The sound of knocking jolted Michelle awake and she glanced up at the clock on the wall to gauge how long she’d been asleep before realising she had no idea what time she’d come home. It was still light out though so she couldn’t have been asleep for long. She sat up from the table and wiped some drool from her cheek as she made her way towards the door to let Gus back in.

As she approached it she saw a figure casting a shadow through her front door that she didn’t recognise at first. It was tall, tall enough to be Antwan, but his frame had far too much muscle for it to be her son. After a few seconds she put the pieces together and reached for the baseball bat that she kept behind her door in case of emergencies. Slowly she swung the door with one hand, keeping the bat in her other hand tucked behind the door for the time being.

“Hello Michelle.”

Chew Lewis stood in her doorway with his hands tucked into the pockets of track pants. He was wearing a baggy white t-shirt that clung to his sculpted body and his hair was freshly shaved but there was no mistaking him. It seemed his time in prison had been kinder to her brother than she’d imagined they would have been. He’d bulked up some and didn’t look much older all things considered.

Michelle looked him up and down dismissively. “I thought I made it clear you weren’t welcome here.”

“I heard about what happened,” Chew said with a shrug. “Thought maybe given the circumstances you might need some family around you.”

As nonchalant as her brother might have been trying to appear it was clear from the earnestness in his voice that he was concerned. It was clear from the fact he was even here that he was concerned. She’d told him if she ever saw him again she’d shoot him and she’d meant it. For what Chew had taken from her he deserved that and more. That he had to cheek to stand on her doorstep and call himself her kin was downright provocative.

“You’re not my family.”

Michelle gripped the handle of the baseball bat tightly and Chew stared down at it with a smile. “You planning on using that thing, little sister?”

She ought to do it. Michelle had spent years fantasizing about the pain she’d inflict on her older brother if she ever saw him again and here he was. She wanted to cave his skull in right there and then for what he’d done but try as she might to lift the bat and swing it at him her arm stayed by her side. Had Chew arrived at any other point she would have swung it happily but after what had happened something about it didn’t feel right.

Perhaps sensing his sister’s indecision Chew took his hands out of his pockets and stepped backwards slightly.

“Look, I’m not here to cause anything. Antwan came to speak to me a week or so ago, brought Jayson with him, we had words of a sort and he left. Didn’t sit comfortably with me the way we left things after I heard about what happened. Thought maybe I could put things right. You know?”

Michelle shook her head. “Antwan isn’t here.”

A look of confusion appeared on her brother’s face.

“Where is he?”

She let it drop to the ground with a heavy thud and pushed the door open slowly. “I guess you’d better come in.”

Chew shrugged his shoulders and stepped through the doorway into his childhood home. Michelle took a glance out of the door along the street to see whether anyone had followed him in or was waiting for him before shutting the door behind him. His sudden reappearance had given his sister an idea.

[b][center]*****[/center][/b]
Chew sat with his head in his hands at the small table that he’d once eaten his breakfast at as a child. The dent in the fridge that Chew had placed in doing his George Rogers impression nearly twenty years ago was still there. Along the doorway there were pencil markings where Marcus and he had measured themselves growing up. More memories than he cared to remember came flooding back just being in this house and he did his best not to be overwhelmed by them as he sat there. He never thought he’d see the inside of his mother’s home again and he definitely never thought he’d sat around a table with Michelle again.

Unlike then his sister expected something from Chew now and he suspected it was the only reason she had let him in. She had spent the past hour explaining what had happened to Jayson and why it had happened. Some character had been sniffing around Antwan, causing him trouble, giving him drugs, and getting him mixed up in things that he had no business being mixed up in. It’s what had got Jayson killed, she had said without an ounce of uncertainty to her voice, and it was going to get Antwan killed too. She wanted a message sent to the guy responsible.

It turned out the “guy” in question was none other than pimpin’ Roland Spencer. The same Roland Spencer that used to sell stolen watches out of a suitcase. Apparently Spencer had gone legit whilst Chew was inside and left that life behind. If it weren’t for Jayson having passed Chew would have folded over with laughter at the suggestion but it was clear from his sister’s voice she was being serious.

Chew lifted his head from his hands and looked at his sister’s stony face. “Do you understand what you’re asking of me?”

She didn’t so much as flinch.

“Of course I understand.”

What had happened had hardened Michelle. He’d heard rumours about what sister was getting up to whilst he was inside but he tried his best to ignore them. There are plenty of people on the inside that want to mess with your mind, have you thinking about things you have no business thinking about, either to have you chasing for a high to dull the pain or hoping to send you to the infirmary. 

“I know it might be hard for you to believe but I’ve gone straight now, Michelle, I don’t do things like that anymore. That life is behind me now and I swore I’d never go back to it.”

A dismissive laughed escape from between Michelle’s lips.

“What about Antwan, Chew? If you don’t do this, Roland is going to keep corrupting that boy until what happened to Jayson happens to your nephew too. Are you going to stand by and watch that happen?”

“I can’t do this,” Chew said and shook his head. “This ain't in me anymore.”

She might not have believed him but he had changed. The things he’d seen on the inside, the hopelessness he’d felt, and most of all the lack of ambition on the part of some of the other prisoners had changed him. The thought of going back to that life and ending right back next to those same people in the cells was one that Chew wouldn’t even bear to think about. As little as a life as he had on the outside, it was better than being stuck in that place.

He’d always thought it was better to die on your feet than live on your knees but after being stuck in that place he’d realized there were two options. There was such a thing as dying on your knees. Prison was it.

Chew stood up from his seat and began to walk away from Michelle. From behind him he heard his sister stand up from the table so quickly that she knocked the chair behind her to the ground.

“That’s it? You’re going to take my baby’s daddy away from him and then stand by and watch whilst he throws his life away too?” She shouted at him as he made his way to the door. 

“You owe him, Chew, you owe me.”

As he wrapped one of his large hands around the handle of the front door he heard his sister marching after him. She stopped before him and placed one of her hands around his arm. “You owe Marcus.”