CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Hot Wheels Racetrack

The phone next to Briggy's bed started ringing early as she laid there starring at the ceiling fan, she did not sleep, she felt bad for knocking Trisha out. A repeat of the girl crashing, face front to the pavement played over and over like movie trailer. Briggy reached over answering finally, "Hey bae." She said, expecting it to be Jabari, it was not.

"Aye this Vandy", he was talking fast as usual, it was just his mature too. "What happened last night?" He put her on speaker phone so everyone in the house could her Briggy's side of the incident.

In the background she could hear Trisha yelling and telling her side, Briggy surely felt bad about it; however the cause of it was Trisha. "Vandy, I don't know why it happen. I was ready to go, I went to find Trisha and she was laying up under some guy with his hand up her dress." Briggy added that part to make her look like a slut. "Right, So I'm like, let's go, shit Vandy it was 1:30 and she's like he's going to take me home. But she ain't even know old boys name."

"What? Trisha you ain't know old boy? Vandy looked at his cousin with her two black eye and her broken nose till and she looked down. "He had his hands up your dress?"

"That ain't it." Trisha tried to change the narrative. "She was all loud, walking up on me, like c'mon Bitch!" Trisha lied as she tried to get favor by saying Briggy disrespected her.

"No I didn't," Briggy countered. "Why would I call her bitch?" Briggy wasn't feeling bad about knocking her out anymore.

"She should have called you a dumb bitch, cause that's what you is." Man-Man stood in the door frame in his same coveralls on, he'd been listening the whole time.

Briggy was still explaining, "Vandy, I was ready to go and she wasn't so I walked away, and she came behind me cussing, bitch this, bitch that, saying and half the girls in the club were fucking Jabari, not just me. All that type of shit."

"What?" Vandy gave Trisha a deadass stare. "Oh, so Jabari screwing half the club huh?"

"I'm just saying...". Trisha had no defense and she looked away as Man-Man cleared his throat and growled at her. Trisha pushed her chin so far down into her chest, submitting, she was being too distrustful.

"Just saying what? You're in there lying on the Prince, you? A D'arco? Fighting humans and, and lying on Jabari?" Trish took a few steps back, out of Man-Man reach, because she thought he might snatch her up.

"Vandy, I left the whole club Tommy Ali was walking me to my Jeep. I look up and Trisha is running out the back of the club and pulled me out from behind the wheel, that's when I elbowed her. People were recording, I'm sure it's on Tik Tok or Instagram somewhere."

"But look, but look.." Trisha spoke up again, but no one cared to hear her thoughts.

"You really need to shut the fuck up right now." The look Man-Man was giving Trisha was pure hate. "Why ain't you just let the girl leave, go home, she was in her jeep."

Trisha got loud again, "She ain't have to hit me like that!"

Man-Man looked at Vandy, as a last-ditch effort to control his cousin, before he did. "Aye you need to take some of that bass out your voice." Vandy told her. "You know who's living room you in? This ain't your mother's house." Vandy turned his lip up at her, shame should be upon her yet Trisha displayed very little. Vandy ended the call with Briggy.

"Look at you," Vandy looked her up and down in disgust. "Standing there with two black eyes, your big ass nose broke and yelling after a 130 human knocked you on your ass."

"I was just drunk." Trisha tried to justify it in her mind.

"Even in this form the strength is there, with yours dumb ass." Man-Man sat down and turned up his. "You needs to be sent away." Trisha thought to say something and recoiled the words before they split her lips.

Penny sat at the dining room table talking on her computer with Asperia of Egypt, the vice-chair of the council. She told how her niece was rendered unconscious by three elbow punches from a human girl, Asperia laughed a few times because this was a refreshing story compared to two unsolved murders.

" Oh Penny, I needed a laugh and you gave me one. How much did the girl drink? What is it, again, moon shine? Fitting name."

"She's a drunk," Mitch yelled. "A damn drunk, if she hadn't been knocked out, that drunk girl she would've been running her mouth. She was letting a man feel all up in her. So, what about that part?"

"Now Mitch," Penny looked up at him. "I feel like it's something else, something about Briggy is not right. That girl ain't right."

"Penny, you have a weak niece who needs to be to be disciplined. What else could it be? Who is she to marry, again?" Penny had recently arranged the union.

"Some weak ass Michigan group." Mitch told her. "I told you to send her to Iran."

Asperia agreed, "I think Mitch is right, she knows the rules. You don't attack human for personal reasons."

Penny did not like these two making decisions for her, she made the choices for her region, not them. "No, this is not about what Trisha. What she did was wrong, but it is really about that girl, and how she knocked out a fully developed wolf. Okay! We know nothing Briggy, like who her father is. She looks mixed, but with what?"

