The next day saw Lucy, Jace and Celine fast asleep in the limo ride back to the city. With Jace and Celine having stayed awake most of the night in travel, they were dead on their feet that morning and could manage no more than a few grunts in conversation. It was no surprise they fell asleep as soon as the vehicle went into motion. Lucy studiously avoiding Richard's gaze all the while, promptly followed suit. And then three hours later and the limo took its dip down the Merryville Drive to fade out of view.
The next few weeks were exceedingly uneventful with Jace back at work and the twins and Lucy occupied with summer jobs. Lucy had decided to go ahead with the plan to study law. It was really the only vow made in temper on the plains of the Reeves Ranch that she found made sense. The law in itself was power. It was that power that she needed on her side and always. Lucy set about completing her enrolment and requesting for a late start in view of her trip to the US. She also decided not to tell the twins about her encounter with Cat's one-night-stand, Sadiq. Cat's blood test had come back clear but she was still distracted and almost secretive about something. Lucy didn't want to keep the whole matter alive by giving it the ammunition it needed to remain in Cat's thoughts- Sadiq's name. So, she said nothing, hoping the Prince himself would leave things be and leave Cat alone.
Soon the day arrived for Lucy's trip. Her bags packed all that remained were the rounds of farewell, a night's sleep and then off to the airport. It was immensely daunting to think of at all. Her first flight overseas as an adult and she would travelling alone half way across the globe.
She spent that last night with Jace and now, the sun was up, bright, shiny and demanding that they get on with their day.
"Drop it!"
"You drop it!" Lucy said.
She stood there glaring at Jace wrapped up in his towel just as Lucy was wrapped in hers. It was a stalemate. A Mexican stand-off. There was no way she was dropping her towel simply at his say so. It had seemed the fitting thing to do, to take their relationship to the next level and at least stare at each other naked as they were still unwilling to take things further.
It was almost childish this need to not complete the act but tease each other instead with glimpses of what they would not be getting. Richard's taunting smirk played on her mind, knowing he would have had a field day laughing his head off at their foolishness.
But this was exactly what attracted Lucy to Jace. He was willing to be silly. He was willing to be serious. But he was always willing to be her friend first.
Jace smirked at her.
Lucy was glad, she was open and honest with Jace. He knew everything there was to know about her. Even about the kiss she'd shared with Richard and the fact that he had come to her bed that last night at the farm. Strangely, Jace did no more than break out into a rant of his displeasure. Any boyfriend would have freaked out and maybe even shot of a few rounds of M16 over it but not Jace.
Jace was remarkably restrained. Lucy just didn't understand the dynamics of the relationship Jace had with Richard. She only knew they both couldn't do without the other. Just as they seemed equally unable to do without her. Despite the final farewell that night at his farmhouse, Richard made it a point to call her every night.
They would talk on the phone. Nothing intimate, just conversing about their day. Jace resumed his sleepover at her place, promising to go no further than that in compromise. Lucy had woken up in his arms every morning and watch him amble down the stairs and out the front door without a care in the world.
Now his suitcase sat next to hers. With her gone, he wouldn't be needing to stash his thing in her room anymore.
Lucy sighed. It would take her the better part of the next three months to figure everything out.
"Tell you what, luv, let's do it on the count of three," he said smiling charmingly. But Lucy was not falling for it. She saw the evil glint that he couldn't quite hide twinkling in his baby blue eyes.
"Sure, baby, whatever you say." Lucy grinned back, equally charmingly.
"One!" Jace's grin widened.
"Two!" Lucy bared her teeth.
"Th...." They started to chorus together only to stop at the pounding to her room door.
"Hurry up, the pancakes are waiting for no one!" Hollered out Emily. "Oh, and tell Jace, there's a place for him too."
"There better be, no way I am driving you to the airport on an empty stomach!" Jace grunted before he dropped his towel. A swift snatch later, and Lucy's lay in a puddle next to his. They breathed hard. Inexplicably out of breath as they stared at each other hungrily.
