The fight was brutal, as it always was when it was against our rival gang. Zak and his guys were crazy, maniacal people who wanted nothing more than to win and be first, no matter how they would achieve it. Zak had always been sour that our gang were the top in the district, that we did this without too much trouble. When we dealt drugs, it was the proper stuff and we networked with people to keep good relationships going. We didn't charge too much and we kept the deal as clean and mess free as possible. When we were fighting for territory, we did it fairly and if we lost we admitted it. We had an agreement with the police that they stayed away from us as long as we stayed away from them, and sometimes we would even give them information to help them with things we'd seen or heard on the streets. We kept everything fair and reasonable, which was why everyone other than Zak's guys liked us. Zak's idea of making money was printing counterfeits or stealing from people. If he lost a territory war, he would sneakily plan an attack on that gang a few days later and annihilate them, later claiming that territory from them. With drug deals, they were terrifying. Anyone who signed a deal with them needed to be paying regularly or they were getting beaten up. Their drugs were good quality but they would pad it out to make it last longer and would charge a lot for it. They made a mess of it and had many investigations done by police, but they paid the police to keep quiet.
We had met them again for a fight on the territory between our two bases, a fight that had happened three times already but we had always had such a close fight that it was determined we needed another one. There was nothing more infuriating than fighting your ass off just to be told you had to do it again. We'd secured some referees this time from the other gangs in the district, the leaders of those four gangs witnessing our fight to work out who won.
We had both begun with seven fighters, our bosses stood either side like football managers, letting us do the work and shouting should anything go wrong. We fought with everything we had, down to the last few fighters, sweat mixing with tears, cheers mixing with cries, blood mixing with spit. At the last hurdle, with just myself and Spyder left fighting two of their guys, Zak shouted for 'Plan B' and the two remaining fighters pulled blades from their pockets. The fight was ceased immediately by the referees who declared that we won by default and made the two teams disperse before anything bad happened. We were happy to have the territory, but it didn't feel the same when you hadn't won it for yourself. We also knew that, due to the nature of our win, Zak and his gang would not take this laying down. They'd be back and they'd fight even harder.
***
"T, you're going to get in trouble again. Stay awake!" My work colleague and friend Zain spoke without moving his mouth as he elbowed me hard in the side. The pain was instant, spreading through my body like electricity as he went straight to the rib that had been bruised the night before. I flinched, my eyes widening as I focussed back on our CEO, Ryan, and his very boring presentation. His monotonous voice was enough to send even the most caffeinated staff members to sleep, especially when he was droning on about finance whilst pointing at numerous charts on the large projected image on the screen. The room was a large business meeting room, a white table in the middle which had the outside lined with uncomfortable black plastic chairs with a thin cushion on the seat. The carpet was a dark grey and pristine to the point I was convinced that there was a designated cleaner for the rooms up here as they held all the important meetings for this company. I had never attended a meeting here that had so much as a coffee ring stain on the table or a crumb on the floor...
The right side of the room was a wall of frosted glass with a large door that matched the design. Half of the fun of attending a meeting up on the tenth floor was trying to find where the door was so you always made sure you got to the room five minutes early so that you could casually search for the door without looking incompetent. The left side of this room was lined with windows which would normally look out over the town in a really picturesque, artistic way that you could only achieve from being this high up, but today it was cloudy and raining. The rain was pattering ever so soothingly onto the windows, making it even more idealistic napping weather. The miserable weather had meant that the team had decided the heating needed to be on too, so we sat in a warm room with a monotonous voice and the sound of the rain - this would have been any person's dream. For me, however, it was agony to stay awake after the night I had had.
