The small car's radio crackled with a breaking news update after Aisha had switched it on due to her phone's death. "Multiple gunshots were reported in the desert area east of Palmdale. Police and fire crews responding to a large blaze...No known suspects to be reported at the time."

Marquese's chest strangled his lungs violently as graphic instants of the night's atrocities lacerated his mind's eye over and over. His lungs burned, his injured throat locking as he wheezed desperately for air in an open display. Brown knuckles gripped the steering wheel, frantic light brown eyes searching for any reality beyond the psychological warfare detonating inside him for even a moment's respite.

In the passenger seat, Aisha absently hummed along to the fading melody of the song that sagged back into play, hips swaying slightly. Entirely oblivious to her companion's precipice of panic attack and possible crash.

Only when the music cut out did her brow furrow quizzically at Marquese's paled, sweat-beaded expression blanking over the night sky ahead. "Hey, you okay?" She reached across, trailing gentle fingers down his trembling forearm apprehensively. He couldn't summon words before another wheezing gasp exited. Aisha's concern deepened as she registered his distressed state. "Marqi, pull over, now."

Marquese obeyed wordlessly, hands shaking as he wrenched the car onto the roadside shoulder. He barely got it in park before doubling over the console, dry heaves racking his body into a small plastic coffee cup Damien had left inside. Phantom gunsmoke and torn flesh assailed his senses with each convulsion of his solidified stomach muscles.

"Just breathe..." Aisha's voice remained steady and soothing as her hands rubbed circles between his shoulderblades. When the retching failed to diminish, she goaded him out onto the cracked desert dirt outside the car.

Moonlight overlaid the young man as he fell to his knees crying, lungs heaving in meager inhalations amidst flecks of bile. Aisha knelt next to him, cupping his clammy forehead firmly to draw his wild gaze back into hers. "Hey, it's gonna be alright," Her warm brown eyes radiated a surety, a peaceful grit that felt alien against Marquese's fracturing psyche.

"I'm here for you, Marqi. We're okay, I've got you..." In that stark gleam, all harsh edges seemed to soften around Aisha's luminous beauty, her high cheekbones, lush lips slightly parted in empathetic concern, the infinite tenderness beaming through her regard of the panic-attack-stricken Marquese. An unsettling fluttering sparked deep in Marquese's core, distinct from the nausea still weighing down his gut.

Seeming to sense his fragility, Aisha drew back to create a sacred buffer, not wanting to make him feel weak. One delicate hand gestured up at the vast inky black splayed resplendently above them with its net of celestial bodies.

"Look up, at how small everything is compared to that." Her voice was scarcely above a whisper, yet brimming with childlike reverence toward the heavens. "We are basically just little dust mites really, there's thousands of people like us on Earth and millions of Earths in the universe dude..." Aisha beamed with previously undisplayed transcendent appreciation that grounded Marquese into shallow breaths.

Marquese felt consciousness unraveling at a possibly even more frightening feeling to him. Untethered, adrift on seas of trauma and profane rebirth a single, horrifying realization crystallized: In this coldest, cruelest of worlds entire unto itself, he may actually be falling for his cousin's girlfriend. Even if possibly only due to the traumatic bonding she was not aware of it still had allowed him to come out of the moment of despair.

-----------------------

Tyreke made small circles in the dirt with his foot waiting in the pre-disclosed location near the county line between Los Angeles and the Mojave desert. He had been waiting for nearly an hour in the windy night without any sort of confirmation of the planned meet-up with neighboring county kingpin Rojo, Tyreke was unaware of the several missed calls bouncing off his phone due to its status in airplane mode since he had stepped away from his mothers dwelling.

The sound of a single dirtbike echoed off the nearby mountain that blocked the moon from even casting a glimmer over the dark-skinned 21-year-old. Though signaling the arrival of the cornily dressed hippy who was kind enough to make friends with him it did not make him feel any better about the time he had spent among the dark calls of the desert's native critters.

The filthy green chassis of the bike matched its owner's strange attire making Tyreke roll his eyes as the short skeletal man hopped off the bike and greeted him with a peace sign. "So...Is he gonna pull up soon or--" Tyreke did not greet the man back as he pulled a loose cigarette from under the brim of his black snapback dodger's hat. The wind made it impossible to light forcing him to throw it to the ground out of embarrassment.

"Uh, you gotta hop on buddy...Rojo's village is just past the ridge and there's no roads out there guy." The smelly individual took his hands from his jacket pocket to pat the seat of his shoddily maintained dirtbike, Tyreke turned his head to the sky in annoyance before putting his hand to his waist. Walking into a secondary location without a single weapon or anyone knowing where he was sat like a fresh gunshot wound in his gut. "Did you say...village?"

The short ride of platonic cuddling forced upon Tyreke made him feel like Aisha riding in his passenger seat which made him all the more irritated at his lack of control in this all. Having sent his wimpy cousin Marquese and his rumored cat-killer friend Damien to handle their own problems while he made a connection with the richest arms and coke dealer in all the Mojave's different criminal enterprises--Added to the fact he was now cradling his genitalia as if he loved this man and his putrid multiple odors, Tyreke basically had linchpinned the solid work dealing at random biker parties on the backs of two kids with no experience ever in what he saw as second nature.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

As they rode up to the self-erected dense brick walls of the village border he had no inkling that only 20 or so odd miles away fires blazed over the singed flesh of not only the man he wanted to teach them a lesson but also the reinforcements sent after in a single move that already made subtle waves to the ear of many of the high desert dwelling scum.

