The Lipstick Clique (2 page)

Skye and Milan looked at each other simultaneously. They smirked and both of them pointed at Treasure. Milan spoke up. “Bitch
you
do it! You don’t hardly spend money either. It’s like you’re mad at the world or something. You just rob
niggaz
and don’t give a fuck.
Hahaha
!”

Treasure shook her head in silence. She thought about how she was tricked into leaving her comfortable home in Pennsylvania and into flying to California to be with the person that she thought loved her. She thought about how she was tricked into firing a pistol on a crowd of people to help her lover out. She thought about how her lover hid behind the door while she was being arrested. How her lover told her that he had her back; how her lawyer tricked her into signing a guilty plea and giving her life away to the prison system.

She thought about the things that she’d gone through in prison, and quickly snapped out of her funk when she saw that Skye and Milan were staring at her curiously. Treasure took a deep breath and smiled. In a calm voice, she spoke. “Well… I obviously can’t get an honest job anywhere, so I guess my mentality is… if I found a job I liked, I could add 5 days to every week. And putting the pistol to a sucker’s head is so much more satisfying than putting a tomato on someone’s bread.”

“Which house is it Treasure?” Milan asked as they crept to a parking spot on Buena Vista Road in Columbus, GA. It was 4:30 in the morning, and it appeared that no one on the block was awake. Treasure, Milan, and Skye had been frequenting a hole in the wall strip club on Victory Drive since the first day of their arrival, and it had paid off in a major way.

Treasure met a girl named Danielle who had dated many ballers in the city, and was fed up with the way that they had been treating her. After Treasure kept coming back in the club and requesting only her, the girl had started to develop a fondness for her, and was soon telling her everything about everybody.

Treasure pointed to a white and green wooden house with a dilapidated wooden fence around it. It looked like if they walked up to the fence and pushed it, the whole fence would tumble to the ground. “It’s that house right up the street,” Treasure pointed. “Danielle said that the guy that lives there keeps all of his money in his kitchen trash bag… so we’re just coming to take out the trash.”

Skye and Milan both giggled to themselves as they checked their weapons. Milan had found herself believing more and more into Treasure’s statement. Every moment co-signed the statement that she had a blood thirst for robbery and killing. For the past ten days, all she craved and thought about was how she was going to execute the next robbery. Not that they didn’t have enough money, but because her craving hadn’t been sated. Milan took her gloved pinky finger and tried to insert it into the barrel of the pistol. Doing such strange things turned her on. She was so in love with her lifestyle, that she was willing to do anything to keep it going, even if it meant destroying herself.

Skye looked around the area for signs of any setups. She scoured the scene for suspicious cars, people, or anything that looked out of the ordinary. If she would have spotted something, she would have put an immediate halt to the task at hand. She was the muscled authority for The Lipstick Clique, and even though they had no need for muscle, she enjoyed her position regardless. She knew no one else could fill it.

Treasure studied the angle that the car was parked, and looked at the structure of the street to make sure that their exit was going to go as smooth as they had originally planned. Once Skye nodded her head and Treasure nodded hers, they quickly opened the door, but they immediately shut it.

An older model blacked out Lincoln town car turned on the street that they were sitting on. The car’s headlights shone off of Treasure’s rearview mirror, but the lights immediately dimmed as it slowly cruised up the block. Skye whispered forcefully, “Treasure, this was a damn set-up! Hand me the chopper…
I’ma
have to set that shit right back down!”

Treasure shook her head and held up a single finger. Out of instinct, she reached out and grabbed Milan’s arm before she did something drastic. “Milan… please… just relax. If we need fire, then we use fire. Please don’t just randomly shoot people. As of now, no one really knows that we’re in this city. Let’s try our best to keep it that way for as long as possible. Think about it you two. We have to live
somewhere
! We’ve been on the run forever, and we still are. Let’s act accordingly.”

The Lincoln stopped in the middle of the street about 14 feet in front of Treasure, Milan, and Skye. Two men jumped out wearing black everything. Shoes, shoelaces, pants, shirt, gloves and mask were all black. They wore black watches and black earrings. Even the aura that they gave off seemed to be that of a black cloud. They were intimidating, even to Skye, and she
knew
that she was a bitch not to be fucked with.

 
The third person got out of the Lincoln and stood leaning against the driver’s side door. He held a black AK-47 in his hand and a black pair of binoculars tied to a string hanging around his neck. It was obvious that he was the getaway driver; it was even more obvious that they were about to rob the same people that The Lipstick Clique were about to rob.

Treasure was
pissed
. “That bitch tricked me! Dirty bitch!! I think that ho tried to get us killed!” Skye squeezed Treasure’s hand to quiet her down. She understood that Treasure was angry, but they were in a very delicate situation at the time. They weren’t sitting too far behind a man holding an AK-47 at 4 o’clock in the morning,
in the middle of the street.

The strange thing about it all, was that the men had rode right past The Lipstick Clique, and had paid them no attention whatsoever. Even the man holding the AK seemed to be ignoring their presence and was in his own little world with his own unique set of thoughts. Treasure looked at the house that they had planned to rob and sighed.

“
Damnit
… I’m not going to keep being too many more victims around this bitch! I’m sick of being the butt of everyone’s jokes. I’m going to end up going on a mass massacre for real if this shit continues.” Treasure whispered as she shook her head.

