We’d lived a few blocks from here, and on nights my mum brought a punter home, and Oscar was gone, I’d collect pebbles, climbed the scaffold, and threw them into the barrels below. On other nights, when my emotions got the best of me, I’d climb to the top until I’d made it to the roof with a book folded into the waistband of my pants. I’d spent many nights in the sky reading until reading turned in to writing.“One day you’ll look back and realize it wasn’t all for nothing,”had been my first entry. At the age of twelve, I still had hope.
“What are we doing here?” Adrian asked beside me.
“Stay in the car.” I exited the driver’s side and walked around to the back and popped open the trunk. One by one, I threw the bags of drugs into a rusty barrel.
Despite my instruction, Reggi, Adrian, and James retreated from the car and stood off to the side, watching in an uneasy silence.
“Dex isn’t going to like this,” James pointed out.
The order was to bring everything back to him tonight, but I had other plans. These drugs were mixed incorrectly—deadly. Kids were overdosing on a single candy. I had to make sure to dispose of them.
Wordlessly, I searched for my pack of cigarettes in my pocket and pulled one to my mouth, lighting it before throwing the match into the barrel. I didn’t have gasoline to speed up the process. The burn was slow, consuming, and together we waited until the fire died, and drugs turned to ash before we got back inside the car.
“You burned all of it? The fucking money too?” Dex pounded his clenched fist over the counter before running his hands through his hair. It was no longer slicked back and stiff, but now falling off to the sides. “Do you realize what you’ve done?”
Dex wasn’t alone when we arrived. The two men I’d seen the first night at Jack’s were here with him but had walked off into another room under Dex’s orders. He didn’t want them to witness this conversation until he understood how to handle it.
“Yes, I saved your arse. Tell your boss you ordered me to destroy it. The drugs were bad, literally killing business. It was the Bloods mistake in the first place. The Links have something better. A reason to come back for more,” still drugs, but change didn’t happen in one night, “As for the money, it was more of a bitch slap. The Links made a statement. We don’t need their fucking money.”
“How do I know you didn’t keep it for yourself?”
“I have three witnesses. Go check the fucking car. It’s gone. I’ll escort you to the barrel where we watched it burn to nothing.” I did the right thing.
“I have to make a call,” Dex gritted out before disappearing behind the back door out to the garden.
James, Adrian, and Reggi took to the couch, already celebrating with a cheap bottle of vodka. Too bothered to sit, I waited in the kitchen, my elbows digging into the island, separating me from the three I grew a liking to. The night had started with Reggi and James arguing over a girl, and ended with smiles stretched across their faces as Reggi slapped his hand over his knee, laughing over, I’m sure to be, a terrible joke.
Minutes passed, and Dex returned from his phone call in a lighter mood as well. A hand landed on my shoulder and squeezed. “Bossman likes your crazy arse,” he said through a chuckle with a cigarette between his lips. “And since you are making decisions of your own around here, needs you to approve this,” he held up a white pill between us, “the future.”
Our eyes locked. “Hard pass.”
Dex’s two other mates walked in from a room in the back and joined us in the kitchen.
“Did you hear that, mate?” Dex laughed. “Baby Oscar believes he’s in control.” The men cackled. The pressure rose. And my eyes bounced between the three of them. Laughter rolled in from my boys in the living room behind us. “Take the fucking candy, so we can get this party started. You raided the BOGs, mate. Time to celebrate,” Dex pressed. His entourage popped the pill into their mouths and chased it with a beer. “See? Nothing dodgy here.”
I took the pill from his fingers and said a silent prayer before putting it over my tongue. One of the men slid a beer across the counter. It stopped in front of me. I pulled it to my lips and swallowed the pill. “I’ll make a few calls,” Dex slapped his palm against my back, “Let’s have some music going.”
More bodies crammed into the small space of the house. Someone had moved the plastic outside chairs indoors. I was sitting in one of them, my limbs heavy and hanging over the arms of the chair with a cup in my hand. Music thumped in my ears, an eccentric yet hypnotic beat, as girls danced in tight skirts in the middle of the floor. Although it took vast effort, I turned my head to face the boys who counted on me. Adrian’s gaze slammed into mine, and he leaned over and flicked ash from his cigarette into the tray sitting on the coffee table. Reggi sat beside him with his eyes glued to a girl’s arse as James enjoyed a lap dance from a pretty little brunette. Dex had already taken one of them into another room, I’m sure for a smash, and his two men were in the kitchen drinking.
I’d managed to climb to my feet, but the living room swayed, and the crowd tripled. I needed to get out of here. I needed to make it to my car and pass out there. I needed to breathe.
My mobile was no longer in my pocket, but my keys were.
“Where are you going?” a girl at my side asked.
I turned my head to see a familiar face. Blonde hair. Black eyes. A girl who reminded me of my mum. “What are you doing here?” She was an hour away from Surrey. Come to think of it, I had no idea where she actually lived. “You shouldn’t be here.” I knew what I was trying to say, but I didn’t know if the words were coming out correctly. On the tip of my tongue, they felt right, but she looked into my eyes as if I’d spoken a different language.
With eyes glazed over and lips painted red, she transformed back to the drunken girl I’d met the first night with Jinx. Leigh grabbed my hand and led me out the front door. As soon as we stepped into the night, wind blew between us, sweeping her little skirt up to reveal her bare naked arse. It was then when I noticed her attire, miniskirt, and cropped shirt as her blonde hair flowed around her shoulders and down her back. She turned to face me before falling over the grass, giggling, and taking me down with her.
“Your dick is hard,” she pointed out. I hadn’t noticed and didn’t know why. It must have been the drug. It was doing things to me I didn’t ask for.
“Yeah,” was the only reply I could think to say because I had no control over anything else. Not moving my arms. Not getting back to my feet. I looked up into the stars and focused on the moon, wishing it could talk back to me.Where’s Mia?It was the only question I’d ever asked the round faceless circle in the sky. It only taunted me in return.
Leigh straddled my hips, planting her bare feet on both sides. “Warm me up then.”
My eyes dragged from the sky to her as she ground out a desperate rhythm against my pants. Another wind twisted her hair into its breeze, and my eyes followed the direction back to the sky. “We can’t,” I gritted out, arms heavy at my side.
Her cold finger hit my lips. “She’s not here, Oliver. She’s gone, remember?” The same finger trailed down my chest until it hit the button on my jeans.
