I know she feels bad about having to tell Mona that she can’t come here. Marco said that she could come visit, but I understand why Gabby wants to keep her as far away as possible from all of this. I’d do the same.
Gabby’s been quieter lately. Distant. And when I ask her about it she just waves it off as paranoia, but I realize now that it’s because she misses her sister.
“We’ll figure out a way for you to see her again,” I try to reassure her.
“I don’t see how.” She sniffles. “And I hate telling her I can’t see her. She takes it personally. She thinks I hate her because I’ve used every excuse I can think of, and now I’m all out. I just tell her no and hope through the phone she’ll somehow understand, but she doesn’t.”
I pull her in for a hug, but she releases me when she sees my backpack open on the bed. “Where are you going?”
“To get my locket back. Leo gave me intel on where he lives. I’m going to sneak in, grab it, and sneak out.”
“You’re insane, you know that?” Gabby throws her hands in the air and blows out a long, frustrated sigh.
“Yeah, I kinda figured that out a while back,” I reply, packing my backpack. “Thought you caught on to that by now.”
“You should have clued me in to your mental status. I didn’t figure it out until four seconds ago when you told me you were going to sneak into a house in Bedlam and steal from the man they call The Executioner!”
“I’m not stealing,” I reason. “He took my locket. I’m just taking it back.”
“It’s a cheap piece of metal that you stole. Is that really worth sacrificing your own life? We have other shit to worry about, EJ. Like who the fuck are we going to rob with money around this town if we can’t go to the casino and everyone else doesn’t have shit left to steal!”
“We’ll come up with something. We always do. And it’s more to me than just a locket. You know that,” I remind her. I remember something I wanted to ask her earlier. “Do you think Marco was being serious when he said he wanted to make me his queen?”
“Have you ever known Marco NOT to be serious about anything?”
“But what does that even mean?”
“Maybe, it means you won’t have to earn for him anymore,” she suggests.
I know she’s trying to find a positive in all of this, but I can’t see it. Same as with magic, just because I can’t see it, doesn’t mean it’s not there.
“No, but I would have to fuck him,” I say bitterly, gagging on my own words. “And I’d rather die.”
Gabby’s eyes grow watery. “That’s the other option.”
“It’s also the truth,” I mutter. “One horrible life decision at a time, right?” I try to plant a smile on my face. Not for me. For Gabby. I know she’s always felt guilty about Marco bringing me here, but I refuse to let her feel worse than Marco already makes her feel.
“Can’t you just stay here with me and wallow in our misery?” Gabby whines. “Read me another one of the fairytales you wrote?” She sighs when she realizes I’m not going to budge. “Why again is this one thing so important to you?”
“I can’t explain it. I just…it just is, okay?” I place my hands on her shoulders. “It will be fine. I’ll be in and out and back here in no time.”
“Leo could have given you bad info. This could be a trap of some sort. It might not even be where he lives.”
“Leo’s done nothing but help us since the day we got here. She’s one of the only ones. I trust her.”
Gabby pushes my hands off her shoulders. She looks unconvinced at best. She catches a glimpse of herself in the mirror hanging behind the door and looks with disgust at the yellow rose tattoo on her shoulder. The rub turns into a scratch until she’s practically clawing at it. I grab her hand and force her to stop before she hurts herself.
We are required to show Los Muertos colors at all times. Gabby’s is her tattoo; Marco insisted since she’s blood. Mine is a little more low-key. My yellow Keds. And since I always make sure to walk through every mud puddle that I come across, they were more brown than yellow.
“Remember, a yellow rose stands for friendship,” I tell her. “Don’t scratch at our friendship.”
She smiles, but it’s a sad one that doesn’t reach her glassy brown eyes. “I trust Leo, too, EJ, but you should also trust me when I tell you this isn’t a good idea.”
“I do trust you, more than anyone, you know that, but you of all people should also know that just because I trust you, doesn’t mean I’m going to listen to you.” I give her a peck on the cheek and sling my backpack over my shoulder.
