"And now Cuchillos wants you to find lil Ricky and El Diablo."

Jasmine smiles as she added a photo of my father onto the billboard of 'Jasmines Crime Board.' We all stared at it, so much glitter.

"Anything Im missing?" She gallops to her laptop. The five of us sat down on the little chair she had in her room. Me and Ruby cuddling, Monse hugging my arm, Cesar on the other side of Ruby and Jamal behind us. Jamal stands up and walks to her.

"You doing a google search?" I placed my head on Rubys shoulder, just wondering. Ruby kisses my cheek.

"Ruby, im gonna use your dad as an example." Jasmine yells out. He rolled his eyes. There was a ding, making Monse get up.

"The results came back that fast?"

"Oh nah girl thats my pop tart." My face lit up, food! We all got up and got around Jasmine. "Okay, NCIC is clean. Although your daddy's credits a little dirty." She eeks. Ruby look closer. "NCIC checks credit data too." Then a hospital bill came up, final notice.

"Oh my god." Ruby said.

"It aint no thing." Jasmine smiles.

"It happens sometimes. We always get behind on bills." I rubbed his back.

"Oh yeah definitely. Sometimes you gotta borrow from Pedro to pay Pablo." Jasmine comes in. Jasmine types up My dads info. Only one came up. "Thats funny, this one says Chico Zapata. Wait, Val isnt this your dad?"

"Yeah." I gulped.

"Wait!" She looks at the photo she just pinned up, and then at me. "Your dad is le diablo?" I nodded. "The one who was in the Santos?"

"Can we just do lil ricky? I really dont want to talk about it." She nods. She then writes lil rickys info. "Boom bitches! We got hits!"

"Oh shit!"

"Whoa this is amazing."

"You must be the shot at the station to have this kind of access." Cesar pats her back.

"Or I stole Hammels password." She smirks. We all backed up. Oh yeah, Hammel.

"Yeah, about him. Hammels a dirty cop." I told her.

"Whoa whoa whoa! How dirty? Like fixing parking tickets dirty or planting a gun dirty?" she gasps. "Or I shot you cause youre brown dirty?" We all nodded.

"He's working for Cuchillos." Jamal tells her. The rage in Jasmines eyes as she heard Hammel was a dirty cop. She stood up.

"Are you kidding me!" She turns around, freaking out. "This is next level! Why did you bury the lede? You lead with the lede! That is why its called the lede!" She gasps. "I knew Hammel had some stank on him." She turns to us. "But if Cuchillos has cops on the payroll, they would've already tracked these leads and come up empty. People! You cant be soft if you wanna be a dick! Now harden up! And get out! We'll reconvene at school at oh something hundred hours! Just..." she snaps her fingers. We gathered our things and left. Lucky me I live across from her. I got home. Nobody was home, like always. I got changed and headed to school.  Class was weird, the girls from yesterday kept whispering and looking at me. I had a free period, i was reading a book, as those same girls from yesterday at lunch, walked up to me.

"Aye!" One of them hollered. I ignored them. Cesar walked up to me, since we shared the same period.

"Just ignore them." i shook my head. Then my book slammed closed in front of me. I looked up, the same three girls. I rolled my eyes. "You got somewhere else to be? I dont know? In school suspension?" I gave them a smile.

"We heard about you out of the Santos." Everyone had eyes on me. I got uncomfortable real fast.

"Keep your voice down." I growled at her.

"Or what? Everyone is gonna see the real you?"

"Dont listen to them." Cesar said to me.

"We aint talking to you, lil spooky."

"What do you want?" I clapped my hands together, turning to them.

"Nothing." She smiles. "Its just that why would you hide the truth." she touches my cross necklace. "You should be proud about who you are."

"It doesn't concern you." I grabbed her wrist, pushing it to the side. "Go away now." They still stood there. I slowly stood up. "Im not going to ask again."

"Or what?" I shook my head.

"I dont have time for this." I gathered my things, Cesar followed my lead.

"Leaving? Just like your mother." I froze.

"Dont listen to them, they're just getting to you." He looks at me. I was getting angry.

