A Deeper Love Inside Read Online Free PDF Page A

down!” She was definite, and excited herself just by reciting their group name. “Enough questions,” she said turning suddenly serious. “Are you in or out? If you’re out, this is the last conversation you’ll ever have with me. If you’re in, I’ll let you know the next move.” She wasn’t bluffing. I could feel it.
    We both already knew I was in. I liked her story. She wasn’t a broke bitch, a broken-down bully, hater, or a victim, and I wasn’t either. I had nothing to lose. The Gutter Girls weren’t going anywhere and neither were me or Riot. We are all prisoners.
    “I got one condition,” I answered Riot after a long pause. “My girl Siri gotta be down with us. It’s a two-for-one deal.”
    “Siri?” Riot repeated. “I don’t know her. Point her out.”
    “She’s right here,” I pointed Siri out, seated beside me. Riot’s eyes dashed one quick time like she didn’t see Siri. Then she turned straight-faced and said, “No problem. You’ll both be my sons.”

Chapter 4
    We met in the dark, Siri and me, almost three years ago, the first night that I got here, the worst night of my life. The last items that I owned that came from Porsche L. Santiaga’s world and wardrobe were taken from me: my denim Guess skirt and matching denim Guess jacket, which Momma brought for me. My deep blue Mecca T-shirt and matching blue bobos, my Taiga leather Louis Vuitton tiny handbag, that matched my leather riding boots.
    At first, I didn’t know who Louis Vuitton was, but Winter said he was an important man, and that if I lost the handbag she would punish me by making me wear a cheap bag for a week, and of course for that week I couldn’t go out with her cause she don’t hang with girls who rock cheap bags or cheap footwear, even if they’re blood-related.
    I held on to that bag mostly cause I always wanted to hang with Winter. Besides, she bought the bag and boots for me brand new. Her best friend, Natalie, only got to rock Winter’s hand-me-downs.
    I sported the boots only on special occasions and kept it a secret when they became too tight. Now all of my shit was gone. Good thing they left me in my panties.
    Freezing, the floor was frozen. My freezing little body was flooded with goose pimples. The two lady guards handed me paper shoes and a baby blue jumper, all ugly.
    “Don’t get dressed yet. Step over there.”
    One of ’em ran her palms over my naked skin. Her palms felt like sandpaper and made my goose pimples crawl. Momma said lady andsoft were the same damn thing. Clean, soft hands and skin and feet, she would say, as she rubbed my little body with her special creams and lotions.
    “Don’t get dressed yet,” the guard said again as she searched and surveyed my body. Then she ordered her partner to call for the doctor.
    “I don’t know why they sent her here so late,” the other guard muttered and picked up the phone.
    I shivered and shook for an hour and twenty-two minutes till the doctor finally showed up. I got the feeling they left me there undressed seated on a cold metal stool on purpose.
    The male doctor’s hands were pink in his palms and were hairy on the flip side. His bushy eyebrows had dandruff big enough to see, almost as big as snowflakes. His fingertips were cold. His metal thing that he placed on my flat eight-year-old chest was cold. His pointy thing he pushed in my ear holes was cold. He shoved a stick down my throat and pinned down my tongue. He shined bright thin beams of light into each of my pupils.
    Lying flat on a cold table he hit my knees with a hammer. My leg jumped.
    “Sit up,” he ordered me. “Hold out your hand,” he said, ignoring my nervous fingertips shaking. He flipped my hand around and pricked me with a needle. Between my thumb and the finger right next to it. He squeezed my finger till my blood burst out the teeny-tiny hole that he made. He did some quick moves then wiped my blood away and Band-Aided it, as though he wasn’t the one who had cut