Gabby huffs. “Fine. Then, I’m coming with you.”
I shake my head. “No, it’ll be easier for one person to sneak around Bedlam territory at night. Two will be more likely to get noticed.” I flip the hood on my black sweater over my head. “Be back in a jiffy. If I’m not back in a couple of hours, uhhhh…just wait longer.”
“EJ, wait.” Gabby follows me to the door. She smiles genuinely this time. She grabs my hand and locks our pinkies together. “Best friends know you’re crazy and still choose to be seen with you in public,” she says, reciting a favorite quote of ours. She takes her other hand and covers where our pinkies are linked. “By anonymous internet quote,” she adds.
I reply with another. “Best friends are like fairytales. They’ve been there since once upon a time, and will be there until forever after.” I place my other hand on top of hers. “Man, that anonymous internet quote really knows his stuff,” I say.
“Her,” she corrects with a laugh. We drop hands. “Be careful, EJ,” she says as I open the door. “There are still so many quotes out there we’ve yet to read.”
I nod.
And then I’m gone.
Ten
People like us?
What the fuck did she mean by people like us?
The girl in the alley is nothing like me. I’ve been hardened over the years both in spirit and body.
The girl, on the other hand, was soft.
I couldn’t see much of her eyes in the shadows and because her hair was in her face. But I felt her soft, rounded, and perky tits against me. Her hardened nipples pebbling through her sweat soaked t-shirt. Soft, tanned skin. Long, pin-straight hair the color of whiskey.
The only thing that wasn’t soft about her was her fucking attitude. The way she stared me down as if she could somehow take me down with only her determination and will.
It was downright adorable.
Something about the way she stared me down made my cock instantly hard. I’m not some kid who walks around with a hard-on every day at the first pair of tits he sees bouncing by. I haven’t had that kind of immediate connection with someone since…her. Emma Jean. Tricks.
I’m not going to think about a girl from my past right now.
This wasn’t just a connection. This was a raw attraction like I’d never felt before.
When faced with a bloodied man in an alley holding a knife, she reacted the complete opposite way of how someone should react. I knew she was afraid. I could smell the fear seeping off her skin, and yet she barely faltered. She stood her ground. I didn’t even get to tell her the real reason for the blood on my chest before her friend called for her.
People like us.
I’m stuck on her words, repeating them over and over again in my head. Her locket is burning a hole in my pocket. I want to take it out and inspect it further, but seconds after I arrived back home, I was recruited to revive Sandy’s piece of shit minivan for the millionth time this week.
The van doesn’t need a revival.
It needs a fucking coroner.
The unmistakable sound of tires rolling along the pavement catches my attention. I lift my head from under the hood. I straighten, wiping the grease from my hands with an already dirty rag. My smile is nothing less than smug when I spot the unmarked black town car rolling by at a painfully slow speed.
Fuckers.
I salute
the car with a gesture whoever is inside can’t misinterpret. Hint: it involves both of my middle fingers. I chuckle to myself when it speeds away into the night. I turn my attention back to the engine and the task at hand.
“You’d think they’d at least TRY to be less obvious,” Sandy says from the driver's seat. His southern drawl is always thicker when he’s pissed off. He sits up from his reclined position and props his beer on the ledge of the open window. “There are only two reasons why anyone would drive that painfully slow in this town, and one requires ducking and covering.”
I shake my head. “Nobody’s getting shot tonight. The one car parade we just witnessed is no doubt courtesy of the new Lacking Gang Task Force, making their presence known.”
“After they had you for fifteen hours?” Sandy scoffs. “Belly won’t be happy about this.”
My gut twists. Belly’s not getting any better. Every day, he grows paler, and as of late, he’s been dragging around an oxygen tank on wheels. He tells us he’s fine while Marci says if the new medication doesn’t work he’s going to need open heart surgery.
“Those motherfuckers are about as inconspicuous as a pedophile on a playground wearing a trench coat that says free candy for kids across the front.” Sandy takes a swig of his beer. “Don’t they know by now that we’re not a gang?” He joins me at the front of the van.
