A Flame Called Pheonyx

By Ann Gilkey

Introducing Pheonyx Bakes from Valleyville, a small but popular city in Kentucky. She is a stunning, smart and ridiculously sexy eighteen year old senior with a hot head and criminal mind. High school rumor has it that Pheonyxs arch enemy, Chloe Greene, who lacks common sense but parades herself as a vixen, has become extremely promiscuous with various men, including someone very close to Pheonyx. During an alcohol induced emotional breakdown, Tonja, Pheonyxs mother, confesses to her that she does have a seventeen year old sister, Samantha, whom was a product of an affair her father had years ago. When Tonja gives her husband one final ultimatum, he refuses to comply. He wants to keep things the way that they are currently, his way. This is more than a revelation for Pheonyx, this is her reality. Her father has been deceiving her and her family for years and she never knew it. When a shocking and unexplained murder of someone turns everyones head, questions arise and Detectives come knocking on Pheonyxs front door. After one too many coincidences, Pheonyx sees her father for who he really is.... A lying cheat. While she patiently waits for an opportunity to present itself, when it comes to her father, Pheonyx takes matters into her own hands. David, Pheonyxs little brother, calls her with urgent news of her father. Pheonyx is prepared to play the role of a terrified and shocked daughter, until she sees the face of a familiar woman, which she doesnt know. When a Detective confirms that this mystery woman is Jaslyn Carlucci, Pheonyx becomes outraged. Carlucci has scarred the family the most and Pheonyx is convinced that she must be dealt with. Pheonyx finds herself making life and death decisions going to Brielle for balance and comfort. Brielle Kurjack, her lifelong friend, has many secrets of her own. Yet still, she stands close in Pheonyxs corner, but even she has doubts, questions and suspicions about her revenge stricken friend. Unexpected and untimely situations create a domino effect in this intriguing drama. Lies, scandal, and mystery. The three ingredients needed to ignite a Flame Called Pheonyx.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Aug 19, 2014
• ISBN: 9781499056150

Ann Gilkey

When I was little and was able to identify pencil and paper, I became dazzled by the art of writing. Born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky writing became a release for me even at an early age. It's relaxing and a way for me to express my emotions. Whether it's a four line poem or a song that will never be heard, writing is my outlet. It is my way of being creative and artistic. I can create any character, situation and scene that I want and allow my mind to do the rest. My inspiration to write was pulled from my mother. She has always been a vivid reader, writer and critic. If the skill of writing could be inherited, I would have received it from her. Authors that I respect are Zane, Janet Evanovich (Stephanie Plum Novels), Carl Weber, Keith Lee Johnson and Sistah Soljah. My favorite book is, The Coldest Winter Ever, written by Sistah Soljah. After I read that book in the eighth grade, I knew I wanted to be a published author. My writing style of choice is always fictional with a plot including thrill, drama and crime. I brought those three characteristics together in “ A Flame Called Pheonyx”. The main character, Pheonyx Bakes, has enough jealously in her mind and heart regarding her father's infidelity to allow drama and confusion in her day to day life. The rage and anger that Pheonyx feels towards her father and his mistresses due to their nonchalance of the affairs, drives her to murder. Though her crime is extreme, in her mind its justified. Pheonyx goes through enough twists and excitements to make this thriller too interesting to put down. I want my readers to stay guessing, I want them to experience something unexpected, yet exciting. I want them to be able to relate to a character in the book, whether it’s Pheonyx’s anger or Brielle’s hustle. I want “ A Flame Called Pheonyx” to be too difficult to put down.

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Copyright © 2014 by Ann Gilkey.