"Leave, mother like daughter right?" Dont do it Val. This isnt you. Its not worth it. "What? You gonna run to daddys arms- ooo wait." She gasps. "You probably just gonna go to the santos, make them do your dirty work. Santos bitch." I dropped my bag and charged at her. Cesar ran to me. I Gave her a right upperhook punch. We started to fight everyone gathered around, chanting. I got on top of her, punching her. All she was doing was grabbing my hair, but i went all in. She scratched my cheek. Cesar pulls me away.

"Hija de su puta madre!" I yelled, still trying to fight. The girl stands up, brushes her lips. I brushed the scratch she gave me. "A quién miras?" I yelled again to the others.

"Oh come on, thats all you got?" I managed to get out of Cesars grip and charged at her again. This time, I didn't punch her. We were face to face.

"You better watch out." I growled. "Yo soy la hija de le diablo, if you ever bring my father up again, ill show you the real diabla, and next time, imma give you hell."

"Go, teachers are coming." Cesar pushes me away from her. The crowd scattered, he gave me back my bag and we walked away. "You are crazy Val."

"Bitch brought up my dad." I rolled my eyes.

"Lets hope you won't get in trouble." Cesar and I walked away. I didn't care, she did deserve it. Then I stopped walking, remembering what Cuchillos said to me. You cant let her be right Val. Show her that she's wrong. I ran to the bathroom. I dropped my bag and looked into the mirror, there was a red, sorta deep scratch on my cheek. Great. I splash some water on my face, making me relax. I wiped off the water, and wipe off some blood from my cheek. Girls started to come in, and i walked out. I saw Monse and Jasmine walking.

"Monse oh my-" i froze. The fit, it was uhh. That look i- i have no words.

"Cute right?" Jasmine smiles. I knew at that point, she dressed her.

"Im just so shocked of how good you look." I lied. Monse gives me a fake smile.

"Maybe I should dress you next." My eyes widen.

"Yeah, uh, next time."

"I heard about the fight." Words travel fast. Im not surprised.

"Adriana had it coming, that girl got some major tea. I heard that shes with Carlos, you know the one you did the dirty with."

"Jasmine, I didn't have sex with him." I crossed my arms with my binder. "Can we not talk about this?"

"Okay. Do you think need a butt pad?" Monse asks me as she changed the subject.

"For what? Your butts fine." I shrugged.

"What im saying is that she needs a new butt."

"What we need is a new plan." Ruby runs from behind us. "ASAP."

"And I have some thoughts." Jamal comes out. We huddled together in the middle of the hallway.

"Oh me too." Jasmine smirks.

"Great. Ill go first since im the leader." Jamal shows us his 'HELLO my name is Leader' tag. "Oh." He grabs another tag and placed is on Jasmines chest, that one said 'HELLO my name is not leader. "There you go Jasmine."

"Okay why are wearing that?" Jasmine tells him as she takes off the tag.

"Why are you wearing that?" Jamal looks at Monse. My point exactly.

"Dude! Times ticking!" Ruby brings Jamal back to speed.

"The prophet is still spying on me. She even smiled at me to throw me off. But im not falling for it." He looks behind Ruby and I, he turned all sweaty. "Og shit, there she is." We all turned to see. "Wait! Dont look!" He pulls us back to look at him. "Everybody snuggle in for a selfie." Jamal takes out his phone, we all huddled.

"You cant see me!"

"Thats cause its not a real selfie!" Jamal growls at Jasmine as he took the photo. "See? This is why you cant be the leader." Here we go again with leader. We all saw the girl behind us in the photo.

"Oh her." I awed.

"Yes. No!" Jamal switched. He frowned at us. He shoved us to the stairs.

"What are you doing?"

"Im throwing off the spy!" We all stood behind the wall.

"Jamal do you think maybe you are racially profiling?"

"What if she got a crush on you?" I told him. "Girls get a little creepy when it comes to their crushes. Like Hedi stalking Jose last year?"

"Wow. You both would say anything to keep me from leading this group." I put my hands up in surrender.

"I mean, it could be a possibility." Jasmine explains.

"Nah." Ruby and Monse shook their heads.

"Why?"

"Theres a better chance shes a spy." Monse tells him.  Jamal gasps from the betrayal. We all hovered around the wall, checking for the girl in green. She was gone. Okay, freaky.