They resumed their focus on the house that was being robbed, and saw a light flash on and off in one of the rooms. They didn’t hear a sound, so they thought that the men had just turned the light on and off, checking to see if anyone was in there. But after a few more minutes, that same room turned into a disco. It looked like strobe lights had been set off in there, but there was still no noise on the outside of the house. And then it ceased.

The two men walked out of the house and calmly made their way back to the Lincoln. They unscrewed silencers off the ends of their weapons, and placed them into their pockets. Even stranger, was the fact that they didn’t return with the trash bag full of money. They were operating like a group of henchmen would, except it seemed that they were less cautious than professionals, but more skilled than amateurs. They got into the car without saying a word. The driver made eye contact with them, and they crept out of the neighborhood just as slowly as they came.

“What the fuck just happened?” Skye questioned as she stared straight ahead in a daze. Milan opened the door abruptly. Both Treasure and Skye opened their doors so that they could stop Milan from doing whatever it was that she had planned, but Milan had taken off running towards the house. Skye was the closest person to her, despite how fast she was running. “Milan, bring your ass back here bitch! Come on, let’s go!”

But Milan wouldn’t stop; she was in a world of her own. She made it all the way to the door and pushed it open. Immediately, she froze in her tracks. She stood there staring at what looked to be the dead bodies of a married couple. They had no signs of life, and the puddle of blood covered the entire entrance of the house. As bad as Milan wanted to go and retrieve the money from the trash can in the kitchen, she knew better than to step through the blood of a murder that they didn’t commit.

Skye arrived behind her and saw the same sight. “Damn… them niggas had it in for these people… damn… let’s go Milan. I’m going back to the car. We didn’t do this shit, no need for us to be around it.”

Skye and Milan both turned to go back to the car. But when they got halfway, Milan turned and ran back into the house at full speed. No way was she about to be that close to finishing a robbery, and just let everything go to waste. She was adamant about finishing her job. Even though it would be less fun because the victims were already dead, she still wanted to feel a rush; it was her addiction.

What the fuck?
Skye thought as she watched her twin sister take off running back into the house. She looked around frantically at her surroundings, trying to make a sound decision. Across the street, she saw someone peeping out the window, then saw the curtain close as soon as she made eye contact.
Fuck!
She glanced at the car and saw that Treasure had started the vehicle up and was motioning for her to get in.

She ran to the car, jumped in, and took deep rigorous breaths. “Those
niggaz
killed those folks, and my sister ran in there anyway. I saw someone looking out the window of that house over there-”

But she was unable to finish her statement. “Treasure, Skye! Look!” Milan opened the back door and threw a trash bag onto the floor behind the driver’s seat. Then she surprised the hell out of them. There was a little girl standing beside her shaking in her shoes.

Treasure spoke first. “What the
fuck
is going on? You bring a bag of money and a
child
out of the house? You’re just doing too
muthafucking
much!”

Skye agreed with Treasure. “Sis… get a grip! What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You can’t just take
human beings
bitch! Leave the child!”

The child had tears rolling down her face, and despite the warm temperature, she was shaking like it was a 2 degree wind chill. The young girl spoke in a soft and timid voice. “What happened to my Momma and Daddy?” She wore micro-braids, and had on SpongeBob sleeping attire. Her skin was bronze-brown and her body looked like she could be 18, yet her aura seemed that of a young child.

Treasure couldn’t help but to feel some sympathy for the girl’s situation. “How old are you baby?”

The girl wiped her tears and stuttered her reply in Treasure’s direction. “I-I… I’m
thir
- thirteen.”

Instantly, Treasure had flashbacks of the last person she’d attempted to help out, and the things that had happened as a consequence. She started to say no, but Milan didn’t give her an option.

“Fuck what
ya’ll
talking about,” Milan exclaimed. “This is my responsibility, and I’m going to own up to it! I’m not going to leave her like this. She’s with me! Fuck what
ya’ll
gotta say!”

They jumped into the backseat of the stolen vehicle and slammed the door. Treasure and Skye glanced at each other for a moment, and both sighed heavily. Treasure shook her head as she put the car in gear. They sped off the block, eager to get back to the room and get things situated.

__________

When the girls got back to the hotel on Victory Drive, they parked and all of them jumped out except for the young girl. Immediately Treasure walked around to the side of the car where Milan was standing and stood in her face. Both women had scowls on their faces, but Treasure’s scowl was deadly;
lethal
.

“Milan, what the
fuck
is your issue bitch? I should dump you in a ditch somewhere for that
stupid
ass stunt you just pulled! You just put us all in jeopardy and put us in some serious ass responsibility. Why?!?!”

Milan stood there staring without speaking. She felt in her heart that she was doing the correct thing by bringing the young girl with her. If she had left the girl behind, the fact that the girl would be headed to state’s property would forever be on her conscious. She couldn’t allow that to happen.

Treasure’s breathing was rapid, and Milan not responding was making her even angrier. She had the mind to grab her and teach her a lesson, but when she caught a glimpse of the young girl staring at them wide-eyed, she thought better of it. Treasure looked at Skye and Milan and shook her head. She took her hands and ran them through her hair while she stood there fidgeting from one foot to the next. She was flustered.