Library of Congress Control Number:                   2014913629

ISBN:                       Hardcover                             978-1-4990-5614-3

                           Softcover                               978-1-4990-5616-7

                           eBook                                    978-1-4990-5615-0

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 08/08/2014

Xlibris LLC

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CONTENTS

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

About the Author

CHAPTER 1

M ASSIVE ATTACK, MASSIVE attack, got dem’ bombs bombs make the whole club go back…yeah! I woke up to Nicki Minaj’s Massive Attack song on my cells phone’s alarm. My name is Pheonyx Bakes. My attitude is like that song, I attack. Some people think that I am insane or a bitch or just plain cold hearted. But at the end of the day, I am a flame. And it only takes one flame to start a forest fire. I dismissed the alarm and sat up in my queen sized bed. Oh, how I love my bed. My father gave it to me for my sixteenth birthday two years ago. Some people don’t think that a nice bed is a big deal, but I love comfort, so I do. It’s got a plush pillow top and it is super comfortable. I’ve never slept better. I remember last year, a guy I was messing’ with wanted to screw me on my bed. I had to tell that fool in a quickness, ‘You don’t fuck in this bed, you make love.’ But that dude was just a fuck. So he left unhappy because I definitely didn’t give him any.

I wasn’t sleepy, but I wasn’t quite ready to get up either. So I sat up and stared at my bedroom walls. My walls were painted white to match my carpet. But my sheets, comforter, curtains and furniture were all red. I loved the way red and white looked together. Made me feel like a ‘bad angel’. I’m not a bad girl, more like a holy terror. I don’t take shit from nobody….and I mean nobody. One time in the fifth grade, I got into a fight on my way home from school. Her name was Maggie. We got into a fight over a guy that she thought I liked. I mean seriously, I was ten and a tomboy. I was too busy climbing trees and planting traps for animals to be worried about a damn boy. So on my way home, she jumped me from behind. I fell to the ground with her ass on top of me. The first thing that I did was grab that bitches neck and I dug my nails into her skin. She screamed out in pain and grabbed her neck as she rolled off of me. She was on her hands and knees coughing. I stood up over her and kicked her in the face like it was a soccer ball and I was going for the goal. By the time the fight got broke up by some bystanders, I was on top of Maggie banging her head into the concrete. Even though the fight didn’t happen at school or on school grounds, I still had to transfer because the fight was so intense, they didn’t want to take the chance that me and her beefin’ would be a yearlong issue. I didn’t even know that she ended up in the hospital, I gave her a well-deserved concussion.

Even in the fifth grade, you couldn’t fuck with me. Though I was happy that I whooped that ass, my parents were pissed. Especially my mom. She thought that I was acting like her in her younger years and that scared her. She didn’t want me going down that same rough road that she went down. I wasn’t mad that I got put out of school, I was mad that I wouldn’t see my best friend anymore. But everything turned out okay, Brielle and I met back up in middle school.

I got from under my red, baby soft, silk blanket and did a quick back stretch before my feet hit the carpet. I walked to my vanity mirror and looked at my reflection. I had on a pair of white and green polka dot underwear and a blue oversized t-shirt. My t-shirt is old and raggedy, but it’s comfortable. Not too big, not too small. Just something loose to lounge in.

Good morning, Pheonyx. Don’t you look beautiful? I said to myself as I fingered a new whole in my shirt. A little vain, HELL YEAH!!!

Truth was, I am very easy on the eyes. I am gorgeous, damn I’m stuck on myself. My hair is dark chocolate color like my daddy’s. It hangs about three inches past my shoulders. I claim I am of African descent, but you can look at me and tell that I am a little mixed up with something else. My father, Samuel Bakes, is black and Italian. His mother’s parents are straight from Italy. I have never been, I don’t think that my father or grandmother have been before either. He is a doctor at Louis Coleman Hospital in downtown Valleyville. Before my mother gave me her car, I used to catch the city bus and go to the hospital to see my daddy from time to time. Usually when I got suspended from school, mama gave me hell, daddy gave me attention. All I usually did was roam the halls and watch TV in the lobby. I was never a bother, so the nurses didn’t mind me being around.

