All Hail the Queen by Meesha Mink Page A

“Sarge,” she called out, washing her hands at the sink before she opened the fridge.
    She wasn’t much of a cook and never claimed to be. And without AC in the kitchen the last thing she planned on doing was turning on a stove to kick the temperature up to the level of pure hell. “Sarge,” she called again, looking over at the open door.
    It was quiet. Too damn quiet.
    Naeema shut the fridge and left the kitchen to retrieve her gun from its hiding place in the ash trap of the fireplace. Her adrenaline kicked in like a motherfucker as she checked to make sure it was loaded with a full clip. She held it at her side in her right hand as she walked back into the kitchen. Quickly she checked the back door. The lock was intact and none of the glass was broken.
    She opened the door leading into the basement wider and started down the stairs. The second step from the top lightly creaked under her weight but she didn’t stop. Her heart pounded as she said a silent prayer that Sarge wasn’t hurt again and that the robber had returned. She wanted totrap his no-good ass in that basement and wear him the fuck out for violating her home.
    But first things first.
    She wished she had turned on the light at the top of the stairs. She hadn’t been in the basement since she first moved in. There was just enough light coming from the small windows along the top of the walls to make out a figure lying on the floor next to the twin bed pushed against the wall. She paused at the foot of the steps and looked around the entire area for possible hiding spots.
    When she was sure no one would jump out and grab her from behind she made her way over to him. “Sarge,” she said, gently pushing his shoulder to ease him onto his back.
    â€œWhat?” he snapped suddenly, his gruff voice irritated because she awakened him.
    Naeema yelped and jumped in shock, falling back onto her ass, her hand hitting the concrete. She accidentally pulled the trigger. A spark of fire lit up the dimness.
    POW!
    â€œShit,” she and Sarge both swore.
    Bits of sheetrock burst from the bullet hole.
    Naeema carefully set the gun on the floor. “Oops,” she said.
    Sarge glared at her the entire time as he struggled first to his knees and then to his feet as he held on to the mattress on the bed for support. “Oops my ass,” he snapped. “Me and you and that ”—he pointed to the gun—“ain’t gon’ make it.”
    Naeema rose to her sneaker-covered feet before she bent down to pick up the gun to make sure the safety wason. “I thought we got robbed and you were hurt again,” she said, reaching up to drag her fingers across the ceiling as she felt for the light fixture and then pulled the string dangling from it. “Why were you on the floor?”
    â€œI gotta pay rent to have some business you’re not in?”
    Naeema’s hand hit the bulb. It felt loose in the socket. She turned it tighter and the basement lit up with light. “Yup,” she said, completely joking.
    Sarge grunted.
    She bit back a smile as she looked around the basement and sniffed the air. She had always assumed that with as much time as Sarge spent down below that it would smell like feet and ass, but there was a slight tinge of pine scent in the air. She’d also assumed it would be a pigsty. It wasn’t.
    The twin bed was made with the covers pulled tight across it and a flat pillow perfectly square with the red-and-blue-painted headboard obviously meant for a toddler’s room and not an old man’s domain. It was all her money could buy back then and she hated to think of him sleeping on the floor on a bundle of old blankets that she had to beg him to let her wash.
    The same blankets on the floor beside the bed she now knew he never slept in.
    Just like he refused her offer to use the kitchen upstairs to cook the cases of canned food against the wall. She eyed the small grill in