I shrug. “I told them that when they hauled me in.”
He scratches the side of his head with his beer bottle and looks out to the street. “Something tells me they didn’t believe you.”
“Really?” I ask sarcastically, tightening a bolt on the engine. “What makes you think that? Is it the three times a day drive by of the house or the bullet proof vest fuckers descending on us outside of BB’s.”
“Either works,” Sandy says with a shrug. “You pick.”
I turn my wrench and fasten the final bolt which should do a better job than the duct tape Sandy has been using to hold his sorry excuse for an engine together.
“I mean, why the fuck do they think we’re a gang? We don’t even have hand signals.” He waves his hands in the air in what I’m guessing are his version of gang signs. “We don’t wear the same colors or jump people in like Los Muertos or The Immortals.” Sandy turns around and leans against the bumper as if he still sees the car that’s long gone. “I don’t even own a fucking bandana. I mean, by process of elimination, we aren’t a gang.” Sandy pauses, his eyes grow large with excitement. “Or, maybe…do you think that THEY think we’re an MC?”
I roll my eyes. “Two people in this house own bikes, and that’s me and Belly. Only a half dozen or so of our other guys have ‘em.” I point out. I slam the hood shut. “I think that eliminates an MC.”
We might not be a street gang in a traditional sense, but we are a ruthless organization of degenerates. Sandy may come off as ridiculous, but that’s only because he’s easily bored. Truth is that he’s brilliant, even though I won’t ever tell him that. By the age of fourteen, he’d created an underground sports betting operation pulling in thousands of dollars a week until he got shut down after his middle school principal caught him taking bets in the boys’ room.
Then, he burnt down his foster home.
And then the school.
Well, half of it, by the time the firefighters showed.
Haze was brought in because he was a fighter. Brute force was always his method of getting what he wanted, and it still is. The man fought before he could walk. Still does. Street fights. Bar fights. Even ones that aren’t any of his business, he makes his business simply for the jaw of knocking another man’s teeth out.
That’s why he rarely ever comes out of his room. If let him off his leash, I’m pretty sure he’d wrestle a bridesmaid at a wedding over the fuckin’ bouquet and probably end up beating her to death with it. He also has a thing for weapons. The contents of the safe hidden in the drywall in his closet ceiling could arm a small nation, and that’s not even all of it. He’s got shit buried in various unmarked locations throughout three counties.
Digger was brought in because he was a good soldier. A listener. He was the calm and the reason while the rest of us allowed rage to be our guide.
WAS.
Digger was killed last year during a random drive-by, which is one of the reasons we decided to take part in the truce. We all needed time to grieve his loss.
Sandy rounds the van and gets back in the driver's seat. He turns the key and starts the engine. The sound it makes is atrocious, like someone shaking a paper bag full of nails close to your ear. I can fix any car you put in front of me, but Sandy’s van doesn’t need to be resuscitated, it needs to be put out of its fucking misery.
Sandy grins anyway. “I knew you could fix her,” he says, stroking the cracked wheel lovingly. I imagine he’s just happy it’s making any noise at all. “I knew you weren’t gone, Cher. You’d never leave me, baby.”
“Next time, don’t fix it with fucking duct tape,” I say, wiping my hands and tossing the rag onto my toolbox, not bothering to comment on the fact that he named his van Cher, of all fucking things.
“Next time, be around when I need you to fix it, and I won’t have to resort to Nature’s cure-all, the beauty that is duct tape. At least, I didn’t use Liquid Nails this time. I mean, I was going to, but last time, I accidentally gave myself a webbed hand. It took, like, a month for the shit to wear off. I mean, a webbed hand is only a good conversation starter until the skin starts to fall off.” Sandy kills the engine.
The man needs an excuse to start a conversation like an addict needs access to free heroin.
