Marquese's entire world shrank to the grip constricting his throat. Blinding light fractured into green spots dancing across his vision from a knocked-over motorcycle idling nearby. The desert wind's howl intertwined with his choked gasps as one of the only sounds piercing the frigid night.
eighteen years old, and he'd never been in a real fight before tonight. 'This couldn't be happening', Marquese tried to reason against the collapse of his esophagus. The full moon's glare fell upon the snarling meth'd-up gym rat, red sweat-soaked bandana masking his face. Marquese's heels clawed ruts into the freezing Palmdale sand as he writhed, survival instincts overriding thought. Coyote wails echoed his muffled cries for help, unanswered in the secluded sandy field.
"Where is Damien, huh? Should have met me himself if he wanted his money!" The flat-lipped drug dealer was barely able to contain his laughter as he barked out each word, he flexed his arm tighter in the chokehold without waiting for a real answer from the lanky brown-skinned boy. "D-Dami...en, H-help!" Catching eye contact with his slightly older friend crouched slack-jawed a few feet away, Damien shook violently as he gripped the cool metal of the small Taurus GX4 handgun he swiped from his stepfather's gun safe.
"What did you sa--" At the moment the last letter was about to escape his lips the sound of an unleashed 9mm round sliding its way explosively out of the short barrel of Damiens's weapon. Hot crimson blood squirted over Marquese as he slumped under the full weight of his attacker, vomit began to spew from his empty stomach making the dirt beneath him chunky with the sudden rush of fluids.
"Y-you j-just... watched!" Tears began to break from his eyes as Marquese pushed air through his thrashed airway before he gurgled out barely discernable words. Damien had already dropped the gun not fully expecting to hit the man but intending to force him to stop attempting to kill his best friend, the intent did not matter though as the 9mm had already bounced its way inside the biker's skull without finding an escape.
"Im...sorry." Damien let out an almost whimper-like reply, the wind carrying his word quickly to the ringing ears of Marquese. The two friends stared at each other for a long time before Damien made the first move toward Marquese, he attempted to step closer but the crunch of his sneakered feet made his friend scramble backward toward the idling motorbike. "Shit dawg, your eye is fucked up..."
Marquese blinked hard at the way his friend kept just staring at him with a look unlike any he had ever seen on the dropout's face; It wasn't like Marquese's own terror that prevented him from even being able to think, it was more akin to when they were kids and Damien had accidentally pierced the skull of a squirrel with a slingshot bought for him during a random Christmas.
Everything in marquese senses screamed at him to run yet his knees buckled like his ability to hold back the wellspring of tears that spilled from his light brown eyes. "We gotta...We gotta." Damien began to mutter a slurry of words, each step in the dirt sending wild shivers down the spine of his accomplice. "We gotta torch 'em...You take my car and I'll take off on the bike when I'm done--" Damien made direct eye contact with Marquese, taking his head between his hands which forced Marquese to try to push him away but he could still barely breathe.
"Can you drive....are you okay? I'm sorry...I-I'm sorry Mar." Finally shaking back into some semblance of reality, Marquese broke off from his best friend. "Fuck you! You don't giv-give a shit about m-me..." The teenager stumbled over his words but they came out clearly hostile, he stared daggers at Damien while clutching the silver cross necklace resting on his heaving chest.
"I saved you didn't I?" Damien's eye twitched with semi-realization that possibly he may not be able to just glaze over apologies as he normally did, hollow amber-colored pits gazed back at him with no emotion despite his expression. Marquese made no response, simply finally committing to a full stand and sticking his quivering hand out awaiting the keys to the nearby parked Honda Civic owned by Damien.
Marquese cell phone ringing at full volume caused them both to jump back several feet, dirt kicking up into the wind as the biker's body still oozed out its essence onto the desert's surface. They stared at each other while he debated throwing it deep into the night and running away to become a wandering nomad, pushing the spiraling ideas of nonsense he answered it without checking the caller ID. "H-hello?"
Marquese's voice squeaked out as he gulped down another bout of vomit due to his gaze catching the wide-open eyes of the headshot scruffy-looking balded individual laid out before him. "Marqi!!!" The loud Mezzo-soprano tone of the caller instantly slapped his mind with the curly-haired visage of his cousin's girlfriend filled his mind. Aisha yelled again after no response from the other end of her call. "Ugh, you and Tyreke can't duck me all night...Can you ask Damien to come get me--I'm tired of sitting at your aunt's house all night waiting..."
