The Uncharted Tales

Chapter 9

But, he realized, that wasn't fair for a plethora of reasons. Namely, for as hotheaded as Sam could be, and the amount of times Sully butted heads with him, he would be a damned fool if he tried to convince himself this was all just for Nate. He cared for Sam, as difficult as that could be at times, and Sully couldn't, not in good conscious, leave him behind.

"Let's get him home."

~ ~ ~

"There," Nate murmured at his side as Sully parked almost two blocks away from the privately owned docks. Nate was apparently supposed to meet in the southwest warehouse, alone, with the payment in hand.

Not gonna happen.

Whatever this punk was expecting, he wouldn't get what he wanted. He made a mistake pushing his own weight around and choosing the Drake brothers as easy pickings...

He didn't know they weren't alone in this world.

Upon approaching the docks, Sully sent the kid on ahead to scout for potential roadblocks. Nate assured him this was just a small operation, but Sully wasn't willing to risk it by being careless, not with Sam's life at stake.

The fog mixed with the blackness of the night made it nearly impossible to pick out the structures from this distance. Despite lights piercing through the mist by various doorways of the warehouses, it did nothing to illuminate what might be awaiting them.

When he was starting to worry Nate might have run into trouble, he appeared at his side, breathing hard, eyes wide, shoulders tensed, for all the world emanating someone ready for battle, not a kid who was about to lose his brother.

"So?"

"I only saw four guards," Nate reported in a soft voice. "I'm pretty sure Sam's in the watch tour." Sully's gaze followed Nate's pointing finger to the outline of a lean-to structure at the end of the pier. Nate then asked the unexpected, "Are we using guns?"

Sully looked at him for several long, breathless seconds. Not for the question, but for what it meant. Using guns would be so much easier, and he already had a couple of 9 mm's hidden away in the trunk. No matter what low life they were dealing with, he would have firearms of his own. It just made sense to go in with their own contingency plan.

Sam's words rattled inside his head before Sully could even get a single word out, You put a gun in his hands?

It was in that moment he understood – Nate wasn't a kid anymore, hadn't been for a long time, and he had certainly seen what the underbelly of the world had to offer. Sam knew, all that time ago, what life he was putting on Nate's shoulders. Eventually, the kid would have to hold a gun and kill someone to save his own hide. The problem? Sully wasn't the one who could make that choice, for either of the brothers. It wasn't his place to make it the day where he would hand Nate a firearm and expect him to take a life.

Sully wouldn't go behind Sam's back, not like this, not when he wasn't even present to have a say in the matter.

"No," He eventually answered. "We just have to go about this the quiet way." Nate started to move, and reflexively Sully's hand shot out and snatched the back of his shirt. "Don't kill anyone," He warned. He absolutely didn't want to deal with the aftermath of Nate taking a life while he wasn't even in his right mind. "Don't give them another reason to come after you." He released his grip, reaching for broken planks left strewn around, and handed one off to Nate.

He grimaced, but the kid nodded anyway, then he darted off. Sully squinted through the fog to keep an eye on his kid and found himself mesmerized. Shit, he's fast.