Sun & Shyne: Growing Pains Read online

  Black Ink Publications Presents

  Sun & Shyne

  GROWING PAINS

  A Novel By

  Sa’id Salaam

  Copyright 2016 by Sa’id Salaam, Sun & Shyne, Growing Pains

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems without permission in writing from the publisher, except for by a reviewer, who may quote a brief passage in reviews.

  First Edition February 1, 2016

  Printed in the United States of America

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Email: [email protected] and/or [email protected]

  Facebook: Free Sa’id Salaam

  Cover design and layout by: Sunny Giovanni

  Edited by: McIntire Edits

  Acknowledgements

  Bismillah Ir Rahman Ir Rahim

  As always, First and Foremost All praise and worship is for Almighty God, alone, with no partners. I bear witness that there is nothing worthy of worship except Him.

  Dedications

  This one is dedicated to you, the readers. As always thank you for your love and support.

  Sun & Shyne

  GROWING PAINS

  A Novel By

  Sa’id Salaam

  Prologue

  “Where in the hell am I?” Sun asked as he blinked in the darkness.

  “I was wondering the same thing,” Shyne said from behind him.

  “You can hear me?”

  “Of course I can, stupid. I’m in here with you!” she shot back, sassy from the start.

  “No wonder I’m so cramped in here!” Sun said as he pressed his back against hers to try and free up a little space.

  “Hey!” Shyne protested as she shoved back.

  “If I didn’t know any better…I’d swear that I had twins in here!” Yolo said, feeling the commotion going on inside of her. Looking down at her swollen belly, she saw the movement going on inside.

  “Please, no!” Killa prayed with his hands clasped together. One child with the lovely little lunatic was more than enough.

  “Chill, yo! We in here together so we may as well try to get along,” Shyne reasoned, since the shoving match wasn’t going her way.

  “I guess. What’s your name?” her brother asked.

  “Um…I don’t know? How about you?”

  “I don’t know, either. I guess those two we keep hearing will tell us sooner or later.”

  The twins spent the rest of their time in their mother’s womb bonding with each other. The humorous, sarcastic, but loving banter of their parents served as a backdrop to their growth and development. They were born prematurely and spent months in an incubator together. Their parents were off murdering the Black Mob so all they had was each other. The two formed a bond that each would kill or die to protect.

  ****

  “Just relax and breathe,” the delivery nurse said soothingly.

  “Relax? Bitch, I got a whole person trying to come out of my vagina! How the fuck I’m ‘posed to relax?” Yolo shot back. She glanced around the room for something to kill her with, but luckily nothing was in reach.

  “You’re three months early…something is weird with this heartbeat,” the doctor announced as he checked on the baby.

  Yolo memorized his full name. She was going to do something weird to him if anything happened to her child. “You sure you know what you’re doing? Last time I gave someone an epidural, she felt it when I cut off her foot,” Yolo asked as the nurse performed that procedure.

  All movement in the room paused to process the statement. In the end, they shrugged it off as labor pains.

  “Just rel…uh…I…um…” the doctor stammered as he prepared to go in and get the premature baby.

  “Can we wait for my boyfriend?” Yolo whined, causing the nurse to snicker. Quite a few mothers made that same request when they arrived and most ended up giving birth alone and raising their child alone.

  “If I had a dollar for every time I heard that, I’d…”

  “Be a dollar short today!” Killa said as he walked into the room.

  “Hey, there, little fellow,” the doctor said happily as he pulled a tiny baby boy from Yolo. He was small and underweight, but healthy. “He’ll have to go into an incubator to cook for a couple of months.”

  “Cook! No one’s cooking my baby!” Yolo shouted, trying to sit up.

  “Relax, it’s just a figure of…Doctor, you missed one,” the nurse said urgently.

  “One what?” both Mom and Dad shouted together.

  Neither got an answer because the doctor was too busy pulling their daughter into the world.

  “Oh my,” Killa said and sank into a chair.

  “A boy and a girl!” the nurse announced with glee. “Have you given any thought to names?”

  “You do it,” Yolo said in exhaustion.

  Killa got up and went over to look at the fraternal twins. Even though the babies were premature, they still had classic Forrest features.

  “Sun…and Shyne,” he announced, looking from his son to his daughter.

  “Sun and Shyne…I love it,” Yolo repeated and fell asleep.

  Chapter 1

  A couple of weeks before the twins were to start kindergarten, Yolo decided to take them on a field trip. They were headed to an Upstate New York prison to watch a man die. She wanted to teach them about life’s truest reality; death.

  It wasn’t just any man. It was the man who’d sent her life into the darkness of death and destruction. It was his fault that she’d turned out like she was and now he was finally going to pay for it.

  “Where are we going, Mommy?” the fussy little diva demanded to know from the passenger’s seat. Both she and her brother had begun to grow restless from the long ride.

  “To watch someone get what they deserve,” Yolo replied, speaking of the long overdue execution of Harry Brown. Ironically, he was being put to death for a murder that she committed, but it was still justice.