"I mean spy, no spy, can we please get back on track?" Ruby groans. "I dont know whats going on with my family, but i need that money. Who knows how long this offers gonna be on the table if we dont give Cuchillos good info soon?"

"I have an idea."

"You dont get to blurt out-"

"We track down lil Ricky through his relatives." Jamal and Jasmine began to fight. "Like his cousin Chivo."

"Chivo." Jamal repeats.

"Chivos DNA." They said yelling at each other.

"That was next on my list."

"Oh really, what was first?"

"Leaders dont share their playbooks!" I looked at them, why are they fighting so much for this spot, its just a spot. "But since you asked..." jamal froze, with nothing to say. We all looked at him to see what he was gonna say next. "Now, this isn't going to be easy, because the last time we were at Chivos, Cesar booked his gun and his car. So we're going to have to be stealth. I say we cut his electricity, his water, and maybe even his cable. Then we put out whale vibes! And by whale vibes, i mean legit..." he started to scream. My jaw dropped. Oh no! Please make it stop! "To lull him to sleep. And then we fire up the bacon! Im talking thick cut, maple glazed bacon! And then we get him salivating. And once that fool drools, we scoop in on that spit!" That must be the most stupidest plan I even heard from anyone. Cesar comes in, confused.

"Hey. Whats going on?" He asks.

"Or we could bring Cesar over after school to apologize for stealing his car." Jasmine tells him. A better, safe, plan.

"I gotta take a rain check." Cesar tells them.

"A rain check? You dont get to rain check if no one else is rain checking?" Monse sasses him.

"My dad came home today." He smiles. Ray. I never knew he was back. "Im hanging with him. Bye." He then walks away. Jamal smiles from the dead plan that Jasmine thought of.

"Oh! So much for your trojan horse!"

"Oh i got a plenty of ponies, and one." She clicks her tongue. "Camel toe in my stable." Camel toe? "Im gonna handle this." She rips the tag from Jamal.

"Ha! Youll handle this? Ill handle this!" Jasmine grabs my hand, then Jamal grabbed mine. "Let her go!"

"Shes working with me!" They started to pull me back and forth.

"Let me go!" I begged. They did. They looked at me if i was the last piece of meat.

"You got Ruby." Jasmine grabs me and escorted me off of the hallway. We went to steal some band equipment from the band room. Jasmine, Monse and I drove to Chivos house and a familiar car was in front of us. We got out of the car and saw the boys. We ran after them to the front door.

"What are you doing here?" Jamal stomps.

"What are you doing here?" Jasmine yells at him. What am I doing here? I never agreed to this.

"You know what im doing here, i know what are you're doing here, but how are you doing it?"

"We cant do what we need to do here with that over there!" Ruby yells as he points at the RING doorbell camera.

"Not to mention...we've got eyes." Jamal points at the gnome, looking down to us. We all got freaked out and ran back to the cars. "Okay! we've only got one shot at the DNA, so we need consensus on a plan, or we're gonna blow it! So as the leader, Ruby and I will handle this. Ladies and-" he looks at Monse. "Monse. Stand down. Val, you can switch sides, we can use your friendly, beautiful voice to sell him."

"She aint going anywhere with you two bozos."

"Jasmine." I gasp.

"Chivo hated you. And using Valeria as a secret weapon isn't a good plan." Ummm ouch?

"Yeah. This is why we brought a gift." The boys shows us the three baskets. "Or rather, 3!"

"Por que tres?" I asked them.

"They're apology baskets. One for killing Julio, one for kidnapping Juanita, and one for desecrating Lil Ricks grave."

"Wheres my apology basket?" I told him.

"Spooky dug up the grave. Not me."

"Okay, lets say that actually works, and you get inside. Then what?" We all turned to them. They didnt think it through.

"We..."

"We..." Jasmine yawns.

"We improvise!"

"Then why need me?" I crossed my arms.

"We just thought you can do all the talking." Yeah, should've saw that one coming.

"We?" Ruby yells at him. "Do you mean you!?"

"Thats a great idea!" Monse lies. "Just kidding, I improvised that lie. Jasmine laughs and Jamal coughed. He looks behind us, we all turn to see another Gnome. How did it? There from there? I- we all scooted away.