I always got complemented about how much I looked like my father. I think it was more of our skin complexion. I and my daddy have a light mocha skin color with a hint of a bronze tone that gives our skin almost a natural shine. I bronze skin shines the most in the summer. I also have my father’s exotic eyes. Our eyes are light brown with dark green around the edges. We inherited the green from my grandmother. I know it’s weird, but it’s also sexy. My face is my favorite feature. I have naturally arched eyebrows and long eyelashes that I didn’t have to buy at the corner store.

At five feet six inches, I stood straight up and raised my hands high above my head and stood on my tippy toes to get a better stretch for my feet and calves. I looked at my digital clock on my vanity. 6:04? Time to get started. I mumbled to myself as I was walking out of my bedroom and across the hall to the upstairs bathroom.

Our house is a two floor colonial. An upper, lower class home. Mama has a real talent for flowers, landscaping and decorating. Upstairs was my room, my brother’s room and a bathroom. It was your typical bathroom. Bathtub with attached shower head, sink and toilet. My mother decorated the bathroom in blue and yellow. She got a blue and yellow plaid shower curtain as a house warming gift a few years ago. I personally thought that the curtain was something worse than ugly, but my mom pulled it off. She got different items for the bathroom and matched it all together and it looks amazing. My room is halfway down the hall from the bathroom. It’s not a long walk, but at six o’clock in the morning, it feels like hell depending on how much sleep I get.

Once I got the shower on and adjusted to the temperature, I slipped my shower cap over my head and hopped in. Mama really gets on me about letting the water run before I get in. She is worried about the environment. I say, fuck the environment, I want my water just right. Despite what she says or thinks, I always let my water run for at least five minutes so I can have the perfect shower. I didn’t like real hot water, I preferred it to be more cool than warm. Cooler water helps me wake up in the morning. It also makes the walk through the hall not as dreadful because I am more awake.

After about twenty minutes of thorough body cleansing, I cut the shower water off, got out the tub and patted dry with a big thick towel. I stood in front of the mirror in the bathroom and took my shower cap off right before I started brushing my already pearly whites. I am eighteen years old and have never had a cavity. My mother is very strict about hygiene…especially when it comes to bad breath and stank pussy. A few minutes later I was headed out the bathroom back down the hall to wake up my little brother, sometimes headache, David. His bedroom was halfway down the hall from the bathroom going in the opposite direction of my room.

David, wake up. It is six thirty. I said knocking on his bedroom door. David is fifteen and is a sophomore at our school, Bowman High. He looks like a black Italian. He has real dark hair, so dark, it’s almost black. But when the sunlight hits his hair just right, you can see that it’s a deep dark brown. His hair is thick and curly like our mother, Tonja Bakes, but he keeps his hair cut down even. He has dark brown eyes and skin like our mother too, but tall like our daddy. Our daddy is a little over six foot two and David is five eleven and still growing. He also plays varsity basketball. He has a heavy built, but it is literally all muscle. I know he is my brother and all, but he is fine. All the thirsty chicks want my brother. He even had two dates for our senior prom his freshmen year.

Thanks Phee. he mumbled under his sheets. ‘Phee’ was my brother’s name for me ever since we were little. He couldn’t say ‘Pheonyx’. Matter of fact, the first time he called me Pheonyx, was when he was in middle school.

I walked back to my room and my clock read 6:33am. School didn’t start till 7;45 and it takes me less than fifteen minutes to get to school from my house, so I was in good time..

I dropped my towel as soon as I closed the door to my room. I at on my bed and grabbed my cell and texted my best friend since the second grade, Brielle Kurjack, ‘Good morning.’ In the second grade, there was this girl named Kiki. Kiki was our classroom bully. One day, her and her two fat bald headed friends caught me off guard in the girls’ bathroom at school. Out of nowhere, they started pulling on my clothes. Brielle walked in just in time as one of them fat pugs got me by my hair, which was braided up nice and neat. She took off her high top tennis shoes and started beating Kiki in the head with it. Her two friends fled to get a teacher when they saw what Brielle was doing to Kiki. Ever since then, Brielle and I have been closer than to plump titties in a push up bra.

