2. True colors.

They say you show your true color when you're angry. I was furious when I saw Mike in that hospital bed, so angry I wished those 666 boys dead a thousand times.

I sat there with tears, running down my cheeks. I felt a hand grab my shoulder and looked back. It was Kazeem dressed in a black tee-shirt, black jeans, and a red leather jacket.

"Hey, kid, " he said with a smile.

"I'm okay but Mike isn't, " I responded.

"Yeah, let me talk to his mama for a minute" he walked up to the woman who was talking with the doctor.

"Hello, Doctor Frank, " he greeted the doctor like they knew each other.

"Oh, Mr. Badur, they're with you?"

"Yes, they are. I'll be paying for the treatments."

"I understand, sir, " the doctor answered with fear written all over his face.

"Kareem turned to Mike's mom and hugged her. He's going to be fine, Mama. Stop crying." He then dipped his hand into his pocket and brought out some money which he gave to her.

"Thank you Mr. Badur, " she wiped her face with the back of her hand.

Kazeem walked up to me, grabbed me by my shoulder, and said:

"Let's go get something to eat, your friend is going to be fine and I'm hungry."

We went to the closest restaurant and as we walked through the door I noticed everybody staring at us. We sat down and ordered.

"Get everything you want, little brother, you need to add some weight and maybe those 666 boys wouldn't be walking up to you anymore."

My heart skipped a beat and I had to think of a topic to throw him off the 666 boys. I had to think fast.

"I heard the warlords and the seaville family are at war again and guys are getting shot in front of their families. Should you be rocking red right now? What if you get shot as Tayo did."

Tayo was a friend of Kazzeem's. They joined the family together but he got shot at a nightclub two months before we sat to eat at that restaurant.

The warlords family was just one out of the twelve street gangs in the city. These street gangs control multiple territories but they are controlled by bosses who answer to bigger bosses. These bigger bosses were the ones really in charge. They were the real string pullers.

There are six bosses in Harmony city. The strongest is Bakey Sarumky of the Sarumky family and he is the boss in charge of the warlords. This in turn made the Warlords the strongest street gang in the city but sometimes these other gangs challenged them over territories, business, the slightest of things like disrespect by a gang member can lead to a gang war.

Most of the time, the big bosses stopped the fighting, if it has nothing to do with their organizations directly, but sometimes the big families go to war too and these street gangs are their soldiers.

"Don't you know I'm bulletproof?" Kazeem whispered and smiled.

I was carried away for some minutes and when I finally looked around, all the people who were eating in the restaurant were nowhere to be found.

"Where is everybody," I asked.

"Well they finished their food and left, " he replied as he lighted a cigarette and started to smoke.

"You got jumped by the 666 boys too, who led them?" He asked looking at the ceiling and blowing up cigarette smoke.

"What are you gonna do to them?"

"I'm just gonna have a chat with them."

"Like you had a chat with Zaheer when he got Maryam pregnant?"

"She's just some months older than you, you know? She can't be in school because that bastard got her pregnant."

"So, you broke his arms and his right leg. Kazeem I won't tell you the name of the guy who led them because you're going to kill him, you get angry and do crazy shit." I grumbled

"I really don't need you to tell me his name because I already know it. Sunday led them and, no, I won't kill him, but I can't let that disrespect go. You'll understand when you get older, " he quenched the cigarette and stood up.

"Where are you going, now?" I asked

"I have some business to attend to. Take some food home for the twins." He walked out of the restaurant without paying.

I sat for a while, thinking, and then I heard a voice:

"What else would you like to order, sir," it was the waiter. He called me sir, because of what could've happened to him if he didn't. Fear is a weapon as Mike always said.

I didn't see Kazeem until four days later when he came to my school to tell me that he had taken care of the 666 boys and they won't be bothering us any longer.

"And I didn't kill them, they just got beat up a little," he muttered.

"Well thank you for not killing anybody because of me, " I replied.

Oh, there was this other boy, he goes to your school. He was the one who hired them because of the quiz competition, " he added.

The other boy was Jamey Adeleke. He was the son of a local politician and he wanted me to drop out of the quiz because I was the reason he didn't get picked the last time. He showed up in school the next day with a broken nose and he avoided me, he wouldn't even look my side.

"So this is what power is, " I thought.

Mike got discharged from the hospital the next week and when I told him about how Kazeem messed up the 666 boys for us, he laughed so hard his mother busted into his room to check what was wrong.

"You know your ribs aren't fully healed yet, you shouldn't be laughing so hard, Michael!" She complained.

"Okay, mama, I've heard you, " he stopped laughing.

"Nothing is stopping your ass from winning that quiz competition now, " he whispered so that his mother wouldn't hear him.

"I might just decide not to compete, " I responded.

"If you made me take all that ass-whooping for nothing, I'll kill you, bro, " he exclaimed, covering his mouth with his hands when he realized how loud he was.

You're going to make your mom beat both our asses, I whispered and we both chortled.

Mike resumed school some weeks later in time for me to win the competition and we were the most popular kids in school. All the bullies couldn't even dare to look at us the wrong way. The news of what happened to the 666 kids had circulated and this got us so much popularity that we started attention from the girls.

We graduated from junior secondary school that year and we became seniors.

Senior year started out being very good, I got another brother. His name was Chukwuemeka but we called him Chuks "the mute". Chuks was an orphan and he was living on the streets before Kazeem brought him home. He found him beaten half to death by some guys who used him as a lookout for their robberies.

We never knew what happened to him but he just wouldn't talk, he couldn't. It was difficult to communicate with him at first but we all had to learn sign language.

Kazeem tried to enroll him in a school but he was more interested in helping Kazeem with his business, he already knew the streets, and he knew hustling more than anybody his age. Kazeem reluctantly agreed and he became his lookout, who would pay any attention to a dumb kid anyway?

I also met Titi the same year and everything was as it should be, nice and steady...for a while.