  Yolo never understood why it took so long for the condemned to actually be put to death. When she decided someone needed to be dead, their ass was dead. There were no appeals, no pardons, and no mercy. Fuck up and you got fucked up on the spot.

  “I need to say bye-bye,” Yolo smirked wickedly. It pleased her to no end that her face would be among the last faces that Harry saw in his life.

  “He ain’t got no phone? Why you ain’t just call and say bye?” Sun demanded to know from the backseat.

  Yolo just shook her head at her son through the rearview mirror. Just like apple trees produce apples, smart alecks beget smart asses. The car swerved slightly, alerting Yolo that she had gotten stuck staring at her son’s handsome face instead of watching the road. He’d gotten that from his dad, along with a few other traits that would manifest later in life.

  “I wanna talk to my daddy,” the daddy’s little girl pouted.

  “Go ‘head!” Yolo spat jealously. It seemed as if she had to compete with the little girl for Killa’s attention.

  “Don’t let me find out you hatin’,” Shyne mumbled under her breath as she went into her phone.

  Both twins had their own cell phones already with their parents and Christi’s numbers locked in on speed dial. Without realizing it, their parents had handicapped them by not allowing them to memorize important numbers the old fashioned way. It was all good now but it would come back to haunt them later.

  Shyne’s end o
f the conversation was all smiles and giggles as she gushed over her daddy. She sucked her teeth and rolled her eyes when he asked to speak with her brother.

  “He got his own phone,” she fussed and hung up.

  “No, you didn’t!” Yolo laughed. She meant to check the child but it was just too funny.

  Sun found ‘Daddy’ in his contacts and pressed ‘send.’ “Daddy, Mommy won’t stop driving!” he tattled when his father took his call.

  “Snitch!” mother and daughter called out at the same time and high fived.

  “I don’t know who he call himself telling on. Your father ain’t the boss of me!” Yolo told her daughter who scrunched her cute little face up in disbelief. The girl witnessed how her mother acted around her father so she knew damn well the he was the boss of her.

  “Daddy wanna talk to you,” Sun said in a smug ‘take that’ tone as he passed the phone forward.

  “Hello,” Yolo sang through the wide smile on her face.

  “Sup, Yo? Where you headed? I heard you been driving for a hundred years,” Killa said, stifling a laugh at the colorful exaggeration.

  “Seems like,” Yolo agreed with a sigh. The low rumbling bass of his voice eased her frustrations instantly. “Goin’ upstate to watch Harry get put down like a puppy at the pound. I have to see him take his last breath.”

  The line went momentarily quiet as Killa answered all the questions that popped into his head for himself. He knew her story so he understood perfectly. He also wondered why she’d take the kids but he figured that out on his own as well. He concluded that she was in her feelings so he verbally kept her company for the rest of the ride. Now it was Sun’s turn to get in his feelings since he couldn’t get his phone back.

  “’Bout time,” Sun mumbled when they finally pulled into a motel. His mother twisted her lips at him as she gave the dead phone back.

  “What you guys want to eat?” Yolo asked once they were comfortably inside their room. She handed them the menus from the local restaurants that delivered.

  “Hamburgers! Chinese food!” Sun and Shyne cheered. She added pizza to the mix and made the call.

  The combination of the long ride, their full bellies, and hot baths put the five-year-olds to sleep like five-year-olds with full bellies, after a long ride and a hot bath. After taking a hot shower of her own, Yolo got into the bed and got her boo back on the line.

  “Sup, Ma?” Killa answered in his sexy South Bronx accent that drove her wild.

  “Man, I wish you were here,” she sighed as she slipped her hand into her panties.

  “And why is that?” he asked, dropping his voice an octave and making it sound even sexier. He’d clearly heard the arousal in her voice and knew where she was going with her statement. It was his job to help her get there even if he was eight states away.

  “So you could be doing this for me,” she moaned as she alternated between rubbing little circles on her clit and slipping a finger in and out of her slippery box.

  “Well, just pretend like your finger is my tongue and…” he growled before being cut off by the sound of her cumming instantly. “I see my work is done.”

  “G-g-goodnight,” Yolo stuttered before she hung up and rolled over to sleep like only a good nut can make one do.

  “Who you talking to?” Sincerity demanded as she rushed into the room. She’d heard him using his sexy voice and came to investigate.

  “No one,” Killa shrugged. Technically, it wasn’t a lie since the call had already ended. That still didn’t explain the erection that bulged in his pants.

  “Mm hmm,” she said as she twisted her lips up skeptically. She moved in closer to inspect it and gave it a squeeze to test its hardness. Obviously it passed the test because she unzipped his pants and set it free.

  She was naked under her t-shirt so she climbed onto his lap and straddled him. Once she wiggled him inside of her, she sank down as far as she could go. The couple kissed softly as she rode him until they both came hard. Killa had satisfied both of his women for the night, proving that they didn’t call him Killa for nothing.

  ****

  “What is this place, Mommy?” Sun whined as they entered the prison.

