Our first step will need to be questioning one of the Clarke's about where these new drugs are coming from, and the easiest one to get to will be Adrian since we know where he lives. Milo went 'round there once with his ratchet when he found out Adrian had hurt one of the working girls he was friends with.
I found out about it when Milo was already gone and chased after him with our friends, afraid he'd get himself killed. Apparently, I shouldn't have worried at all, because when we got there, Milo was standing over a screeching Adrian Clarke. Adrian was bleeding profusely from the forehead and clutching at one of his knees, which Milo had also cracked the shit out of. I showed up just in time to see Milo land a solid kick to Adrian's groin.
That was when I learnt the truth. Milo is a fucking badass, and anyone who thinks otherwise due to his size and pretty face is in for one hell of a shock if they ever cross him or someone he cares about.
I share a smile with Milo, also somewhat hyped by the idea of getting to cause some damage to a man like Adrian Clarke. I'd do it for free, but having a mission to back it up does add a flare of purpose that I enjoy.
Adrian lives about a twenty-minute walk from the shelter, in a sixth floor flat on the Bedlam Estate. I shoot off a message in the group chat to let our friends know where Milo and I are going, and why.
We stop by our flat first to pick up Milo’s trusty baseball bat and the gun I keep locked in my bedside drawer, the one I convinced Milo to let me get for emergencies. I still have my lucky pocketknife, which I take with me pretty much everywhere. But going onto the Bedlam Estate is a risky move, especially now the Clarke brothers are better connected than they used to be and could easily call on more friends to help them.
Standing outside the door to Adrian's flat, I brace myself for a confrontation that could end very badly. Milo stands beside me, his bat already raised. I keep the gun hidden, safety on, stuffed into the waistband of my jeans. It digs into the skin of my lower back, and I have to keep repressing the urge to shiver at the mix of cool black metal and an inherent sense of danger.
I'll pull the gun if I need to, but I'd rather it didn't escalate to that point. My experience with guns is limited. I've only ever shot one person before, years ago, and I haven't stopped having nightmares about it since. It's like that bullet got lodged inside me too, tearing through flesh and scraping across bone, only to wind up trapped in my chest cavity, behind my ribs, like a prisoner with a life sentence. It's like I can feel it there, the eroded metal with rotting cartilage around it.
Sometimes, when I wake up gasping and sweating buckets next to Milo, I'll be scrambling at my chest, trying to claw the bullet out.
Milo cracks his bat against the door a couple of times instead of knocking. We wait a handful of seconds before there's movement on the other side of the peephole. A loud, gruff voice shouts through the door. "Oh, you can piss right off, Knight! And take your little psycho girlfriend with you!" He sounds afraid, probably remembering the last time we came over here.
Milo snorts out a laugh beside me, pleased by the fear, and calls back, "Come on, Adrian, let us in. Don't be frightened of me. My baseball bat wants to have a nice, friendly chat with you and your kneecaps. I'm just here to supervise." He's baring his teeth like he has fangs ready and waiting to reveal themselves.
"I haven't done nothin'!" Adrian yells with an offensive amount of indignance for a known piece of shit.
"Brilliant!" I respond with a wry congeniality. "So how about you open your door and we can talk about all that nothing you've not been doing."
"Like fuck I will, you wanker!" Adrian moves away from the peephole. His voice sounds further away when he adds, "Go the fuck away or I'll call the boys 'round to smash your face in."
Bored of this now, I sigh heavily and exchange an exasperated look with Milo. He shrugs, nodding at the door. I dip my head in silent agreement and he takes a few steps back. I get myself into position and aim a hard kick at the flimsy door. It only takes one to break the cheap lock and have the door banging open.
Milo follows with his bat as I charge into the shitty flat. It's a mess inside, walls painted a sickly green with smudges of brown smeared all over them. The carpets are grey and rough, although I can barely see it given how much crap is strewn about the place. Clothes and food containers and other random stuff I can't be bothered to identify. There's a baggy sofa in the living room with a large TV set up on a dirty table opposite, and a pair of glass doors that lead off onto a small balcony.
Adrian is a large man with too many muscles and a bald white head. He's the sort of bloke wholooksmean, like a henchman in a video game. Adrian has a disposable phone clutched in his meaty hands, thick fingers tapping away at the buttons, sending a text, most likely to 'the boys', asking for them to come rescue him.
I stride forward and snatch the phone out of Adrian's grasp, shoving it into my pocket. If Adrian proves annoyingly useless, we can check his phone for information about the new drug. Meet up points. Contacts. Anything that could lead us to the source.
For such a big man, Adrian is surprisingly easy to intimidate. He protests the loss of his phone with an enraged yelp but doesn't make any attempt to retrieve it. I pull my elbow back and throw a punch at Adrian's face. His nose cracks under my knuckles and he goes sprawling backwards onto the sofa. He clutches at his nose, now bleeding a steady stream of red, and starts yelling nasally about how he's going to kill me and my 'bat-wielding bitch'.
I turn my head to look at Milo, who's stood close by giving Adrian a curled lip of derision. "Watch the door. Backups on the way." Milo gives a perfunctory nod and goes to hover near the open door, his bat still raised defensively.
Ignoring his loud whining, I lean over Adrian and press a hand to his throat, trapping him against the sofa. His dark eyes bulge like a startled fish and he sputters, despite the fact I'm not cutting off his air supply. He's a dramatic idiot, and I have to resist the urge to backhand him just so he'll shut up.
"Right then, Adrian, you fuckbiscuit, I want you to tell me about a new drug that's been circulating called 'Epic'."
Adrian gets a more fearful look on his face and he shakes his head as much as my hand on his throat will allow. "Don't know nothin'!"
Not in the right headspace for patience, I give him a solid punch to the solar plexus for wasting my time. Every second not spent cauterizing the wound and stopping the flow of Epic could mean another kid getting hooked on this new drug. I want it out of my city right fucking now, and I'll kick the shit out of whoever needs it to make that happen.
Adrian lets out an agonised groan and tries to curl in on himself, arms wrapping around his stomach. I don't let him fold over, keeping his head back and pressed to the sofa cushion. His eyes are watering from the pain.
"Ok, let's try this again," I say when Adrian calms down enough to answer my questions. "First, tell me where this blue crap is coming from?" I take out the small bag of powder and shake it in front of him.
Adrian swallows hard, eyes darting between the bag and my face. "Come on, Knight, I can't talk about this shit with you. You know what they'll do to me if they find out."
They, meaning the Winters family. I do know and I couldn't give less of a fuck. If getting Adrian to spill means he winds up dead, I won't feel bad about it. But the likelihood of anyone knowing it was Adrian who tattled is slim unless he loses his last marble and tells them himself. The Clarke family are known for being loyal, it would take more than a rumour to throw them out of favour with the Winters.
"To be crystal," I growl at him. "Either you can risk death later if the Winters somehow manage to figure out it was you who told on them, or, I can throw you off the edge of your balcony, and you can go straight to hell today."
Adrian gives me a sceptical look like he thinks I won't do it, like I'm making empty threats, and that pisses me off. It's not my style to break promises or threaten shit I have no intention of following through on. That's a fast way to get dead on the streets. You say you're going to do something, you better be willing to fucking do it.