"Who was the freaking idiot who suggested abstinence?" Jace managed to whisper hoarsely.
"You," said Lucy almost faintly, willing to deny all claims to that title. She couldn't have been the one dumb enough longing for all that only to deny herself when she got it on the grounds of stupidity. But she really needed to start breathing and soon, was that dark spots on her vision?
"We could do it right now." Jace suggested unhelpfully.
"My first time a twenty-minute fuck?" Lucy lifted a weak brow at him, not at all finding that suggestion offensive.
But Jace was rapidly shaking his head. "Five! Five minutes. Doubt I can last longer."
Lucy got weak knees just listening to him pant.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Hurry up you guys. Five minutes or the pancakes are gone." Cat's sing song voice rang out from the other side of the door, jolting them into immediate action. With a frantic rush, they were in each other's arms, lips meshed and starving for a lot more than mere pancakes. They must have been at it for all of two minutes before a new, heavier fist pounded at Lucy's door.
"Lucy? Honey? Your mum and I would like a word with you in private before you leave honey."
At that, they sprang instantly apart and immediately fumbled about for their clothing. "Coming!" Lucy hollered. "Just a minute."
Fluent blue streaks rang rabid across the room, as their tussle to get into their clothing had them dashing around each other with mad urgency. Lucy caught Jace's laughing smirk and couldn't help silently laughing along with him. They were being ridiculous and that was wonderful. Hearts pounding, and hair dishevelled, they finally opened the door to beam at her parents.
"I'll just take these downstairs," exclaimed Jace suddenly, into the awkward silence that ensued. He reached down to grab Lucy's luggage, surreptitiously sweeping his own up in the process but Lucy didn't doubt her dad missed nothing. Still she wasn't about to say anything.
"Save me some pancakes!" Lucy called out after him. Jace's taunting laughter was her only answer.
She looked back awkwardly at her parents, then suggested, "Let's sit."
Lucy scrambled up onto her, thankfully-made-up bed, and watched with some amusement as her mum and dad reprise the perch usually occupied by Emily and Cat in their secret meetings.
"Your mum has some letters for your father," said dad, nodding to Mary to hand them over. Lucy took them and immediately slot them into her handbag.
"You're to call us every day. I don't care about the charges," begun her dad. "Keep us abreast of everything. How you're doing? What you're feeling?"
"If you're eating properly," added Mary.
"If you don't like it there," added her dad pointedly. "If you don't want to stay on for the three months, then don't. You come straight back home."
"You have enough money for a hotel?"
Lucy nodded, eyes wide open.
"America is not at all like Australia, Lucy," begun her mum. "The people there aren't as friendly. I don't want you mixing with the wrong crowd, Lucy...."
The list was unexpected and went on long past the last of the pancakes. But Lucy felt warm and fuzzy regardless. She felt their pain, she felt their fears and she felt their love. And then she felt her own. A tear rolled down her cheek.
"I am going to miss you guys," Lucy sobbed out brokenly. Her mum's arms came up about her and her dads enwrapped them both. They sat there on her bed hugging for the longest time before Mary Little wrenched back to mop up her face on the back of her sleeves and continue with her list.
"Let us know if you need more money. Keep all the emergency numbers with you always. Make sure you carry your pepper spray in your handbag everywhere you go...."
Jace hollered up the stairs three times before her parents allowed her to leave. They exchanged another round of tearful hugs before Lucy picked up her handbag to check for her tickets, her visa and her passport. Satisfied, she lifted blurry eyes back to take in her parents.
"Lucy," said her mum seriously. "I don't want you to feel that you have to find your brother and bring him home. If the experts haven't located him yet, there's every chance you won't. Take this time to get to know your father instead. We've lived our whole lives not knowing if Blaze was still alive even." She broke off there to give a muted sob before resolutely sniffing away her tears to carry on.
