Hey, sister.

Welcome to Infierno

Sam nearly killed him. She was close, oh-so-damn close. One swing of the tire iron, and that would have been it for the snivelling twenty-something-year-old. He was beaten, crumpled up and curled into a ball. Shivering, beyond the point of tears.

She put her hands on her hips, knuckles bloody through the white fabric wrapped around them, and sighed. Not a sigh of relief, of exhaustion. It was blazing hot. The scrap piles of metal around them made the heat even worse. A sort of microwave. It burnt her soft brown skin into a harsh red, glued her t-shirt to her body, and made her red sunglasses hanging off of her collar sting her neck.

"Sam!" Zil shouted from his lifeguard stand, hastily welded together. "I told you to stop beating on him five minutes ago!"

Other complaints came from the crowd around them. Boos, swear words, and a mix of languages to flavour it all.

Sam spat blood out of her mouth. “Didn’t hear that, sorry." She put a finger to her nose and blew blood out of her nostril. The headache tonight would be immense; she could feel it growing. "But that's eleven." She squinted as she looked up at the bulbous dark-skinned man, the sun right in her hazel brown eyes. "Pay up.”

“You don’t get pay!” a woman shouted, slurring her words, a beer can in her hand. “If you . . . if you don’t respect the rules then you don’t get any pay.”

“Yeah!” a short Latino man shouted. “Ain’t that right, Zil?”

The raging shouts were fertilizing the headache. This was a pain in the ass. All she needed was the money. Nothing else. Her stomach rumbled. Food, she needed that as well. She was nauseously hungry. When did she last eat? Last night? Maybe. No, this morning. Luna made bacon. The very thought of it made her mouth water.

Wait, where was she again? Right. Zil. Money.

The big man was in front of her now, the lifeguard stand swaying from his climb down. He reeked of sweat; his dreadlocks were thicker than Sam's arm. She fought a gag as he stepped closer. Maybe it was a good thing she hadn't eaten since early morning.

He ruffled through his baggy jeans, eventually slapping a stack of dollars into her bloody palm. “There. Fifty.”

She paused before stuffing the money into her jeans. “Fifty? We agreed a hundred.”

“A hundred for ten guys.”

“I did eleven.”

“And nearly killed one of ‘em. So fifty.”

Sam guffawed. “What? That’s bullcrap and you know it, Zil.”

He jabbed a thick finger into her chest, the sunburn shooting pain into her gut. “I make the rules around here, Sam. Now skitter off before I put you into the compactor.”

Sam muttered something under her breath. “Fine fine. I’m going.” She threw her hands up in mock retreat.

“And don’t come back here.”

She stopped, kicking up dust before she left the junkyard’s gate. “Wait. Okay, let’s not be too hasty, Zil.”

He shook his head and turned around, heading towards the rest of his gang. “You don’t listen, that’s what happens.”

She darted in front of him. Chuckling anxiously, Sam said, "Hey there, big man. I was just getting into the flow, you know?" She lightly punched his stomach to emphasize her point. “Fun and games, nothing more.” She turned towards the man curled in on himself. “Right?”

The man didn’t respond, he only whimpered.

Zil spat on the ground. “Hell out of my way, Sam.” He shoved past her. “Now get.”