Just a little bit more’ She told herself ‘Just one more block and I’ll be home free’.
‘Home.’
Heh, what a funny little word. It says so little but means so much.
She never had a home before. She’s had boxes and alleys, rooftop pads, and abandoned rooms but never a home. The orphanage was never her home, everyone knows you only live there until you leave so what use would it be as a home? To her the orphanage was a place where you were constantly counting the days until you left, hoping that tomorrow would be the day you went home.
And yet, after 7 years, she finally had her first home.
A home inside of a one-room, two-bed dirty Motel with a purple-eyed stranger who yanked her off of the street just so that she could spy on the most dangerous Cartel in South America.
Damn, thinking about it now, her life sucks. But that was it, her home. It was small and dirty and Issac was an annoying son of a bitch but she had never felt as safe as when she was inside of those four walls.
And now she might just lose it all.
Discreetly looking around her Lucy once again checked to make sure that no one was following her.
Despite how close she was to her goal she felt no safer than when she started. Right now she wasn't feeling safe in any way shape or form.
Streetlights were already starting to light up as the night consumed the day. A march of people began clearing the streets heading towards their homes at the same time as others began to leave theirs.
It had been five hours since she had lost the Angels on the highway and now the sun had begun to set.
Lucy was tired, she was hungry, and she was scared. She had spent the entire day running and hiding from scouts sent by the Angles. They were infesting the city, spreading out in every direction, down every street and alley. Shaking down anyone who they even thought had seen her, turning the entire city inside out, all so that they could find one little girl.
It was almost pathetic if you thought about it. The biggest, baddest gang in the country was forced to spread themselves thin over the entirety of Rio just so that they could find one little girl.
Except this little girl was special, this little girl had been giving their members the slip every step of the way. A feat that no one had ever done before. Especially at that age. And yet despite their failures, their searches never stopped.
With each hour that passed where she wasn't found the intensity of their searches increased.
Their pride just wouldn’t let them stop, this girl would not be allowed to escape.
Her heart was pounding, after a whole day of running she could barely breathe. She couldn’t keep this up anymore, she just wasn’t strong enough. Just the sheer terror of being caught caused her to feel as if lead had settled in her stomach.
Every time that she thought that she saw somebody suspicious she would immediately turn around and change her route. She would circle multiple blocks just based on the off chance that she was being followed. Because of this, her hour-long journey back to the motel turned into an extended five-hour one.
“Hugh.” Lucy could feel her stomach rumbling against her skin. She hadn't been able to eat a single bite the entire day. In the morning she had left without eating breakfast, thinking that she would snack during her investigation, and then she lost her bag of snacks during the ensuing chase.
When she was on her own Lucy would sometimes find herself going entire days without eating a single bite. But now after a week of ‘living it up,’ her stomach had turned weak, barely able to handle a few hours without food.
“Ngh” She couldn’t take it anymore, her stomach was hurting too much. Making a slight detour Lucy found herself in front of a store sitting on the corner of the street.
Right in front of her were wooden box stands of fruit, all of them just sitting in their baskets right outside of the store. So many and all she needed was just one of the fruits in front of her and she would be fine. Just one and she would go straight back to the Motel, never taking another step outside until Issac came back.
Checking her pockets Lucy’s face fell. All of the money that Issac had given her was in that backpack. It had been meant to pay for their room if he didn't show up in time and she had lost it. And worst of all she didn't have anything to pay for the fruit.
Looking back at the fruit Lucy imagined herself just taking it, it's not like she hadn't before. A fruit wouldn't even be in the top ten things she had stolen before.
Before she knew it her hand was already wrapping itself around a ripe orange. She could feel it in her hands, its soft spongy skin pressed in by her finger, the citrusy scent just shoving itself directly into her nose. The orange was so large she could barely hold it with one hand and just by giving it a squeeze she could tell how juicy it was.
Lucy could see it now, biting into the orange, juices squirting everywhere as she took her bite. Her mouth was watering, already imagining tasting the orange that was in her hand.