"It's enough to know that he is. That he's out there somewhere but alive. It's almost even a relief to know that he had been with family all this time and not with complete strangers. I know what it's like to hold out hope and have it dashed time and again. I know what it's like to relentlessly pursue every avenue to the detriment of everything else." Mary paused again to mop up more tears.
"You're starting a new life Lucy. You're going to study law. You have a boyfriend. You will be getting to know your father's family. Don't let the hunt for your brother steal all that from you because it will, Lucy. It will suck you in and never let you go."
"I won't let that happen, mama," cried Lucy, reverting to her childhood term for her mother. "I promise. I won't."
They mopped up tears that wouldn't relent and then moved down the stairs and through the house slowly. Their crowd of three expanding to five as the twin's joined in, offering their hugs and mostly unwanted advice.
"Be sure to send me photos of every hot guy you meet!" Was Emily's demand.
"If you ever get the chance to visit the Californian Academy of Science...," started Cat, to seriously issue her own demands, and was duly shushed by all laughingly.
Lucy was packed into Jace's Evoque, and her breakfast of toast, with butter and jam, thrust at her through the window. Lucy grimaced at the offering but gladly accepted it anyway for the hour ride to the airport.
A last round of kisses and they were off.
The drive to the airport was quiet. Lucy with the aching stone in her chest felt too weighed down with emotions to talk. She felt too weighed down to do anything more than sing. After a fifteen-minute struggle to draw in a calming breath, Lucy gave in to the urge. Her voice broke out hauntingly.
At first shaking with heavy emotions and then channelling out that emotion into a piercingly sweet sound. Her heart shook to every change in octave as she sung out the words to the latest from Adele. It was only when the last strains fell away that she found she could finally breathe easy again.
Heart still thumping she dug into her purse to pull out a tissue and offer one to Jace. He didn't say a word as he silently took what she offered and mopped up his face. It was only a moment later, that he spoke. "Thanks, luv. I needed that," Jace whispered hoarsely.
Lucy nodded her understanding. The release was what kept her going.
The airport check-in was a headache, but that served its own purpose in delaying all thoughts of the inevitable parting. But then they were walking to the departure lounge, beyond whose gates Jace would be barred admittance.
They kissed then. Long and intense. Soft and piercingly sweet. Tearing apart, Jace caught her hand and drew her away in search of a more secluded corner but they were in a very busy airport. Spotting an unoccupied photo booth, he tugged her in after him.
"You still have time, Lucy," he stated urgently, denying her protests. Tugging her back into his arms, he begun a gentle assault of her senses. But the clock was ticking, and time was not on their side. The urgency of the moment penetrated the kiss to take it over and on to new depths. A short sharp pain followed as his assault on her mouth turned brutal. A dark urgency sped through their veins.
Lucy trembled in his hands and felt his own answering tremble ripple beneath her hands. She went wild, raking her nails over his broad shoulders and down his back. They kissed, broke apart to pant hard then dove for each other again, panic of the ticking clock driving their actions till there was no more finesse to their actions, just raw heart-wrenching need.
"You... have... to go," said Jace finally, between lingering kisses as he slowly tried to bring them both back to the real world.
"No." Lucy sobbed out, feeling a sudden wrenching pain in her heart at his words.
"You... must, luv."
They drew slowly apart. Lucy blinked at the blur that was his image. Wanting that last glimpse of him to be a clear memory she would carry with her. But her watering eyes refused to comply. Her eyes filled up and rolled down a tear at a time and Jace leant down to kiss away the tears, one at a time.
He shifted her into a tight hug then and followed it with a couple of successive squeezes and then her handbag was draped back over her shoulder and Lucy was being thrust back out into the busy airport. She didn't look back. She didn't allow herself to stop but marched on steadily for the gates that would take her completely out of Jace's view. She pushed on past all the counters and onto the plane before allowing herself to finally feel.
