Sinking

impending

"I told your buddy here that if the situation continued I'd come," The boy went on instead of acknowledging the fact that Phil had said anything. I hadn't noticed that another boy and girl had appeared behind him, all of them with identical stares focused on Phil.

Chris whispered hurriedly to Phil, quiet enough that the three across from them couldn't hear it but me and Louise could. "I told you, god dammit, I told you to hurry up." Phil looked at him sharply.

I didn't understand what Chris's words or Phil's gaze meant. I knew it must have had something to do with all those times they would wander off from the rest of the group and seemingly argue about things passionately. I figured it had to do with the times Chris would give him a look as if he was awaiting something. l wasn't sure if I even wanted to know the whole story.

"Are you going to pay up?" The girl of the three stepped forward, her appearance muffled because of the long messy dark hair framing her circular face and a red beanie above it all. "We've let you off the hook too many times, Lester."

Pay up? The two words echoed in my head and I remembered the story Phil had told me from when he was a part of the drug dealing world. The part of the story in which he owed them money. My mouth opened with shock, although I wasn't sure if it was shock because I could feel my ears going numb and everything suddenly seeming unbelievable- everything.

"I told you to leave me alone," Phil replied, although I could barely hear him when everything around me was ringing, my grip on Louise's arm nearly slipping. He was still interacting with these people? He lied to me?

"Did you think we'd listen?" Auburn haired boy replied, and I noticed Chris, who was never scared of anything and if he was, never showed it, start to look a bit anxious.

Phil stepped forward. "I was hoping you would, unless you want my fist to shut you up. I told you I'm done with everything now, Scot."

Now? I wondered, the topic of how long he'd been still doing things like this scratching at me. He'd said he'd been done years ago. Years. And yet he was still hurting himself? Hurting everybody else, too?

"You don't scare me," The boy, Scot, replied, and I could tell that this was true. He was the same height as Phil, and looked like he worked out a lot more than the four of us on this side combined. I could tell these people weren't the same ones who'd come after Phil years ago, unless they'd gone under some sort of surgery, so how many people did he have following him around, waiting?

"Ten pounds," Phil answered, throwing the stated bill onto the wet ground in front of him. "It's all I have," and I knew it was, because he was always short on money despite the fact we had the same paycheck. I'd never known why, but now I was nearly certain what the problem was.

"You still owe £390 more," The girl told him menacingly, "Don't forget about the favor you had us do for you back in December. Anyone would have done favors back then when you were actually important to our groups, but time's up. You're not anything anymore."

Favor?

"Here," Chris spoke up for the first time during this exchange, "£300." He shoved three hundred pounds towards Scot. "I don't have another £90, but it's enough because we'll never bother you again."

The boy examined the money. "Not enough because it's coming from Kendall instead of Lester, and it's short of the amount we need, but I can settle that with a good beating to the both of you."

"As if," Phil snarled, and he stepped forward to grip the boy's shirt in his hand and then his fist was flying faster than I could comprehend, smashing against his pale jaw, the noise loud because of the silence everyone else had submerged themselves into. The other boy went to hit him but I suddenly sprang into action and grabbed his arm, detaching from Louise to throw him onto the ground, causing Phil to look at me for just a second; the second was too long because I saw his eyes soften into a look of slight astonishment as if he only just now realized that I had seen the entire exchange. He was distracted, so Scot had time to punch him in on the side of the face, but I didn't have time to look because of the fuss the boy by me was causing.