  She usually checked him for whining but made an exception this time due to how dreadfully dreary the place was. Being in prison was worse than death because it’s kin to being buried alive.

  “I wanna go home,” Shyne pouted as well.

  “Be easy. We won’t be here too long,” Yolo said. A glance at the wall clock proved her right since its time said that the execution was only thirty minutes away.

  They’d barely made the cut to witness it as the room filled with the victim’s family, members of the media, and people with morbid curiosities. Yolo recognized the victim’s family as they sat in the front row hoping for closure that would never come. The death penalty was about revenge, not closure. It was an eye for an eye, and ain’t nothing wrong with that.

  The dead girl’s mother let out a gasp as Harry Brown was led into the death chamber. He looked around, blinking his eyes to make sure that it was real before he calmly laid atop the gurney and was strapped down. It was only then that that he allowed himself to turn toward the viewing window. He faced it, knowing that his alleged victim’s family would be on the other side.

  Turning in their direction, he mouthed, “I’m sorry,” since they couldn’t hear him through the thick glass. The mother snapped her head away, which translated to ‘apology not accepted.’

  Curiosity caused the condemned man to scan the faces in the rooms as an IV was started. The innocuous saline drip attached to his arm would soon be infused with poisons. His gaze swept right over Yolo until his mind processed the face and caused him to shift it back and lock gazes with her. He remembered telling his lawyers that it had to have been her who’d strangled his alleged victim and hid her body in his room. He knew he deserved his fate so he offered her a half smile as he again mouthed the words, “I’m sorry.”

  Yolo gave a slight nod as a sign of her acceptance of his apology. There was no need for her to continue to hold a grudge since he was paying for what he’d done to her with his life. Besides, with all the wrongs that she’d committed, she knew that one day she would need forgiveness of her own.

  “Any last words?” the warden asked, hoping that he would say no. The last man he’d asked the question had begged, pleaded, slobbered, and cried for fifteen minutes.

  “La illaha illAllah,” Harry replied confidently like a man who was ready to meet his Lord.

  “What does that mean?” Shyne whispered to her mother.

  “It means there’s only one God,” Sun answered for her.

  “Yeah, that there’s only one God,” Yolo muttered. She wasn’t big on religion and had only gone to church to kill the crooked clergyman, but that much she did know.

  The spectators watched Harry as his eyelids fluttered and he fell into a deep sleep as his chest moved up and down slowly with each of his last breaths. It rose and fell one final time before he moved on from the here and now into the hereafter.

  “Come on, y’all. Let’s go home.”

  ****

  “Is that man dead, Mommy?” Shyne finally asked as they drove home. They’d been riding for over an hour in the silence of death before the she spoke and broke it.

  “As a doorknob,” Yolo chuckled in amusement. Harry had really gotten off easy as far as she was concerned. Had it been left up to her, he would’ve had a slow and painful death. “That’s what he gets for touching me!”

  “Did you get pregnant?” Shyne asked, eyes wide with fear.

  “Huh?” Yolo asked, fighting to control the car.

  “If a boy touches you, you’ll get pregnant, have a baby, and die!” Shyne repeated urgently.

  “Wha-, wh-, who told you that?” Yolo demanded. She knew good and well that the girl she’d adopted from next door hadn’t, she was too smart to say something so dumb. It came to her at the same time that her daughter answer
ed.

  “Daddy! He said not let a boy touch me because I’ll get pregnant and…”

  “Hello!” Yolo yelled when Killa picked up. He knew from the tone of her voice that he was in trouble. He was right too because Yolo read him the riot act.

  “What’s wrong, Mommy?” Shyne asked, hoping that she hadn’t gotten her daddy in trouble.

  “Nothing. Your father is right. Don’t let no boy touch you or you gonna get pregnant and die!”

  Chapter 2

  “One more time! Let’s go again!” Yolo cheered, breathless from an orgasm. Killa had swung into town for his children’s first day of school. Yolo, of course, had greeted him with open legs.

  “Look what time it is,” he reminded. The excuse was valid, but truth be told, she’d put it on him.

  “Okkkaay,” she pouted and let out a sigh. “Get her, I’ll get him.”

  Killa smiled and gave himself a mental pat on the back when he saw Yolo wobble upon standing. Her legs were rubbery from the multiple orgasms from the multiple positions he’d sexed her in. He’d fucked her like the world depended upon it. And of course, Killa had saved the world.

  “Knock, knock,” Killa called out as he eased Shyne’s bedroom door open. She’d chewed him out the last time he’d entered without formal permission. To his surprise, she was already up and sitting, fully dressed, at her vanity fussing with her afro puffs.

  “Would you make Mommy let me get a perm, a lace front, or something cuz…” Shyne fussed.

  “Uh…no,” her father laughed then frowned. “What’s that on your lips?”

  “MAC lip gloss!” the little diva said, pulling her shiny lips into a smile. “How does it look?”

  “Well, let me see,” her father said, drawing closer. When he was close enough, he used the palm of his hand to un-gloss his five-year-old’s lips. “Much better!”