But…
Issac had taken her off the street, he had given her anything she wanted. Food, water, clothes, she got it all, she didn't need to steal anymore. These past weeks had been like a dream for her. She didn't have to shiver under a thin disease-infested blanket anymore, she didn't have to constantly live in fear that a quick knife in the night would be her end.
She didn't have to feel like she was any less than the people in the nice clothes.
She didn't have to steal anymore
Thanks to Issac she had begun to have a hope for a new life.
Was she so weak that she would go back to stealing again at the first drop of a hat? She was better than this. She knew that she was better than this.
Issac believes that she is better than this.
The orange fell out of her hand. With her hand still near her face, Lucy watched as the orange slowly rolled off of the sidewalk and into the street behind her.
Guilt, shame, remorse, humiliation, all of these emotions surged behind her dull brown eyes. She couldn’t even see the orange anymore all she could see was Issac’s disappointed face looking down at her.
‘What would he say if he saw what you were doing?’ the little voice in her head whispered. ‘ How ashamed he must feel, giving a chance to a worthless rat, only for her to spit in his face and go right back out to the street.’
Paralyzed by what she was feeling all Lucy could do was stand there. Frozen, like a statue. She got so lost in her thoughts that she didn’t even notice when a man came storming out of the store straight towards her.
“ HEY YOU HAVE TO PAY FOR THAT YOU LITTLE SHIT!”
The shout jerked her out of her depressing thoughts as a large man in a white apron came running out of the store. Still stuck in a daze Lucy just stared at him.
For some reason, he looked familiar but she had trouble placing where she had seen him. It was only after he roughly yanked her arm up did she remember who he was.
Orlando Miguel was very well known in this neighborhood. As the owner of the ‘famous’ Happy Groceries he, along with his two other stores, became one of the only few people able to privately own a store on the Angle’s territory.
Everyone else had either ‘loaned’ out their business to the Angels or sold it at a very low price to one of their members. They had refused to pay the Angel’s “protection” cost and some had tried to go to the police. The result was losing everything they had.
But not Miguel, Miguel kept his stores. Some people thought he was scared, a coward. When others fought back he sat there and did nothing.
But he wasn’t scared, he was greedy.
Why give up your business when you could just pay a small amount of tribute and keep the rest for yourself? That, along with openly providing most of the dietary needs for the gang allowed Orlando to not only keep his business but thrive where others had fallen.
He was so greedy some people even said that he would scrounge around for coins on the street. People started to call him Senhor M., or Senhor Money, behind his back.
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Orlando also just happened to be the man that Issac paid off before chasing after Lucy all those weeks ago.
Still, silently staring at Orlando, Lucy just couldn’t believe her bad luck. Out of all of the grocers in Rio, she just had to steal from him. And worst of all she didn’t even eat the damn thing, instead it got run over by a passing car.
Just a few moments ago she was distraught over the thought of stealing again, but if she knew she was going to be caught anyway she would have at least liked to have been able to taste the damn fucking thing.
As Lucy was lamenting over her life's choices Orlando's face kept getting redder and redder. Almost to the point where it looked as if all the blood in his body had just moved north and settled on his face.
Using both hands Manue lifted Lucy into the air and then shook her as hard as he could. Lucy couldn’t believe it, did this stupid bastard think she was a piggy bank or something, shake her hard enough and she magically shits money.
“ WELL AREN’T YOU GONNA FUCKING PAY FOR THAT, WHATS WRONG, ARE YOU DEAF TOO”. Back and forth back and forth he shook her going faster the longer she stayed silent.
He was shaking her so hard that Lucy started to fear that he might break her neck with how he was shaking her. She couldn't get him to stop. Why wasn’t anybody stopping him, did they not see a grown man shaking a 7-year-old girl with no parents?
But they didn’t see her as a little girl. Though there weren’t a lot of people they still saw what was happening and they still didn’t help.
Even though she left the Motel with a clean look and fresh new clothes her long day of dodging the Southern Angels caused her to go back to looking at what she was. A homeless orphaned child.
Her clothes were dirty with dirt and grease from a car from when she was forced to hide underneath it, waiting until the runners passed her by. Tears were already forming at its sides from getting snagged off of fences and sharp corners.