I began applying some lotion to my long mocha legs when my notification tone went off on my phone letting me know that I had received a text message.

{Hey girl.} Brielle replied.

{Car pool?} I wrote back. Brielle didn’t have a car. I have a 2008 red Ford Focus. My dad bought my mom a brand new car last year for their anniversary and she gave me her Focus. It’s nice. Saves on gas and picks up speed quickly when needed. It’s not what I wanted, but it is better than the car that I didn’t have before. So I don’t complain.

While I waited for a response, I began to eye my closet in hopes of finding something to wear. I mentally decided that I was going to wear my dark denim blue jean vest and matching skinny jeans. I picked out a white long sleeve shirt to go with the outfit. It was going to be a sunny January day, but windy too and I had to dress accordingly. I wasn’t too big on name brands when it came to my clothes, I just like to look good in what I have on. With these hips and ass, it wasn’t hard to do.

{Naw. I’m good. I spent the nite wit’ Eric. I c yu in 1st period.} She texted back.

I had no idea who Eric was, but I wrote back ‘okay’ and walked over to my dresser. After I had put lotion all over my body, my whole room smelled like raspberry vanilla. I was cheap lotion, but it smelled amazing. I took out a red and black panty and bra set from one of my drawers and slid them on. Afterwards, I slid my plump round butt in those tight ass skinny jeans. Now, by no means am I fat, plus size, full figured or whatever you want to call it. I’m just shapely and curvy. I just have wide hips and a big ass like my mama. I have naturally plump and full breast. My titties aren’t huge, but I have cleavage and don’t need the use of no special wired bra. My stomach is flat, but not toned. I have a long waist line that helps proportion out my weight to a more appealing body. Shit, I look good.

I put my shirt and vest on and sat down at my vanity. I took out some mascara and eyeliner from one of the drawers and I applied them to the appropriate areas on my face. I more so used mascara to curl my lashes, they are already dark, thick and long, just not curled. I liked the way mascara and eyeliner looked on me too. It gave me a dramatic look, but sexy too. Soon after I put on deodorant and pulled my hair back into a ponytail, I grabbed my Louis Vuitton backpack and headed downstairs to the kitchen.

Hey ma. I said walking to the refrigerator. My mother, Tonja, is beautiful. Now she is full figured. She is brown skin with long curly hair, but she always keeps an up-do. I get my eyelashes and arched eyebrows from her. She as two big watermelons for an ass and 48DDD breast. My mother is very professional though. She is an assistant principal for a private school, so she wears a lot of suits. She is also the treasurer for our family church. She tries to stay very involved with church and she works twice as hard to keep the rest of us interested. My mother is super sweet, but she can get real sour on you too. She was born and raised in the hood. She holds no punches for anyone. My mother always said, ‘Don’t fight, but if you have to, fight to win.’ I prefer to ‘fight to kill’. If I am fighting someone that is damn sure what I am thinking about doing. My aunt Tina used to tell me and David stories about my mother when she was younger. One time, this girl stole mama’s bike and my mom took the chain off the bike and wrapped it around the girl’s neck and choked her with it till she passed out. My mom was eleven at the time. But somehow, she met my daddy and fell in love. She traded the streets for a family and hasn’t looked back on her old life since. My mother has come a long way. She truly is a great role model for anyone.

I reached for some orange juice and a blueberry bagel. I had one every morning before school. My mom did most of the grocery shopping and she always made sure to get me my blueberry bagels and a gallon of orange juice. I liked my body so I keep my nutrition up so I can keep looking good. That’s why I don’t put cheese or jelly on bagels.