"Duchess, we care most about these murders and staying secret. Trisha being recorded attacking this girl is jeopardizing that, the video is out there. Your youngest son is going to marry into the strongest clan in Tenseness, we don't care about his pet, this Briggy, we care nothing about her! But that drunkard Trisha attacking humans, has to be addressed."

"Man-Man watched it and she ain't no fantastical beast," Mitch told them. "She's human with hands and Trisha got caught with a few elbows."

"I mean their bones are as strong as ours, and the elbow is the hardest bone in a human's body." Asperia added.

"She wasn't supposed to touch that girl!" Mitch was not there for favoritism. "It's always about the rules, until it's your people. Last year, that boy in Cuba, he beat up two humans. They was at a bar too, and you sent him to Siberia, but Trisha can't go to Iran? Why?"

"That was different." Penny said rolling her eyes at her husband, she had no interest in what he was saying; he was not supporting her position.

Penny was stuck eating a meal of her own making, because it was true, she wanted to show favor to her niece and keep her out of Iran. "You are the Duchess Penny, you will make the right decision baby." Mitch bent Penny's head back, kissed her forehead and walked away.

"Discipline her how you see appropriate," Asperia finally said. "We're trying to solve murders and I thought that was what you called, not your rule breaking niece. For I Asperia am a busy woman, is there anything new?"

Mitch walked into the backyard where his son Tryon was grilling a platter of hot dogs, he took a beer out of the cooler. A song by Luther Vandross played lightly as Tyron was using his wolf hearing to spy on his mother's Zoom meeting with Asperia.

"Yo'? Does momma thinks it's Briggy's fault, all that Trisha mess?" He asked his father and Mitch nods yes. "What does momma think Briggy is? An alien?"

"A Nuahualli." Mitch sat down and put his bare feet in the pool. "It's a damn warlock that can become a black coyote. What can a coyote do to a wolf? Get eaten?" Mitch laughed and looked back at his large three-story house. "She scared Jabari is gonna refuse his marriage to stay with that girl."

"He won't."

"I know." Mitch looked at his beer, "Hell, it's only 10 in the morning and I'm already drinking." Mitch finishes one beer "Are they still talking?" Mitch asked because he didn't use his ears to ease drop, he used Tyron's.

Tyron had finished burning the hot dog. "Yeah, now they are talking about Dime's son or something, out there in Denver. He tried to chop somebodies head off." Tyron heard only half of that conversation.

"Ha! Glad to see those other kids are out of pocket too."

Tyron listened more, "Now, mom is calling Man-Man in for this meeting." Mitch got another beer. "Wait, Rita walked in," Tyron began eating his burnt hot dog off the long fork. "She's agreeing with Mom."

"Ah shit, this is going to be a long ass day." He called Jabari and the phone rang over and over before Jabari answered. "Hey, hey this your dad."

Jabari was walking into the gym for Saturday practice. He was already tried of his family calling him about this, but here was another call. "Hey pops."

"That little gal up there with you at school?" He asked.

"Naw she's at home."

"Well, maybe you should invite her up there for a few days. Let shit settle down here ya, hurrd."

"Is it like that?"

Mitch looked back at the house, watching Rita there with Penny, agreeing and nodding to whatever her mother saying. He did not like the feeling he was getting from that room. Mitch felt it best to get that human girl out of St. Matthew for a few days. "Oh yeah, it is like that, get her on up there for a few days."

"Is it like that dad?" Jabari had worried, till now.

"Your sister Rita over here too, so yeah, it is getting there. So just get that gal up there with you."

"I'm on it, talk to you later pops." Jabari hung up the phone and begged his girlfriend to come up for a visit; but Briggy was interested in apologizing for hitting his cousin.

"I'm sorry baby..."

"I know girl, just bring your fine ass up her, I want to see you. I need to see you." He wanted her out of St. Matthew like his father instructed. "I know your birthday coming up and I'ma be playing then, so come on up and let me make you a cheesecake."

"Cheesecake?"

"Mango, mango cheesecake." Jabari stood by his locker. "Right now, come right now. After I'm done with practice and my classes, you will be here."

Briggy never driven that far, alone; but she in the mood for sex, rough sex all over his dorm room. "I'll pack something and be on my way, how long is the drive?" She sat up in the bed.

"Five hours, look I even got something special up here for you. I know you want.

Briggy started to throw clothes and toiletries in a backpack. "Jabari what? Dick?"

"Tea, from India and Thailand, baby girl. Oh yeah, I got this dick you want too, but this tea I ordered it special. Just get up here, girl so I can lick your toes while you drink it tonight." Briggy packed her things, jumped in her jeep and drove away from the Trisha drama.