Her hair was matted with sweat, frizzing out in all directions instead of the brushed-down look that she had when she left that morning. Her skin was filthy, covered in dirt and scratches and small amounts of blood.
No one was going to help her while she looked like this. They probably just saw her as a little thief getting exactly what she deserved. All they saw was a problem, a piece of trash that was destroying their city.
As she saw the people around her turn a blind eye to what she was being forced to endure her anger started to boil up inside of her. What right did these people have to turn their eyes away from her, they were as just as much of a problem as she was.
Sure as a thief she might have stolen a few things, but they were the ones who started this. If only people like them had helped her instead of turning away, maybe she wouldn’t be a thief at all.
She could have been a good person too.
“ I DON’T HAVE ANY MONEY YOU FAT FUCK, WHAT ARE YOU GONNA DO ABOUT IT.” All of her anger just started to spew out, she didn't care if she drew attention anymore, all she wanted to do was scream. “ ALL IT WAS, WAS ONE SINGLE ORANGE, CAN’T YOU LET IT GO.”
Tears were already running down her face, even if she wanted to she couldn't stop now. Her years of resentment and complicity were making her their voice, speaking out against their indifference after so long of being quiet. No more was she going to be silent, if they wanted to look away so badly then she was going to make them look at her.
“ AND YOU’. She yelled pointing to the people that had stopped to look. “ WHY WON'T ANY OF YOU HELP ME? DO YOU ALL HATE ME THAT MUCH? WHY? BECAUSE I DON'T HAVE ANY PARENTS? PLEASE HELP ME. I’M SCARED! ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS HAVE SOMETHING TO EAT, I’M SO HUNGRY!.”
After yelling her heart out all she could do was just break down into tears. She was crying so hard that she couldn't even get enough air into her lungs. Her breaths just started coming out quicker and quicker as her vision became filled with water.
She didn’t know what to do anymore, her brain had shut down.
That hurricane of emotions had just slammed into her, and when it left it took every last bit of energy that she had left. Now all she could now was hang limply in Orlando’s hands bawling her eyes out.
She couldn’t even stop his hand as it swung at her face
Pain flooded across her cheek, blossoming across the entire left side of her face.
The effect was immediate, like a reboot to a computer she could think of again. And yet even with her enormous mental capacity she still couldn't believe that Orlando had slapped her.
Shouldn't he be smarter than this? Even if no one was willing to step in when he was yelling surely they would just stand there as he beat a little girl right in front of their eyes. Something like this could ruin him if it ever got out.
“ You little brat, you think that you're something special don’t you, first you cost me money and then you start screaming as if you're the victim.” Orlando had calmed down, the blood gradually leaving his face. But his eyes grew dark, he had not been swayed at all by her speech.
In fact, for some reason, it had seemed to piss him off more. Pulling her so that he was in front of her face Orlando proceeded to break her spirit.
“ Look around you.” Forcefully he turned her so that she could look at all the people around her. “ Watch as they do nothing, they don't care about you, you are a stain on this city, something that should have never left the womb that you crawled out of.”
And she did, she watched as people started pulling out their phones to record what was happening. She watched as others left while some stayed and yet not one of those people tried to stop him, no one tried to help her. They didn't call the police or try to wrestle her from his hands.
They just stood there.
Turning her back around Orlando continued. “ People like you need to learn that they are cancer in our society, taking our well-earned money and stealing our food, you people need to learn to either stay out of our lives or die fast.”
Rising to his feet Orlando tried to fix his appearance using one hand, his other hand continued to keep a firm grasp on Lucy, preventing her from running away, back into the only safe place that she had left, the Motel.
“ Now how is it that we are gonna get back that 20 BRL that you stole from me.” Completely ignoring her now he started to imagine ways that he could make money off of her. “ I can’t have you work here, you’ll just steal from me again, really the only option is with the Ange-”
Stopping in the middle of his sentence Orlando's eyes widened, Wiping his face back towards Lucy’s he then started to stare real hard at her. Studying every inch of her face until he was satisfied. A smile started to build itself right onto his face.