Only to find she could feel nothing at all. Lucy stared out with deadened eyes as Melbourne fell away and the plane took to the skies. She stared on with bloodshot eyes from a sleepless flight as San Francisco swept in beneath its wings. The plane hit the tarmac with effortless ease of a well-oiled machine and then Lucy was joining the throng of passengers in embarking.
An hour later and she stood by the pick-up zone, patiently waiting for Knyte Starr to finally walk into her life. Only the van that pulled up and the hooded thugs that leaped out, had absolutely nothing to do with her father everything to do with her brother's abductors. Lucy's cry of distress was swiftly muffled. Lucy watched the familiar black spots pop across her vision and then a door slammed shut and tires squealed, and Lucy knew with a heart stopping certainty, she had just been abducted too.
The Underground, Atlanta, Georgia
Two Days Later
The sense that everything was swiftly spiralling out of his control was nothing new. His hand moved from the gear-shift stick to flick on the high beam lights. With its neon glow eating up the night. He shifted his ute back into high gear cleaving through the silent darkness and his looming sense of foreboding. The fear that he was finally losing his mind was always there. It was a fight to keep the dark tendrils of impending doom from consuming him whole.
Nazareth, I'm fucked up
Homie, you fucked up
But if God got us, then we gon' be alright
His deep voice stretched and dropped in bass to ring out hauntingly as he sang along to the famed lyrics of Kendric Lamar's Alright, in sync with its smooth beat. The music worked its magic, its beat entrancing as Blaise belted out his own vocals to the song and drawing on its deep well of meaning in shoring up his will. His grip tightened on his steering even as his mind revolted but delved helplessly over the recent past, and even as his body shuddered from the pain of loss.
"You are not my son!"
The passing words of the only woman who had been his mother still rang jarringly in his ears. His heart thudded and wept silently with each syllable ricocheting of his senses, but his eyes remained dry.
"I am not your mother."
Blaise Shubert had known that he was not her son. He couldn't have been. No more than he could have been the son of his piss-pot father. They were too different from him to have thought otherwise. Not necessarily in appearance but in everything else. Everything that mattered. But instinctively knowing it... and actually hearing her confirm it... was another matter entirely. Blaise had looked at the worn woman, once beautiful in her blond hair and blue eyes and had known instinctively there was nothing of her in him. Sure, they shared the same blue gaze but where his offered a glimpse into his soul, hers had been devoid of anything but the barest link to life. His gaze ran over her bare arm to settle on the most recent of puncture wounds and had instantly known - that this time the drugs-induced-glaze would not clear out of her starring blue eyes. He had sat with her, for the moments it took for the life to seep out of her and had still been staring when the glaze left her eyes to leave behind only the stillness of death.
His hand hit the steering in agitation then Blaise pulled over his ute up onto the grassy embankment at the side of the road. He was here. Turning off the ignition and the silence of the cold dead surrounding crept hauntingly in. Blaise stared out into the dark, straining his eyes searchingly. Ever alert. Breathing out a warm puff into the chilled night air, he waited till the tremble in his limbs eased before he resolutely stepped out into the night.
It was dark and rank outside, as the cemetery deep in the night could be expected to be. The marble town of the hood planted with unchartered graves. Not every grave reached as deep as six feet under but those that did were the legit. The unmarked graves that demanded respect. Graves that belonged to the real deaths of head of the hood, long immortalised through their officiated untimely demise for the black and white of the law. What ain't alive can't get imprisoned and so it was not only money that got laundered through these soggy pastures but the people who worked it.
But the smell of rotting flesh appealed to Blaise's sensitized nose. As did the scent of the white powder of power and addiction that was also lay buried within their midst. The old kings that die don't exactly get buried with their treasure, but their graves were a safe enough site for Blaise to bury his. It was probably not the best place to hide his stash. But a fucking kilo of the potent stuff was freakishly hard to hide and unlike the other losers who use this patch, Blaise buried his deep enough so that even the sniffers would have trouble finding his shit.
