Return to Flint

by Treasure Hernandez

Genres: African American Urban

Synopsis

Tiphani Fuller is on the run for her life. This former district attorney, wife of a Baltimore detective, and mother of two has burnt bridges and left dead bodies across the country. Now she has nowhere to turn but to the home she ran from in her youth.

As a child, Tiphani did everything to put the bullet-infested and crime-laden streets of Flint in her rearview mirror. Now she finds herself back in the community with people she swore she would never deal with again. Will Tiphani's past misdeeds, coupled with her present circumstances, be the death of her? Returning to Flint in the middle of a drug war and with nowhere to hide, what will Tiphani do to survive? Sex, lies and betrayal have always been the tools of her trade. Will they be enough to keep her alive this time?

Release date: March 28, 2017

Publisher: Urban Books

Print pages: 288

Sample

The ticking sound of the large clock hanging on the wall to her left seemed inexplicably loud in Tiana’s ears. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The drab gray paint on the walls and the caged windows reminded her of where she was, although she didn’t need reminding. Sweat dripped off the tip of her nose in cadence with the sound of the clock and the thump of her heartbeat. She shook all over, and her vision was becoming blurry with every minute she stayed in that familiar position.

Tiana moaned, a little trick she’d learned to keep herself conscious in times like these. She rocked a little, consciousness becoming harder to hold on to. Little squirms of light flashed through her eyes, and she had to concentrate to make herself blink them away. Tiana knew those came right before she usually succumbed to the drugs. She had been through this so many times she felt like a drug side effects expert. If you blink and moan and force yourself to move any muscle on your body the medicine won’t overcome you, she told herself.

She moaned again, painfully aware of the throbbing in her scalp, the result of Dr. Syed’s tight grasp on a fistful of her hair. He grunted lustfully, clamping down harder on her hair with one hand and using the other to unzip his pants. Tiana’s head felt wavier than it had ever in the past. It had to be the new medication she had been forced to ingest a few minutes earlier.

The smell of Dr. Syed’s dick caused the acids in Tiana’s stomach to bubble up into the back of her throat. She didn’t know how long she could take the strong odor. A mixture of musty body, dirty feet, and cheap men’s cologne was what it smelled like to her. Tiana knew the scent on his dick meant she wasn’t Dr. Syed’s first victim of the day; he usually averaged three or four per day. If she opened her mouth, she’d taste the body fluids of the other girls. If she didn’t, she’d be lying in her own body fluids for days. Thinking about it made her mentally and physically sick.

Forcing herself to swallow caused Tiana’s head to spin a little bit. If she gagged, she would be punished more harshly than ever before. At least, that was the threat she got when she was dragged into the office kicking and fighting.

“C’mon, Caldoron, open up. Don’t make this worse than it has to be. Be a good girl and get it hard. Lick it like you do.” Dr. Syed panted lasciviously with a wicked smile on his face. He swiped the head of his flaccid, uncircumcised dick across Tiana’s tightly clenched lips like it was the tip of a lipstick.

The feeling of the moist, clammy skin on her mouth caused another swirl of nausea to invade her stomach; this time, Tiana locked her jaw tighter in response. Her entire body felt hot like she had a fever, and she could feel a bitter swell of tears welling up in the backs of her eyes. Darkness had tried to creep up on her several times, but she fought the effects of the medication by moaning and blinking. Dr. Syed lifted his limp noodle and beat it on Tiana’s lips this time, his sick attempt to get her to capitulate.

“Open your fucking mouth,” he whispered through labored breaths.

Tiana still refused to open her mouth. She also refused to let her tears fall. Dr. Syed’s abuse had become so regular now Tiana had conditioned herself to go numb. Tiana had been practicing how to fight against the effects of the medication he always forced on her, too, a skill that had proven more valuable than anything else she had learned during her time at the juvenile psychiatric hospital.

It’s mind over matter. Mind over matter, Tiana chanted to herself. Mind over . . . Her thoughts kept slipping away. Her knees burned from being on them for so long, and her neck ached from the position Dr. Syed had her head held in.

“I said open your fucking mouth, you little bitch! Don’t act like you don’t enjoy our time together,” he hissed, forcing her face farther into his musty crotch. “Open your fucking mouth, I said.” Frustration and lust laced his words.

Tiana grunted as her body jerked forward from the force of his shove and caused her face to scrape against Dr. Syed’s coarse pubic hairs. More vomit came into her mouth, but she just swallowed the acidic body fluid back down because letting it out would’ve meant opening her mouth.

“If you don’t open your mouth you can guarantee a trip to the fucking padded room,” Dr. Syed said through gritted teeth, “and this time you’ll be there two weeks instead of two days.” Dr. Syed wasn’t used to this level of resistance from any of the girls.

Thinking about lying in that all-white padded room, bound by a straitjacket, left with no food or water for days, left to sit in her own piss and shit for days, and having those glaring, heated lights shining down on her prompted Tiana to open her mouth.

Dr. Syed smiled. “Attagirl,” he said softly, pulling her head toward his now halfway five-inch dick. “Show me like you did last time.” He closed his eyes, waiting to feel Tiana’s warm mouth on him.

