Total pages in book: 40
Estimated words: 40037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 40037 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 200(@200wpm)___ 160(@250wpm)___ 133(@300wpm)
My ancestors were all elegantly dressed black men and women of different shades. Their eyes held fierce determination. The women sat in gold chairs. The men always stood by their women’s side, gripping huge gold-plated guns with the letter J, encrusted in diamonds.
Every Jones got a family gun when we turned twelve.
I passed the gold spiral staircase, one of the many artistic structures in the Jones Mansion.
My great grandfather Ralph Jones had commissioned the massive house to be built.
Early architects created spiral staircases to be space-efficient. My great grandfather wanted the staircase to be beautiful, stylish, and functional. The railing was sparkling gold. Every marble step had a gold J dotted with diamonds. Even more interesting, the staircase wound clockwise and tight so that a large group of attacking enemies couldn’t rush up to the second level. And in certain spots, the steps were intentionally uneven to trip them.
I headed into my new office—a space that had been Romeo’s and then Chanel’s.
Eventually, I’ll have to officially move into this place.
I scanned the huge, masculine room.
How could this ever be mine? It still smells like them.
Ebony walls bordered the room. On the right, there was a bar stocked with alcohol next to a dark red leather couch. A glass cigar box full of gold tipped Mayan Sicars sat next to the liquor. Several framed Paradise Pirate football jerseys hung on the wall, complete with signatures of top players.
What will this room look like under me? What will my reign be? What will I change about the Killer Crows? What will I keep the same?
I passed the bar. My fingers itched to make me a drink. My siblings’ death drove me to drinking more than I ever would.
However, I had to be sober and clear minded in this meeting.
I’ll have a drink later.
I stepped onto the office’s balcony. It was the one place in the house where I could truly be calm and think things through.
Two crows perched on the railing.
I paused and gazed at them.
One cawed. Then, they both flew off.
Completely in awe, I walked up to the edge and kept my view on them.
Instead of flying away, they soared over Dream Lake as the massive body of water rippled in front of me. Over and over, the crows circled and soared, cawed and played.
I shifted my view from them to the lake.
I’m going to change a lot with Killer Crows and this city.
Beneath Dream Lake lay a small village called Crownsville.
Long ago, it had been a thriving town of over 6,000 people and completely Black-owned. Many of my ancestors had helped build the town. They had their own banks, schools, theater, restaurants, and municipal buildings. And all of the residents of Crownsville stayed within their community, never venturing out to deal with the racist folks surrounding them.
Meanwhile, the rest of Paradise city wasn’t as successful. Whites from the North and South of Paradise began looking to Crownsville as the problem. Rumors began that Black people were doing well because they were stealing from the Whites.
Even though there’d been no reports of burglaries or thefts, a group of white men organized and began creeping into Crownsville at night and tormenting the residents.
This went on for months.
Then, a South Paradise White woman made a dangerous claim. She’d been attacked from behind, blindfolded, beaten, and raped. Never did she see the men’s faces or hear their voices, but she was certain that they were black.
That night, many South Paradise men went to Crownsville. They burned the village’s churches, schools, and businesses. They broke into homes, shot the husbands, raped the wives, and hung the kids.
Killer Crows called this the Week of Blood.
It was why we all wore red in the West. We would never forget the atrocities done to our ancestors.
The massacre went on for several days. Less than half of the Crownsville residents survived and that was due to many of my ancestors, wielding guns and fighting back.
The rest fled Paradise and hid.
A year later, the surviving Crownsville residents returned. They’d spent that time getting weapons, money, and connections in the criminal world. They came back to rebuild their homes and discovered man-made Dream Lake in place of their village.
Paradise officials ordered the area to be flooded to cover up the horror of the city’s past.
But the story didn’t end there.
Paradise deaths increased, and more than half were associated with the lake.
Anytime Paradise whites swam or fished at Dream Lake, they died or came close to tragic injury. Some of the best swimmers drowned. The few survivors described the sensation of being pulled under by unseen hands. The majority of boats’ engines always burned out and then sunk into the lake, never to be heard of again.
Anytime contractors tried to build houses around the lake, the construction crew went ill with no reason for the sickness. Many of the developers died from mysterious causes.