Hard Candy Read Online Free PDF Page B

ass better be scared of this,” the first guy said, lifting his shirt to display a firearm in the front waistband of his pants.
    Rock continued to walk into the store. All of his life people had commented on his size—six feet nine inches tall and a good two hundred and sixty pounds. Rock’s skin was like onyx, and his eyes were perfectly round, like big dark brown marbles. His hands were so big, he could palm a basketball and get his fingers around the top and bottom of the ball.
    Rock took notice of all of the men and made mental notes of their most prominent features. He locked eyes with one of the young guys who didn’t make any comments about his appearance. Rock noticed that the guy was quiet, stood alone, and did his hand-to-hand sales very discreetly. Rock could tell this young dude didn’t want fame and glory, unlike the other loudmouth punks on the corner. Something about the quiet kid bothered him.
    Rock entered the store and stood at the counter buying his BC Powder for the pounding pain in his head. As the clerk rang up his purchase, Rock kept his eye on the corner boys. Rock shook his head left and right, the pain nearly blinding him. But he continued to watch the quiet boy, sensing that something was very wrong. Finally, Rock waved it off, silently scolding himself for being paranoid. He decided to go home and mind his business.
    As he was preparing to leave the store, he noticed that the quiet kid had suddenly started arguing with a girl. The skinny, poorly dressed girl looked like she was on some serious drugs. Her clothes hung off her bony body, and dirt was visible on her pants and the front of her shirt. And her hair was a wild bird’s nest atop her head.
    Rock could see her wagging a skeletal finger at the quiet boy, who was up in her face by now. He stopped for a minute and watched the exchange, but he couldn’t hear the words.
    The quiet kid, a scowl on his face, suddenly grabbed the horrible-looking girl around her neck and picked her up off her feet. She was dangling like a choked chicken.
    The other boys on the corner laughed, jumping up and down, egging the quiet boy on.
    Then, out of the corner of his left eye, Rock noticed a strange man in a swinging black trench coat rush up from the corner behind the quiet kid. Rock was immediately on alert. A trench coat in the sticky August heat was a definite red flag.
    The quiet corner boy dropped the girl back to her feet and gave her a kick in her ass, and she scrambled up off the ground, still screaming and arguing with him.
    The stranger in the trench coat seemed to pick up his stride.
    Rock noticed the gun that the man had secreted up against his leg. All of a sudden, Rock was on the move. He dropped the BC Powder on the floor and rushed out of the bodega. He took five huge strides and was standing behind the quiet kid as the trench coat stranger got right up on him.
    The trench coat stranger with the gun was caught off guard by Rock’s interference, but he still attempted to raise his weapon hand. He never got the chance, though.
    Rock grabbed the man’s wrist and clamped down on his “God’s notch,” and the bones in the man’s wrist immediately crumbled under Rock’s grasp. The man cried out in pain as the gun fell to the ground.
    When the guys on the corner noticed the commotion, they all began to scatter.
    â€œOh shit! A gun!” one of them yelled.
    Rock realized his first impression of the so-called tough guys on the corner was right. They were pussies.
    The girl who was engaged in the argument with the quiet corner boy immediately stopped screaming and rushed to the aid of her man, who was rolling around on the ground in severe pain. “Baby, you okay?” she cried out.
    Rock picked up the man’s gun, dropped the magazine out of it, dismantled the slide, and threw the bottom half of the gun at him.
    â€œOh shit! That bitch tried to set me up!” the quiet corner boy