He pulled me into him by my arm and looked deep into my eyes. "I need you to listen to me and listen good. We don't have much time. I need you to hide up in the attic, baby. We dont have very much time. Don't you fuckin' come out, no matter what you hear. Do you hear me? Stay there, baby. I love you so much Pure," he stated as he kissed me.
"Tell my son only good things about me, OK?" he said as I sobbed.
I had no clue as to what the fuck was going on, but it had to something serious for him to be saying his goodbyes. He dug into his pocket and handed over a bunch of money that was balled up.
"Go, baby. Go!" he demanded as he pushed me towards where the attic was.
I turned around right as I heard soneone kicking down the door. He mouthed to me run as he held his body weight against it. In a fit of tears, I took off and ran for the attic. I quickly pulled the string to descend the stairs and got up the narrow steps just as I heard the front door come crashing down. I quickly closed the attic door, sure to pull the string up with me to prevent them from noticing there was a door there.
"What you call yourself doing when you was laying up against the door?" I heard the man ask, followed by laughter. I could hear that it was more than one in there.
"Please, man. Don't kill me. I was just tryna feed my family," Juju explained in a shaky tone.
"Do it look like I give a fuck about you or your family!" I heard a young guy shout.
"Please don't do this, man. i'll pay you every dime back."
"You damn right you will. Except not with money with your life, muthafucka!" Pop, pop, pop! "Clear the house!" I heard the same guy say.
My breathing quickened as I shut my eyes tight, listening to the men move around beneath me. I was so damn scared. I could hear them crashing the place as they looked around for any signs of anyone being there. I was waiting for them to come up at anytime and kill me too. I was sure they killed Juju because he was no longer talking. Just the thought of him being dead had me about to lose it. They took my first and only love away from me. If I did so happen to make it through this, I didn't know how I would live without him.