You ready to go back to school? she asked taking a sip of coffee. Today was the first day back to school in two weeks. We had some time off for Christmas and New Year’s. But now, Bernhiem County Public Schools were ready to resume. Valleyville is a small city in Kentucky. Not too far from Louisville Kentucky. Valleyville isn’t so small that you can’t find it on the map, but not real big like New York. It is big enough to always have something to do. There are a couple of museums, a few really nice parks, a water park that is pretty popular, decent shopping malls and we are close enough to Louisville and Indiana to have a little extra to do. Like the gambling boat and of course the race track. The track gets real popular for the Kentucky Derby. Derby is big shit. Lots of money in town, lots of celebrities and lots of fun.

Barely. I joked with a smile. Where’s daddy? He still asleep?

I don’t know. He never came back home last night. she said closing her eyes. I knew my parents were having some problems. My father works in the emergency room at the hospital. He is a surgeon and sometimes has last minute patients. Some nights, be stays as the hospital overnight, if he had to work early in the morning. My mother just misses him. I am a daddy’s girl at heart and I miss him too.

I took my bagel out of the toaster two minutes after it went in, I like my bagels crisp, not burnt, and then I poured some orange juice into a plastic cup.

Dad is probably still at work. I said confidently to my mom.

He hasn’t been to work since Sunday morning. I called the office.

Unusual, I thought. I paused briefly, Which means he will be home any minute now. I smiled. I love you, ma. I said walking out the kitchen. I grabbed my all white high top tennis shoes from the closet in our living room and my Louis backpack and headed out the front door.

I got out into my car and it was 7:20. It was fairly warm to be January. Not too warm, the wind kept a chill in the air. The sun was peeking out of the clouds, hopefully it would be a nice day. I put my keys in the ignition and sped off to Bowman High. I took thirty Fourth Street all the way down till I got to Algonquin Parkway. Traffic was heavy, but moved at a decent pace. Speed limit was only thirty five and I was doing about forty, but cars were flying past me. If it wasn’t for all the red lights and few stop signs, there’d be car wrecks left and right. People drove on this street like it was an expressway. I stayed on Algonquin till I got to Seventh Street.

After a few more turns and red lights, I pulled into the senior parking lot behind the school. O parked my car and cut it off. I searched for my phone in my bag so that I could text Brielle. I wanted to know it she had made it to school yet. While waiting on a response, I opened my ash tray and pulled out the other half of a blunt that I had lit up the night before. I leaned back in my driver seat and watched students scatter in and around the school building as I took a hit from the weed. I wasn’t worried about anyone seeing me because I had tinted windows. I could smoke some top dollar weed in front of the police station and not be seen because my tint is so dark. It’s not presidential, but it is dark.

The first time I smoked marijuana was on a Friday night while me, Brielle and a girl named Chloe were on a triple date. We had a fall festival at school sophomore year. I was fifteen but my date was eighteen, had his own car and had a legit part time job. Which any job at that time was big shit to us young girls. Our dates all smoked weed. While me and Brielle were learning how to inhale, Chloe was learning how to deep throat behind a tree at the park. It just so happened that she wasn’t sucking her dates ping ping, it was some random white guy she thought was cute sitting on a bench. Chloe’s date sat with us and taught me and Brielle how to roll up weed in cigarillos and wrapping papers to make it smoke-able. A lot of respect was lost for Chloe that day.

After my paranoia went away, I felt relaxed and calm as if I had no worries in the world. I don’t want to ruin too many brain cells, but I enjoy felling stress free so I continue to smoke from time to time….Brielle too. Looking back, it was dumb of us to even engage in smoking, but hell we teenagers. We’re going to do dumb shit.

I smoke the most when I am irritated or need to calm my nerves, or like now, I like to get a little buzzed to burn time. I take a couple of hits off a blunt and then put it out. I enjoy the feeling of being high, just don’t like being high longer than ten minutes….I get paranoid. Marijuana relaxes me, yet prepares me for my day. It’s illegal, only if you get