A single tear escaped out of the side of each of Tiana’s eyes. They weren’t the involuntary ones that came from the medicine loosening the tear ducts. These tears came from the hot ball of fury sizzling inside of her.

Tiana inhaled, closed her eyes and, with the quickness of a bear claw trap, she turned her head to the left and snapped her teeth down on the tip of Dr. Syed’s dick. She bit down so hard sharp lightning bolts of pain traveled from her locked jaws up to the center of her head.

“Agh!” Dr. Syed shrieked. “Ah! Let me go! Let me go!”

Tiana released the grip on his dick and turned her head so she could get a mouthful of his inner left thigh. She continued to clamp down with the force of a great white shark. Fueled by Dr. Syed’s cries for mercy, Tiana ground her teeth into the thick muscle of his thigh until she tasted the sharp, metallic sting of his blood on her tongue. She finally let go of his thigh, stood up, and ran to his desk. She opened the top left drawer, took out his phone, and started taking a video of what was going on.

“Yeah, you ain’t so tough now, huh, Dr. Syed? It’s not so much fun when the tip of your dick almost gets bitten off,” Tatiana yelled at him while his blood dripped down her chin.

Dr. Syed was on the floor doubled over in pain. He was holding on to his penis in tears and hyperventilating from the throbbing sensation coming from the tip of his member.

“Now, why don’t you tell your loving wife how you ended up getting hurt, Dr. Syed?” Tiana pointed the phone camera at him so his entire ordeal could be captured on video. “Tell her how you had me sucking your dick and I bit it.”

“Arg! Tatiana.” Dr. Syed tried to speak in between breaths. “Stop.”

“Stop what, Dr. Syed? Stop recording you?” Tatiana bent over and got in his face. She turned the camera around so it could keep taking video of him and her. “You didn’t stop when Elizabeth was crying and begging for you to stop raping her because she was bleeding and swollen. You didn’t stop when Celeste was screaming out in pain the first time you butt-fucked her. No, this shit ain’t gonna stop, Dr. Syed. Matter of fact, this is just the beginning for you, because I’m gonna upload this video to WorldStarHipHop so everyone can see you for the monster you really are.”

Dr. Syed started taking deep breaths to calm himself down. He was able to get his breathing under control, and he slowly made his way back onto the couch. While he did that, Tiana gave his full name in the video, where he worked, and very vivid details of the things that he had been doing to Tiana and her two friends at William P. Rollins Psychiatric Hospital in central Michigan.

“Tatiana,” he began to reason with her, “put the phone down. You don’t want to do that.”

“Fuck yeah, I do. I want the world to know about the sick shit that you been up to. God knows how many other girls you’ve taken advantage of over the years. I’m gonna upload this to YouTube, too. They’ll take it down once they see your ugly naked ass, but enough people will see it by then, and I’m sure the cops will come to arrest you and your life will be over,” Tatiana said confidently. It felt good to be able to stand up to this man after months and months of torture from him and his staff.

“Okay, okay, what will it take for you to delete this video and put tonight behind us?” Dr. Syed questioned.

Tiana broke out the biggest smile. This was going exactly like she’d hoped it would. “You’re going to release me, Celeste, and Elizabeth as soon as possible. You’re also going to give me five thousand dollars cash and have a car come and pick us up from here and take us to the Courtyard Flint Grand Blanc on Gateway Centre.”

“Done. It’s going to take a few days for me to process the paperwork for your release, but I will make all of the arrangements in the meantime,” Dr. Syed agreed. He didn’t have any real plans to do anything she asked of him. He figured that for now, he’d tell her everything she wanted to hear so she could delete the video. He wondered if Tatiana had heard a word he’d said because she seemed really engrossed in whatever she was doing on his phone.

“Well, just in case you decide to go back on everything you just agreed to, I e-mailed this video to a friend of mine who will be waiting for me to see her when I’m out of here. I told her if she doesn’t see me in two weeks on the outside to go ahead and release the video for me,” Tatiana said with a satisfied smirk on her face.

“You have my word. I will put in the paperwork tomorrow, and you and the girls should be out of here in no more than four days,” Dr. Syed reassured her. He was mad that she had been smart enough to send out the video to a third party. Now he had no choice but to comply with her demands. He was a little bummed that his three favorite patients would soon be leaving him, but he knew he’d quickly find other girls to replace them. His main concern now was tending to his still-bleeding thigh and injured penis. He had no idea how he was going to explain it to his wife.

Tatiana threw the phone at him and went to the sink to clean the blood off of her face. She couldn’t wait to get back to her room so she could tell the girls they were going to be released in four days.

Four Days Later

“Yo, Tiana, you sleeping or what?” Cee Cee whispered, elbowing Tiana in the ribs. “Wake up. Wake up.”

Tiana blinked rapidly and shook her head a little bit, trying to get rid of the nightmare she’d been dreaming about. She touched her face, making sure that her lip wasn’t still swollen from biting Dr. Syed a few days ago. She hadn’t realized that night that when she bit down on him, she had injured her lip as well. Her lip had been puffy and swollen the last couple of days.