I pull a beer from the fridge in the garage. The cold, crisp carbonation on my tongue feels like heaven, so I kill the bottle, toss it in the trash and reach for two more. Without looking, I throw one over my shoulder to Sandy, who catches it easily. I could toss a beer out into the yard, and there’s no doubt in my mind that Sandy would be there to catch it.
It's one of his many weird quirks.
“I’m just confused as to why the task force is so focused on us.” Sandy leans against the van and cracks open the beer with the crook of his arm. He takes a long pull. “I’m sure Los Muertos would keep them busier.”
“Really?” I raise an eyebrow. “You have no idea why they’d have their sights set on us?”
Sandy’s eyes widen. He shrugs his shoulders. “Well…didn’t we just agree that we’re not a gang?”
“That’s not exactly what I said.”
I sigh and reach for my phone, pulling up Google. I find what I’m looking for and turn the screen to show Sandy. He snatches the phone from my hand. His lips move, but no words come out as he silently reads.
“No shit,” he says, looking up from the screen. “This can’t be right.” Sandy scratches the side of his head with his beer bottle.
I chug down another half a beer. “It’s right there. That’s the reason why we are on those gang-fuck's radar. Can’t control them like the local cops, so we are going to have to be extra careful moving forward.”
Sandy looks down to the screen again, waving off my concerns. “So, the definition of a gang, according to Google dictionary anyway, defines a gang as an organization of criminals. That’s us. WE are an organization of criminals!” he gasps.
“For someone so smart, the fact that you’re just figuring this shit out now makes me want to give you another IQ test.”
“Marci gave me one last week. As it turns out, I’m still a genius.”
I pluck my phone from his hands and shove it into my back pocket.
“But it still doesn’t make sense to me,” Sandy says, looking downright perplexed with his nose scrunched and his forehead wrinkled.
I try another tactic. Walking over to his van, I pop the trunk hatch and point to the body rolled up in garbage bags. A member of our security team who we found out was really a member of Los Muertos, spying on us so they could steal our trucks. Taking him out wasn’t technically breaking the ceasefire since
for all Marco knew, we believed he was one of our own.
“What exactly doesn’t make sense to you?” I ask, looking from the body to Sandy.
Sandy salutes me with his beer. “Touché.”
I close the hatch, then turn to go inside to take a much-needed shower. I have a meeting on the reservation with Chief David at midnight and don’t want to show up smelling like the questionable contents of Cher.
“Go take care of your cargo while that van of yours is still capable. Next time, don’t tow that shit to the fucking house. You breakdown with an unbreathing passenger inside, you call me or one of the boys, and we’ll come to you. Belly would be pissed if he knew there was a corpse in his driveway…again.”
“So moody today,” Sandy says, following me inside. “Where are you going? I have questions. Concerns. Don’t tell me you’re going to lock yourself in your room with your hand on your cock while I’m digging a hole somewhere and mentally suffering over our conversation.”
“Mentally suffering?” I scoff.
“Yes. My mind is already racing. We’re a gang. We need hand signs. Or symbols. Or whatever you call them. There’s a lot to discuss. I mean, should we be jumping people in now? Like, if we do, I think we should start with Haze. That fucker should see what it’s like to be on the receiving end of a good ass kicking every now and again.”
I shake my head and continue walking while Sandy rattles on. “Maybe, we can learn how to be a real gang online. There’s this YouTube channel called Cholos Try. The entire thing is these guys with face tattoos trying things like eating sushi for the first time. I’m sure they’ve made a ‘How to be a real gang’ video at some point. Imma look it up.”
“Fuck off,” I moan. “And go take care of your shit. Text me when it’s done.”
“Why the rush? He’s not going anywhere. Are you expecting company?” he asks, suggestively wagging his eyebrows in a way that both makes me want to laugh and punch his nose to the back of his skull. “Is Corinne coming over again? Nevermind. What was I thinking? No girl’s ever been in your room twice. It probably smells in there. Not like I’d know. I’ve barely ever been inside. You’re probably just going to read back those letters to EJ and pine away well into the night.”
The Perversion Trilogy: Perversion, Possession & Permission Page 8