“ I know you.” He said.
‘Oh no,’ She thought he knew that she was the one continuously stealing from him. Over the years Lucy had stolen from his stores many times, generally trying to stick to food stuffs but sometimes taking cash. If everything was added up then she would have stolen at least over 4,000 BRLs from him.
“ Come here.” Dragging her off of the streets Orlando took deep into the alley, away from any eyes from the street. All the while people continued to watch, doing nothing.
In the alley Lucy struggled, trying to wiggle her arm out from his hand. But no matter how hard she tried, his grip only got tighter.
‘What was he going to do’ She thought to herself. It's not as if she had any money on her, especially not enough to make up for all that she had taken from him.
She just couldn't get it. What did he want?
Laughing to himself Orlando pulled out his phone, texting as he finally stopped at the back of the alley. Tuning to her for the first time since he had dragged her here he said.
“ I don’t know who you are, little missy.” Pushing the phone into her face so that she could see he began explaining his plan to her with a sick glee. “ But whoever you are, you made some bad people very mad.”
Fear surged through every pit of Lucy’s body. On the screen of his phone was her face, staring right back at her. It was taken on one of the nights when she was out scouting for Issac. Her face was barely hidden as she leaned out from the corner of a building, her body hidden from view but her face was all there out in the open.
It wasn't as easy to tell cause the picture was taken at night, but it was her. It was a notice, sent out from the Southern Angels to all of their associates. Written in bright red letters were the words Wanted.
Underneath her picture was a description, detailing all that she had been doing, her age, height, eye, hair, and skin color, as well as her last seen location as of thirty minutes ago. At the bottom was an icon that was to be pressed whenever they saw her, and it was already pressed.
She didn’t know when exactly he had clicked on the notification but she knew that any minute this alley would be packed with runners from Souther Angels all ready to take her in.
Her desperate need to escape came back, fear dosed with adrenaline filled her veins causing her to go into a frenzy. Desperately she tried to pull and twist her arm with everything that she had. She clawed and hit his hand hoping and praying that he would let her go.
But all that happened was his grip getting tighter.
“HeHeHeHe.” He laughed sadistically. “ You can’t leave now missy, for whatever reason they want you bad, and that means that you can make me a lot of money.”
This dumb fuck never realized who she was she thought. He just knew her from the notification. And now he thought that he could get some money from handing her over to the Angels.
She had to leave, already she could hear the rumblings as motorcycles started coming down the street.
“ Aw here they come, well you can stop struggling now. There is no way you're gonna be able to escape now, look your friends are already here. HEY BACK HERE!” Screaming out to the guys on the bikes Orlando then proceeded to wave them down with her arm stuck in his hand. Wrenching her arm side to side as the men got off the bikes and made their way down the alley.
“ Well Well Well.” The lead guy said. “ After a whole day of giving us the run around this is how you're caught.”
As he got closer Lucy could see that the guy talking was just the run-of-the-mill biker bum. Leather jacket, jean shorts, sunglasses, and a bandana over his head. He was the very definition of a walking stereotype.
Coming up to her he then tried to grab her out of Orlando's hands, taking her wherever his bosses had told him to.
But at the last second Orlando pulled her back. “ Hold your horses guys, I am the one who found her for you, don’t you think that warrants a little bit of gratitude.”
But the leader just started at Orlando, his glasses blocking his eyes from Lucy making his face unreadable to her. Then he smiled, showing off his crooked yellow teeth, or at least the few that he had left.
“You're right, forgive me, Senhor Miguel. A bit of finder fee is always allotted for situations like this.” As he reached into his pocket he never once broke eye contact with Miguel. “ Here you go sir, your fee.”
The entire time Orlando just kept that same greedy smirk on his face. Even as the bullet tore through his head he never once suspected that he would be killed right there surrounded by the trash that he so desperately hated.
Too scared to scream Lucy just stared at Orlando’s body lying on the ground. She was frozen stiff, unable to tear her eye away from the corpse on its back. She didn’t do anything, even as they tied her hands and put her onto the back of a motorcycle.
She never once stopped looking back.