The Damage is Done

Ch. 5: The Job

"Psst...Elliot...hey," Blaze whispered. I stayed completely still in my bed, not wanting to give away the fact that he had woken me up. His nose was gently pressed up against mine while he squatted next to the mattress. "Elly." It took every ounce of strength in my body not to react when he stuck his tongue out and licked my forehead. I was determined to get every possible second of sleep that I could.

Suddenly, he was gone. I didn't feel his face right in front of me anymore.

"AHH!" Blaze screamed something that sounded like a war cry and belly flopped directly on top of my motionless body, completely crushing me.

"Blaze! What the fuck!" I shouted, swatting at his massive form. "Get off of me you fat ass!"

He rolled over onto the other side of the bed laughing at my pissed off expression. "Good morning, sunshine," he smiled at me. I rolled my eyes and sat up.

"What are you doing? What time is it?" I questioned the overly excited man next to me.

"It's nine o'clock, El, it's time to get up. We have some business to tend to this morning," he informed me. "Get dressed and meet me in the car in thirty minutes."

"Business?"

He leaped out of bed and skipped to the door before turning around to answer me. "I told you you were going to earn your keep, didn't I? Today you shall learn all about the exciting world of narcotics. I've got a big deal set up at noon and it's best to be the first guy there."

Oh, great. My social worker, Charlotte, could stop by at any time to check up on me and to make sure I'm staying out of trouble and were will I be today? At a fucking drug deal. Let's hope she has other plans for this afternoon, because Blaze doesn't seem to be taking no for an answer.

"Are the guys coming?" I asked. Not that it mattered. I'm not even sure why I asked him.

Blaze grinned at me cheekily. "Why?" He teased, "You got a crush? You need some lovin' after being surrounded by so many women for so long?" He seemed to think about it some more and then added, "Wait are you gay? Sometimes jail does that to people. I'm not judging, you were gone for a long time, straight through those fun hormonal years, it would only make sense for you to get some ass."

I choked on my laughter listening to his rant. "No! I am not gay," I assured him. "I just asked about the guys because they're cool. No ulterior motives."

"Whatever you say, Elly Belly. Now, get dressed!"

~*~

As Blaze slowly pulled the car into the dirt lot surrounding an old warehouse, I began to get nervous. "Uh, Blaze," I said. "This looks pretty sketchy. Are you sure this is safe?" I could hear dogs barking in the distance, but other than that there was no business or home nearby that could hear us if we called out.

"Of course it isn't safe, silly," he laughed at me. "Here," he said. "Take this." Blaze pushed a chunky, black handgun into by lap before pulling another one out from a bag and double checking that it was loaded.

"Dude, what the fuck?" I whispered. I don't know why I was whispering. I suppose it just feels like the thing to do when you're holding a fucking gun and about to be forced into some super illegal activity. "I'm not going to need to use this, right?"

He shrugged his broad shoulders and smiled at me. "Maybe. We'll probably be fine though. These guys are long time customers of the Hellhounds."

"Oh, okay," I muttered. I looked at the clock on the dash and realized that it was almost time for the deal. "Should we go in?"

"Yeah, let's go," he agreed. We both stepped out of the car with our weapons and Blaze with a large duffel bag. "Tuck the gun into the back of your jeans, El, don't go in there guns blazing," he joked. "These guys probably have bigger guns."

I did as I was told, fitting the cold metal into the back waistband of my pants, under my shirt. Blaze started toward the old, abandoned warehouse and I followed closely behind. "So who is it that we're meeting?" I asked.

"These guys get sent over from the Vipers," he told me. "The Vipers are about thirty miles south of Chicago and get a lot of drug deals down there. We are the suppliers. That's what keeps the Hellhounds on top." It made enough sense to me. I didn't realize that the Hellhounds were actually in charge of other areas though.

"So, the Hellhounds are basically responsible for any money that the Vipers make," I summed up. "I didn't know they were you guys were such big shots." By now we were stopped in front of the door to the warehouse. Blaze turned to smile at me.

"We run this bitch, El," he said proudly. I laughed at his confidence as we turned to enter the building.

~*~

The large room was dark and dusty, with one single lightbulb hanging from a wooden rafter in the middle of the space. As we walked in, I saw a door on the opposite side of the warehouse opening as well. I looked up at Blaze and he nodded at me to keep walking. We walked until we were directly underneath the lightbulb and waited for the Vipers to meet us in the middle. There were three of them; two men and a woman. The woman looked vaguely familiar to me, but I couldn't place her.

"Blaze," the man that seemed to be in charge said.

"Peter!" Blaze greeted enthusiastically. "Good to see you, buddy. How have you been? The old lady doing alright?" The other two Vipers looked at each other in exasperation, then looked to Peter for his response.

"Just give us the fucking drugs, man," Peter said gruffly. "I'm not interested in small talk."

Blaze shrugged his shoulders and set the duffel bag he was holding on the ground between them. The woman had a similar looking bag in her hands that she also set onto the ground. The two looked at each other, then quickly grabbed the other person's bag. Blaze unzipped it slightly to check that it was full of cash and the woman did the same with her bag of whatever drug we were selling. I never asked.

"We good, Rose?" Peter asked. She nodded her head without saying a word and then all three Vipers turned abruptly to leave.

"Okay, bye!" Blaze shouted after them. "It was really good seeing you guys! We should do this again sometime!" I chuckled at my cousin's antics and grabbed the bag to see the money for myself. The bag, about the size of a small child, was completely stuffed with bands of one hundred dollar bills.

"Holy shit, Blaze," I breathed. "That is a lot of money."

"Sure is," he agreed. "And see? Easy deal. We didn't even have to shoot anybody this time." We turned and began heading back to the car once the Vipers were out of sight. "It's kind of fun, right?"

I nodded my head in agreement. "It's a rush," I said. That is, I'm sure it would less fun on one of the deals where we did need to shoot people. I'm hoping we can avoid those.

"Exactly."