The next day after school, Tory and I sat in the control room of the recording studio up the block from my house. Sitting next to us on the leather couch was a little girl watching cartoons on the phone in her hands. She was the daughter of Darius’s producer.

“Let’s run that back,” the producer said to Darius, who we could see in the booth through the laminated glass window between the two rooms.

The beat dropped before Darius began to rap. It was generic lyrics about money, cars, clothes, and hoes—and that’s cool when you feeling yourself and the song is hard—but there lies the problem:

The track was garbage.

Once he was done recording, Darius walked out of the booth and into the control room hyped as hell as if he made some heat. Tory and I were here to ask him about Lorenzo, but I couldn’t resist calling him out on that whack ass song. It was in my nature when it came to music.

“It was trash,” I uttered over his celebration. His face scrunched up as if he heard the most baffling statement in the world. “The bass is knockin’, but it’s drownin’ out the other instruments on the track. Your lyrics are cool for what’chu goin’ for, but they don’t make sense sometimes. You said, ‘I’m Tom, this money Jerry’, but if you watch the cartoon, Tom never catches Jerry. So, by that logic, you gon’ be chasin’ the bag forever.”

The death stare from Darius that followed made me look away in silence. I really gotta learn when to speak my mind.

“The youngin’ got a point,” his producer chuckled out. Darius’s glare shifted to him, leading to my audible sigh of relief.

“Fix it,” Darius demanded. “I’m goin’ back in.”

Once he left the room to step back in the booth, his producer turned to me and said, “You almost got us killed.” He then proceeded to tweak the sound of the song as Darius went over the lyrics noted on his cell phone.

Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but so far in his rap career, Darius had only been surrounded by Yes Men. His only foot in the game was the release of two mixtapes averaging low streams online, with one being a collection of diss songs toward a rap group he had beef with who were called the Three Wavy Boyz. Clearly music wasn’t for him, but hey, all it takes is one lucky hit, right?

As the recording went on, the little girl beside me began to pout and whine while looking down at the phone in her hands. Her father took notice, asking, “What’s wrong, baby girl?”

“Your phone sucks,” she said, making me smile. She couldn’t have been older than six or seven.

“What’chu mean my phone sucks?” He took the phone out of her hands and looked at the screen. “I put cartoons on for you like I always do, so… Wait, hol’ up. What? Why all this old stuff on here?”

Tory and I gave each other a confused look before he took out his cell phone and went online. His thick brows creased even more.

“What the hell? Bro, ain’t no shows available to stream except for old stuff our grandparents used to watch. Websites are goin’ down by the second, too.”

Darius walked back into the room. “Yo, Jug, it’s time we head over to the ministry. We finna get back to this after we help out.”

Tory, just as surprised as I was, asked, “You workin’ at the shelter on your own free will? Or you only doin’ it to get some community service hours off?”

Damn. So harsh and straight-forward. He was worse than me at holding back.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Darius’s producer, Jug, took his daughter and left the room at the sight of Darius’s offended expression. He closed the door behind him, leaving the three of us in the room with awkward tension.

“If ya lil’ pencil ass must know,” Darius started, grilling his brother, “I been down there for two whole months serving food and unloading stock. But see, that’s ya problem: you think ‘cause I rap and sell drugs that I ain’t got a heart. I do this and that for us. Maybe if yo ass talked to me like you used to and get’cha head out them fake ass video games, we could have a real conversation.”

Judging by the dancing of Tory’s eyes, he felt some way about Darius’s words. He couldn’t look his brother in the face without seeing the truth that he was yet able to accept.

“I think we should get to the reason why we’re here,” I voiced with uncertainty. “Tory and I were curious if we could talk to you about somethin’. Maybe ask a few questions if that’s cool.”

“First, I got a question for y’all.” He took out his cell phone from his ripped jeans and showed us the screen. “What the hell is this?”

The video that played caused my heart to skip a beat. It was all there; yesterday’s confrontation with Miguel had been recorded.

And if Darius saw the video, others may have seen it as well.

“Damn,” Tory muttered, looking away. Even he knew what this could mean: we were targets for the men in black. Just like Ashanti.

“Damn?” Darius questioned. “What’chu mean? I told you to stay away from them, so why you out there foolin’ ‘round with these dudes and makin’ videos for social media?”

Bruh.

“Wait, what?” Tory asked, surprised and confused that Darius thought it was all fake. “Nah, this is—”

“A short movie we gotta do for class,” I jumped in. No way should Darius know about any of this. “See, we um, making a film about superheroes in the hood, and we wanted real gang members to play the villains ‘cause you know, to be authentic.”

Darius’s head swung side to side in disapproval. “Nah, y’all ain’t doin’ none of that. Do somethin’ else. I can’t believe y’all lackin’ like this. None of this is a game to them. They want a bullet in my skull and pretending to be cool with y’all is how they tryin’ to get to me and my squad. What’chu think this is, Baby T? You know better.”

“Is it because they work for Mr. Payne and you’ve already got three strikes?”

And there it was. For the first time, Darius had removed his cocky, tough guy exterior after Tory’s question and replaced it with an expression of dismay that he did not wear proudly.

He locked the door and stared down the two of us. “What do y’all know ‘bout Mr. Payne? Spill it all. No cappin’.”

Tory leaned forward on the couch to look his brother in the eyes. “I know you two were cool when I was little, then he suddenly stopped pulling up to the house. What happened?”

Smiling sideways, Darius mocked Tory with a snicker. “Aight, see first of all, ya ass still little. Second, the situation between me and Mr. Payne is complicated. We had a fallin’ out years ago after somethin’ went down that didn’t sit right with me. But nothin’ that came out’cha mouth answered my question, so I’mma ask again and be more specific this time: why in the hell do y’all know who Mr. Payne is?”

Tory slouched back with his hands in his red tracksuit and looked away. I guess it was up to me to answer.

“We got into somethin’ with the boys who work for him, so he told us we got three strikes; don’t let it happen again. We just wanted to know about him. That’s all.”

Darius mean-mugged the both of us until he finally grumbled, “Y’all really think I’m stupid? If y’all got into somethin’ with his crew, why y’all makin’ videos with them? It don’t add up. Stop playin’ wit me.”

Me and Tory stayed quiet as my eyes wandered around the room. Trying to get information out of Darius while keeping everything that’s going on a secret felt impossible. Now, we were both caught up, and I couldn’t think of anything on the spot to get us out of it.

“I tell you what,” Darius began, glaring at Tory, “I don’t know what y’all tryin’ to do, but yo ass goin’ straight home.” He then pointed at me. “You too. Dead all this and stay in the house. Understand?”

He didn’t wait for a response before unlocking the door and walking out of the room. Me and Tory stood up and looked at each other in disappointment.

“What now?” he asked.

I don’t know. I’ll hit you up in a lil’ bit.”

Feeling defeated, I walked to the door to head out until I heard him say, “Wait hold on.” He dug into his blue backpack and pulled out something that made me gawk in surprise.

Headphones.

“Bro, you for real right now?” I asked as he handed the box to me. “These mine?”

“Yeah, I can’t have you out here defenseless,” he laughed. “Those the upgrades from your old pair. I was lucky to find the same color. Last ones at the store, too.”

“Damn, you ain’t have to do this. When did you get these? How much were they? I gotta pay you back somehow.”

He smiled and shook his head. “I got’em last night while you were out saving your girl. Don’t worry ‘bout payin’ me back or nothin’. You good.”

I pulled him into a hug after we dapped. “Thank you.”

With these new headphones, my power was back. Power I would need to take down Mr. Payne and save our hood.