“You okay, boo?” Cee Cee asked her with a concerned expression on her face.

“Yeah, I’m okay. I was just having a bad dream.”

“Okay, good. Wake up, bitch! Today is the day!” Cee Cee jumped on the bed and started shaking Tatiana. “We’re getting out this motherfucker!”

Tatiana was happy to see how excited her friend was. It was nice to see Cee Cee smiling and happy.

The grumpy CNA who worked the morning shift walked into their room. “Caldoron and Sorrentino. Congratulations. You get to go home today,” she said with no enthusiasm in her voice whatsoever. “Come with me to go over the final paperwork, and then you are free to go.”

The two girls exchanged looks. Neither of them could believe that the day had finally come.

They were escorted down to the front desk and taken into a side office, where they signed some release forms. Fifteen minutes later they walked out of the two front doors into the cool, crisp autumn air. Tatiana looked around for a black van that was supposed to be picking them up to take them to the hotel, but she didn’t see anyone. Then she remembered the front desk receptionist had given her an envelope that she said was for her from Dr. Syed. She pulled it out of her back pocket and looked to see what was in it.

Inside was only $2,000 cash and a note that said a car would be waiting for them at a nearby gas station to take them to a motel on Dort Highway. Tatiana was pissed to see that Dr. Syed had only given her $2,000, but she wasn’t about to go back in and wait for his shift to start to confront him about it. She had plans for him so she figured he’d get what was coming to him.

The girls walked down to the gas station and, sure enough, there was a white Caravan waiting for them. They hopped in, and they both looked behind them to see the building that had given them so many nightmares get smaller and smaller as the car took them farther down the long road that would take them to their future.

“Cee Cee, I have an idea,” Tatiana whispered to her so the driver couldn’t hear what she was going to say.

“What is it?” Cee Cee asked.

“How about, instead of waiting, we just get Dr. Syed’s ass right now?”

“Right now?” Cee Cee’s eyes became wide. “How?” was all she wanted to know.

“You know where Izzy is staying at, right?”

“Yeah. That’s the motel we’re heading to right now,” Cee Cee replied.

For whatever reason, Elizabeth had gotten released one day before them. Tatiana had been at a group meeting when Izzy was released, so Elizabeth spoke to Celeste. Instead of going straight to the Courtyard, Izzy agreed to stay the night at a motel and wait for them there so that they could head out to the hotel together.

“Okay, I’m gonna see if I can get the driver to let me borrow his phone so we can call Elizabeth at the motel she’s staying at. I’m going to have Elizabeth give me all the information she has on Dr. Syed so we can track down where he lives.”

“You want us to go to his house?” Cee Cee asked, trying to figure out where Tiana was going with this plan of hers.

“Yes!”

“And what are we gonna do at his house? Knock on his door and try to sell him and his wife some Girl Scout Cookies?” Cee Cee asked.

“Nope,” Tatiana replied completely unfazed by Cee Cee’s sarcasm. “We are going to go to his house and blow his shit up!” Tiana said excitedly while she kept her voice at a whisper. “But, first, we have to pick up some dark clothes; and then I need to get to AutoZone to pick up some knickknacks.”

“Tiana, my legs are cramping up,” Cee Cee complained.

Tiana whipped her head around to see Cee Cee bouncing up and down with her legs bent at the knees. “Hold on, Cee Cee,” Tiana whispered back, getting her bearings. “I’m cramping up too. My back is killing me from crouching down like this. This nigga taking mad long to come out, though. I’m sick of waiting, for real.”

“I know. My nerves got me fucked up. I gotta use the bathroom, too,” Cee Cee confessed.

“We are troopers. We don’t get nervous about shit, and we will wait for days if we have to,” Tiana said.

Cee Cee nodded in agreement. “What you say is all good, but my fucking legs are burning crouching down over here for all of these hours. I don’t think I’m gonna be able to walk straight after this,” Celeste joked.

“You ain’t never lie.” Tiana chuckled.

It was early morning, and the sun was coming up in Dr. Syed’s neighborhood as the area came alive with people. Tiana and Cee Cee were getting nervous that someone would spot them crouched down in the shrubbery between Dr. Syed’s house and his neighbor’s house. The expansive backyards of the estates gave the girls some cover, but they knew if they got spotted it would be all over for them. It was bad enough Tiana and Cee Cee looked like two burglars dressed in all black; all it would take was one nosy neighbor and their cover would be blown.

Another hour passed before they saw any movement in front of Dr. Syed’s house. Cee Cee was the first one to notice. “Look,” Celeste whispered, urging Tiana back up onto her knees. “Do you see what the fuck I’m seeing?”

“That’s that nigga right now,” Tiana said, getting ready to smile.

“Yeah, but look,” Cee Cee said, her words breaking off.

Tiana’s smile never got to form on her lips; instead, her jaw dropped slightly and her brows furrowed. Tiana’s and Cee Cee’s bodies stiffened and their breath caught in their throats. Tiana swallowed hard, and Cee Cee’s eyes went as round as saucers. For a few seconds, neither of them said anything; they just stared at what was unfolding in front of them.

“He’s not by himself,” Cee Cee s. . .