Blaise shivered with hidden satisfaction at sight of the oddly shaped stone that marked his patch of the cool dark earth. Only the smallest pebble, dark and otherwise insignificant, gave his patch away. He was the only one who knew what lay buried beneath it. His loot. His treasures. They all made it to this very spot. His turf. Claimed but not officiated.
The scent of the dirt rose strong and inviting, freshly stirred. Always, it called to him. The need to draw him into its cool embrace strong... as strong as the call to the dead.
Only he was not the dead, nor the undead as some liked to think, even though he could well be called either. He was certainly the walking dead. A condition that could end at a moment's notice. Just a well-placed shot in his chest and he was gone, much like the rest of his tribe of sewer dwellers. A stretch of unused pipe lines that linked to an equally unused stretch of the underground railway. Old tunnels forked out by his ancestors marked the secret route out of the railway and patched them to the sewer system giving them the run of the city. But like all plots of turf, hidden from the sun or otherwise, these too had been fought over and won- the hard way. And yet, most of the city's scum had cleaned out when Danny Might rolled in and declared himself the new king. Blaise had been street savvy enough to maneuverer the veins and make his way out in time. But he'd failed to bring any of his old team with him.
Now it was time to fight back. To avenge his fallen brothers and reaching down into his coffers was the only way to forward. Blaise dragged his spade behind him, making his way past the bush and shrubbery till his boot shod feet were placed square over the stone. Blaise tossed aside his spade and with a brutal tug, shoved aside the stone. Shrugging off his worn leather jacket and whipping off his equally worn excuse of a t-shirt, Blaise unknowingly basked in the luminous moonlight. Allowing the glow of the super blue blood moon to play lovingly across his skin. The light sculpted across his smooth muscular chest, lighting up the electric green of his dragon tattoo before glinting off the platinum rings that looped snug about his earlobe. His smooth tanned scalp glimmered in the moonlight and an eerie glow lit from within the blue depths of his iris, the only memento aside from his mixed skin tone that he inherited from his dead mother. Or so he was told, never having met the real man who sired him. Knyte Starr was his true father.
"Go to your father. Go to Knyte Starr."
His dead mother's instructions had been clear in her passing. He was not her son nor the son of the man who had claimed was his father. Instead he belonged to the superstar singer, Knyte Starr. A man who lost his son as an infant. A story that had tears welling up in the eyes of his fans all over.
But Blaise was not a fan. Nor was he about to go running off to daddy. Not at Stacy Shubert's bidding. She had been dead to him long before she died and there was no way she would be ruining his life from the grave. Not anymore.
Blaise eyed his patch now assessingly. The clouds rolled in, blocking out his only source of light. His pupils widened adjusting to the dark. Then rolling the kinks off his stiff shoulder, Blaise bent down and set to it, his tanned coloured skin and dark clothing blending in well so that he was one with the night. Soon the spade was back in his hand and being applied ruthlessly into the ground as he worked his way relentlessly on. But the blue blood moon seemed rather taken with him, it shimmered past clouds to boldly challenge the darkness of the night into revealing his presence to all and any who lurked about.
It was only lady luck that assured he remained undisturbed and that the grave site remained dead and silent all around him. An eerie howl rang out in the distance. But Blaise remained unconcerned. He worked the dark, using it and revelling in it. The glimmer of moonlight ricocheted off the metal of his spade as he dug in hard and deep. Blaise drew in a deep ragged breath before wiping the sweat off his brow an throwing his shoulder in it, giving into the unrelenting demands of life at night fall. He hardly saw the day anymore. Torn between staying in hiding and protecting his mother and the need make his move in stealth, he had all but shied from the light. Now, his eyes had no problem making out the shadowed patch of the cemetery with only the teasing glimmer of the moon light.
Another howl rang out of the dark drawing an incredible pull within him to lift his head and let loose a howl of his own. Blaise lifted his head, his anguish visible in his eye as he stared up at the entrancing moon.
So many dead. So many.
