August 5th, 2012

Lyle was like: “Is it self-destruction?”

I was like: “More like apathy.”

“Why?”

“It’s bullshit.”

“What is?”

“Everything. It doesn’t matter, does it?”

Lyle laughed. “No. I guess not.”

“Do you know what Cody calls me? A blue flower. A morning glory.”

“What does that mean?”

“My life is always a storm no matter who forces it for me.”

Lyle said, “Aren’t you forcing yourself? Ever think about being free, being not afraid?”

“You mean death?”

“Yeah.”

I don’t answer. Mostly because I don’t want to, but Lyle’s tone was sinister. It was as if he was trying to get inside my head. I never let him.

I was in the back of the luxury SUV with him again. This time Acid was driving around Seattle, occasionally stopping in front of someone's house and leaving to knock on the doors. Each interaction with the homeowner was kept short and they all ended the same way.

I would watch silently as Acid would say something and the person who answered would just give him an envelope. That was all there was too it. “It’s one of outside businesses. Moneylenders.”

“Loan Sharks,” I corrected him.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Lyle just laughed, “No. Illegal yes, but there is hardly any interest. Sometimes it’s lower than banks.”

“Why?”

“Because the people need help. Making them go broke doesn’t help anyone. That, and it's good business practice. People can trust us and we trust them.”

“And what happens when they break that trust?

“You don’t know want to know.”

“You kill.”

Lyle chuckled again, looking over through the window as Acid made his return. “Do you want to see?”

“Yes.”

“You will. Soon.”

Lyle, in his words, wanted to get to know me. He found me interesting. I was an anomaly of all the drug addicts he had met. He said I was conscious, fierce and unafraid. Lyle called me lionhearted.

I asked him, “yeah, but why are you taking me out with you?”

“I want to show you that you can do this as easily as Acid can. I want you part of my team.”

That is why I was there. Not like I had a choice, that was when I accepted the Winter from him. I owed him and I couldn’t say no. At least that’s what Andrew had said. I doubted him, but I didn’t want to take that chance.

We were stuck in traffic by a red light on 7th and Pine. I could hear the faint sounds of police sirens in the distance as the light refused to go green. Lyle said, “Are you find to do this for a while?”

“Yeah.”

The sirens got a bit closer and I got a little nervous for no reason. I thought that they were coming after us, but instead, it was this black motorcycle. I couldn’t take that image out of my head for days.

This black motorcycle was speeding towards us in a blink, running the red light. In under a half second, it was t-boned by car and the driver flew off the motorcycle what seemed to me a couple dozen meters, landing beside the SUV.

The driver of the car was visibly unconscious with a deployed airbag; the front of the car completely totaled. The motorcycle was in pieces all around us. The driver of it was beside us, his body in shambles with blood everywhere. All his limbs seemed to be bending in ways they were never meant too, like a puppet

His face was unrecognizable. No, that's too easy. It was in shambles. His head looked like it was cracked in half. I could see everything. Lyle looked over and his facial expression didn't even change. I couldn’t imagine mine as I was trying to forget the exposed brain I had just witnessed.

I accidentally took a peek and could feel myself trying not to gag. My mouth instantly was filled with so much excess saliva that I had to spit it out.

“Relax,” Lyle said. “It wasn’t us. You should be thankful.”

“He’s dead!”

Lyle grinned, “This won’t be your only.”