Two white ski-masked men with rifles aimed at them within seconds of their arrival, Tyreke whistled sarcastically. "You did tell them we were on our way right?" He rattled off while finally being able to unlink himself from the aroma of rotting cheese and anus. "Everyone's on high alert cuz there's some trouble with the skinheads over by your neck of the dirt."

Tyreke wondered for a moment if that meant the deal hadn't gone through, he would have rung both Marquese and Damien's throats for messing up the money deal--If he had known that not only Damien had murdered the upper tier of management of the native White Woods gang while at the same time essentially lighting the desert as a signal flare to the crime Tyreke would most likely gave up on any attempt at being a random party dealer turned gang underboss.

The Mojave wind kicked up plumes of dirt mixed with the bikes own quick decrease in speed at the handmade wooden gates creaked open without preamble. Tyreke saw nearly three dozen random assortments of different barely clothed 'villagers' that littered the compound, small slum-like huts dotted the 20-acre sector of prime real estate blocked behind a small rocky plateau. "I didn't know you lived here Evan..."

"You think I spend all my time at the EagleHead?" The hippie sounded off while placing a joint between his bleeding cracked lips. Tyreke noticed the distinct smell of methamphetamine wafting from the many different trailers in near pristine condition that billowed small stacks of chemical smoke into the ebony night sky. His eyes couldn't help but wander to the barricaded mineshaft with many signs indicating it to be in no way possible for entry.

"No...I just didn't think a guy like you would be so into the whole pre-civil war Mormon vibe that this shit reaks of." Tyreke tried to fix his hat without seeming like he cared much about his surroundings but his lip shivered in the frigid air. "This place is a commune, God is here and loves every one of these lowly little baby souls." Evan coughed out a large bloody phlegm that landed near Tyreke's shoes to his extreme displeasure.

"A bunch of crackheads throwing back brewskis in the desert doesn't sound like my idea of 'God's People'..." Evan began to make his way down a boulder-marked path of white pebbled sand that exquisitely led to a looming house half-buried within the foot-sands of the same mineshaft. Tyreke brushed back any other questions as the hippy shifted from his normal light demeanor to a much more stern-looking countenance.

"Rojo is the truth, man, dude's got like...psychic abilities, man." The scruffy dealer's inability to describe anything about the person they were to meet compelled Tyreke to sweat slightly at the brow. "The fuck you chattin' my ear up bout some bullshit? Ain't no way this man can read minds." Both of the two were in no way qualified to even voice the correct verbiage to explain the point well enough for the other to understand, Rojo was not supernatural but was in fact a federal agent.

Getting a plethora of info from the underground and from his bosses to allow the CIA to keep tabs on the more unruly sections of California's desert communities. This made even Damien and Marquese's perceived failed escapade only an hour ago within his realm of knowledge, the two less-than-standard IQ men trudging up to Rojo's dwelling were too wrapped up in their argument over the validity of the spirit realm to notice a dwarf man with a large rifle standing by the covered entrance of Rojo's Grotto.

As they approached the entrance to Rojo's dwelling, Tyreke's argument with Evan over the existence of psychic powers came to an abrupt halt. Standing before them, blocking the doorway, was a dwarf man wielding a large rifle aimed directly at Tyreke's chest.

"What's this about?" Tyreke asked, trying to keep his voice steady even as his heart raced.The armed guard remained silent, gesturing with his gun for them to step inside the dim, smoke-filled room. Tyreke glanced at Evan, but the hippie's face had gone pale, his earlier bravado evaporated.

Sitting behind a makeshift desk was a man Tyreke presumed to be Rojo. He was older, with a weathered face and piercing dark eyes that seemed to bore into Tyreke's soul. Rojo leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled under his chin as he appraised the young dealer."Tyreke,"

Rojo spoke, his voice a low rasp. "I've been hearing things about you. About all that money you been making down south." Tyreke swallowed hard, fighting the urge to glance away from Rojo's penetrating gaze. "I don't know what you're talking about."

A humorless smile stretched across Rojo's thin lips. "Don't play dumb with me, boy." Icy fear trickled down Tyreke's spine. Rojo was speaking of the incident that had gone horribly wrong, the small-time dealer had thought it was due to his short-changing the hippie over and over again with no consequence. The unease he'd felt since entering the compound grew, twisting his gut into knots.

Rojo rose from his seat, moving with a surprising grace for his age. He circled the desk until he stood mere inches from Tyreke, close enough that the young man could feel his hot breath on his face as he spat in it with the words he spoke. "You've brought trouble to my doorstep, Tyreke. And trouble...well, it has a way of being dealt with out here in the desert."

There was a soft click, and Tyreke looked down to see the barrel of a pistol pressed against his stomach. His mouth went dry, his lungs seeming to forget how to draw air.Rojo leaned in closer, his voice a menacing whisper in Tyreke's ear. "The only question is, do I deal with you now? Or do I let you walk out of here, knowing that your life hangs on my words?"

Tyreke's vision swam, his mind reeling with terror and the implications of Rojo's words. He opened his mouth, but no sound emerged. The moment stretched, taut with tension, until Rojo stepped back, lowering the gun. "Go," Rojo commanded, his eyes glinting with a mix of amusement and malice. "And pray that when I see you again, I'm in a more forgiving mood."

Tyreke didn't hesitate. He spun on his heel and ran, Evan close at his back. As they burst out of the compound into the frigid night air, Tyreke's mind raced, trying to make sense of what had just happened. He was left empty handed and completely baffled at why it had gone so wrong. The rage that built in him was only matched by the humiliation he felt as he straddled the hippie in silence back to his car.