The shooting rampage had begun only a week earlier. His men had retreated into the very bowls of the city's slums, but Danny Might's men were relentless like that, flushing each and every one of them out. Hunting them down like a sport and leaving a bullet lodged clean in their brain. It was not a good way to go. Not an honourable death. Lowered to their knees and shot at the back of their heads, executional style. There was no way he was letting that go unavenged. Not even for the lure of untimely peace. Blaise glared up at the moon and the part it played in enticing him to surrender himself within the earth's dark grainy depths. Its hypnotic beauty, inviting him to simply let go and surrender. The never-ending struggles will cease then, and life with it.
Blaise tore his gaze away with a shudder. Perhaps it was too soon. His need for vengeance had urged him out of hiding before he'd had sufficient time to mourn. To cry over the loss of his brothers and... the loss of his unwanted mother. He hated Stacy Schubert with every drop of his blood. He hated Mary Schubert, Stacy's identical twin and his real mother even more. He didn't need parents. He didn't need family. He only craved vengeance.
Crack!
His spade hit wood. Barely containing his harsh laugh, Blaise quickened his pace, skilfully flicking the dirt off the sides. The coffin that got uncovered was his. The mark on it was discernible. A trait of his gang. His previous gang of gangly youths. Drug pushers trying to make ends meet. A bunch of misfits that were too young to die.
Blaise dropped to his haunches and edged his trusty knife beneath the lid. It was as expected nailed shut. Throwing his weight into it the lid popped. Chips of wood flew in the air.
"Wat Da fuck?"
Blaise scrambled out of the hole with some haste. He reached urgently for his jacket for his trusty LED torch key ring. Something he never thought he would need. Its glow was unnaturally bright. He sped back to the hole, peering into darkened void before unleashing the glow of his keychain... to reveal a woman?
Wa da fuck? Blaise gulped down his unbidden fear. Come on man, everything's gonna be aight! A shawty bitch with nary a stitch of thread in my crib is nothing new. He would deal. He had to deal. Blaise breathed in and out hollow. He lifted his hand to brush the sweat off his brow. The sultry heat of the night was abnormal. As was the girl in his coffin. Who put her there? Was she dead? But more importantly... where was his fucking al Capone?
Feeling shaky by this unexpected turn in events, Blaise muttered out the chorus that had been playing in the back of his mind... to the rhythm of his frantically thudding heart.
Nigga, we gon' be alright
Nigga, we gon' be alright
We gon' be alright
Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon' be alright
Nigga, we gon' be alright
Huh? We gon' be alright
Nigga, we gon' be alright
Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon' be alright
The beam of his light clicked off. Blaise glanced around frantically, stilling his being and slowing his breathing. He listened to the dark, willing his other senses to pick up what his sight couldn't.
Silence greeted his silence. Thankful this was no grave rave, Blaise dropped his gaze back to the ebony depths of the pit before him. Once again, the girl was eclipsed by the dark. Perhaps it had all been his imagination. His usually underworked imaginations playing a rather vivid trick on him. Unable to resist, the light to his torch flicked on once more chasing away the shroud of darkness that concealed the girl from his sight. Dropping back down to the coffin, Blaise bent over casting his light over her unmoving features. It was hard to tell if she was truly dead but then he caught sight of the tubes running through her nostrils from an unusual looking breathing apparatus. Oxygen! He couldn't hear its soft hiss before but now that he knew it was there, he listened to the soft whizz of the pump expand and deflate with each hiss of breath.
Leaning in to brush his chilled fingers against her warm skin, he rested them against the weak pulse at her throat. The beat was reassuring. At least this wasn't yet another stiff he had to deal with. Even so, he'd rather not be seen dragging an unconscious girl about through the boneyard. There was no knowing what booby trap he would be walking into. He was not dumbass not to realise someone had in for him and had it in a big way. This was not the work of Danny Might. This was something else.
