Brick?
Fuck, what if this is a test? What if he wants to see if I'll take the money or refuse it on principle? What if paying the fine with mystery cash just digs me deeper into whatever hole he's already planning?
Someone else entirely?
A brother I don't know as well. Someone who sees the same rot I see and wants an ally when the reckoning comes.
Or a Fed wearing a cut, buying my cooperation with cash that disappeared from an evidence locker without anyone noticing.
I pick up one of the stacks. Flip through the bills.
All real. All used enough to have been in circulation. Nothing sequential. Nothing that screams trap.
Just money.
Twenty-five thousand reasons to shut up, and show up tomorrow, and hand Brick exactly what he asked for.
I set it down. Light another cigarette.
The note stares at me from the mattress.
Got you tomorrow.
Promise or threat.
Salvation or sentence.
I won't know until tomorrow which one it is.
I lie back down. Money scattered around me like some fucked-up parody of wealth.
Smoke rises toward the ceiling. It curls in the air currents, a draft from the broken window I never fixed.
Outside, the compound's still silent.
No brothers drinking. No music. No voices raised in argument or laughter.
Just wind. Just distance. Just the space between breaths where everything waits.
I don't sleep.
Can't sleep.
Just lie there watching the ceiling while the hours drain away.
Thinking about Savannah's poem. About her certainty. About the way she looked at me in the silo like I was still worth saving despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Thinking about Mercy at Rimrock. Safe. Happy. Finally getting the childhood she deserves.
Thinking about Diesel's warning. About Brick's betrayal. About forty-seven men who sold their souls in different increments to different devils.
Thinking about the money scattered on my bed and the note that won't tell me who to trust.
The only thing I know is that when the sun clears the horizon, I'll walk into church with twenty-five thousand dollars I didn't earn.
And then... I'll find out exactly what it costs me.
CHAPTER 8