It was not sun-up yet. He had a couple of hours still. Shuddering away his reluctance with a deep shaky breath, Blaise got down into the dirt to rest on his knees. He started to work the tubes slowly out her nostrils. Then running a cautious look down her length, he clicked off his light and tucked it away before leaning in to haul her out of the coffin and over his shoulder. Her arms flopped uselessly down before him. Sighing in resignation, Blaise took the few strategic leaping steps needed to scramble clear of the grave. Stopping only for his jacket and his spade, Blaise swept out of there, uncharacteristically leaving the dune of dirt piled up high as it was. What did it matter if the whoever done it was on to him? He already had too many after his back to care at this point.
His slow thread back through the bushes and on to his rusty vehicle parked at the roadside was relaxed, almost languid and even silently challenging in his bold unflinching steps. Blaise glared into the dark willing anyone dumb enough to try to take him on now. But the still of the night was broken only by his mobile phone vibrating in his pocket. Blaise reached for it and without pausing in his stride or bothering to glance at the screen, he clicked receive and casually raised it to his ear. An unexpected voice rang in his ear shouting out his exact sentiments.
"O-m-f-g, my night has been shooding horrific! I have been waitin' all night for you babe. It's fucking Valentines! You fucking stood me up! I can't believe it babe! Don't think I don't know you have some naked hoe thrown over your shoulder for a quick fuck! I am fucking mad at you, bae. Oh, and you won't believe who I ran into at the boozer...."
But Blaise had a screaming concern of his own to pay much attention to Josie's ranting. His most recent squeeze had this irrepressible need to be constantly in his ear. The ratchet bitch could go on and on for an undetermined amount of time. But his determined silence must have gotten to her at some point for she muttered back into the cell after a time, "...Blaise? Bae? Are you there, baby?"
With a resigned sigh, he flicked his cell off and slid it back into his pocket. He knew from experience he was only strong enough to handle one woman at a time, and he already had his hands full with the waking dead. His limit for the night was reached.
The woman in his arms barely stirred as he lowered her without ceremony into the back of his ute. Sliding the lid half- shut over her slight form, he moved forward to slid into the driving seat and gun his way back to the city lights. His mood was shot for night. His hopes dashed. He'd fucked up. He'd fucked up good. The drug money he had hoped for was not forthcoming. Hopefully, the girl would carry her weight in gold.
The drive back didn't take long. Once he neared the digs, his headlight dipped, and the rest of ride was completed in hollowed darkness. The splash through the low-lying waters was relatively muted under the roll of his tires. Travelling in the pipes at a crawl was necessary if Blaise wanted to return with no one the wiser. It was never easy knowing who was out there listening. But thankfully, the ride through the abandoned pipe lines was uneventful. Then he was there. His crib beneath the city lights.
The hound that rushed out to greet him drew a crooked grin to slant across his lips. The lick that followed almost widened that twitch into a grin, but the words that came after from the silhouette behind him chased the effort away.
"Where the fuck you been at, man!"
"Bruh!!" Blaise murmured hauling in his find past a befuddled Andy as he made his way towards his bed. "Where the hell do you think I've been?" He added mildly.
"This is all yo' fuckin' fault." Andy breathed out immediately in whispered awe as he stared down at the silent girl splayed over Blaise's bed. Entranced by the shawty piece of ass but unwilling to take the heat that came with it.
Blaise merely shrugged. He was used to being made to shoulder the shit around here. Bringing in an unconscious girl none of them recognised clearly spoke trouble. Andy was new to the blood. He would be wary, and he should. But Blaise was done taking a piss in his own dump. He was done riding' and shining' his ass to Danny's bidding. Guns loaded or not it was time to come out shooting. He'd make his ammo out of dust if he had to. Working with this fine piece of ass was as good as. Blaise ran a critical gaze down her length before he turned heel to stalk back to the front. Andy followed at his heels, shaking his head in worry.
But Blaise merely ignored his disapproving look and suggested mildly, "Put the word out on her. Let's test these waters and see how far this shit goes."
He suspected they were going to be in for a whipping backlash once the word was out but at this point he was ready to try anything.
- To Be Continued -