Marquese sputtered silently to the annoyance of both Aisha and Damien, he rubbed his throat anxiously before pacing the short distance between the body and the edge of the seemingly unending field of tumbleweeds. "Y-ya I'll come through, Ty's not there?" He groaned another passable verble jog into the phone, Damien had begun gingerly riffling his calloused hands through the deceased drug dealer's jacket pockets. "Like he's not with you, could we go to In-N-out?" She tapped her short nails on the phone to speed up his reply which only rocketed his pulse higher.
"Just go dude, I got it here..." Damien pulled out the man's wallet without taking a second to take in what he had done any longer while nearly barking the order to Marquese. "Okay." He answered singularly to them, still shell-shocked from the trauma. "Ew, you're dry--Whatever, just don't be weird when you come get me." Her voice clicked off as she ended the call, if Marquese had the ability to smile he would have burst his cheeks at the irony of her words...Dont be weird.
Marquese took a deep breath and again stuck his hand out toward Damien's crouched form silently, unable to truly speak any real words toward him any longer. Damien took a moment to run his hands through his short and wild free-form dreads before cursing under his breath. "The dude didn't even have the godamn money!" He stood up before starting the punch the air out of sheer fustration.
"Damn it, DAMNIT, DAMN! IT! FUCK, I--" Damien cut himself off at the feeling of his friend's knuckles brushing his back, he turned quickly with rage painted across his dusty face. "Oh, yeah..." Damien dug the keys out of his jeans pocket and put them into the open waiting palm of Marquese. Damien tried to rake another sorry from himself but couldn't, only turning back to kick the deceased man as Marquese averted his gaze.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
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Marquese hand's were barely able to make it down the long pothole-filled road leading up to his aunt's small duplex on the other side of Lancaster. After pulling up and gaping at the flowing particles of dirt in the headlight's path, he couldn't help but shudder again as he almost ripped the bloodied shirt off his body in a hurry. Marquese's chest heaved up and down as every exertion put a panged strain on his still pulsating throat.
He ran the bruised knuckle of his left hand over the top of his durag as if to brush his waves out of sheer habit, grabbing the silky garment from his head as well because of its own now-scabbed stains. "What did we do...What am I gonna say to my mom?" Looking up for a half-second caused him to again jump hard enough to make the car bounce at the sight of Aisha already basically skipping from the house. Her white sneakers became tan with each footfall into the basket-colored earth. "You look like shit, wheres Damien??"
She playfully popped a piece of minty fresh gum while curving her slim eyebrow to a perfect bell curve, her smile faded as she attempted to enter the car but found it locked. "Okaaay, well...Am I gonna stand in 20-degree weather while you stare at me?" Her voice nearly mocked Marquese with its fullness, he tried to find the easiest and most efficient lie but found himself only shrugging as a response.
The door lock popped open sending a wave of fear through him, the sound of the gun so close to him bore a fresh new fear of any sudden shift in volume. Marquese darted his eyes at the shifting shadow inside the house that he recognized as his Aunt Mary. "Everything good?" Marquese finally nervously asked Aisha, his cousin's girlfriend had been already plugging her phone into the AUX of the car before tilting her head in a confused manner. "Uhhh, Yeah--Ty keeps leaving your aunt without her car and me without a man half the day but I took her to see the oncologist again..."
Marquese put his head on the steering wheel, his heart beating faster than he thought humanly possible or suitable for any situation. "Hey--" Marquese felt Aishas soft hand land on the top of his right shoulder, he jumped at the contact but she was unbothered by his shakey demeanor. "It's gonna be okay y'know, she's been getting better every day....and Ty has been bringing money in so," Aisha clicked on a popular song that normally annoyed Marquese but the lyrics made him finally crack a smile. "Running out of time, running away from you."
Aisha tried her best to cheer him up as the car came back to life on the lonely dirt road, they cruised to the bass-enhanced stereo system till the end of the song in silence after a mile of driving toward the main city of Palmdale. The dead grass fields were fenced high with tumbleweeds that occasionally scraped against the purple paint of the small sedan. The stars fluctuated minutely with brilliance in their peppered spread across the gorgeously clear sky.
The song faded out to an old but loved song by both Aisha and Marquese, she began to tap her foot to the beat while allowing him to keep his silent vigil on the road. Each passing street sign marked their closeness to the drive-through meal they desired, Marquese became aware that he actually was starving due to having thrown up everything he had eaten almost an hour back.
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Damien's eyes waxed over as he stared at the charring bones in the white-hot center of the blaze he had constructed in the desert clearing. He muttered to himself again about how much of a waste this all was; The failed robbery on his loan shark drug dealer, the warning shot that now ruined his chances at settling his debt, and after Marquese had left Damien realized that the motorcycle had run out of gasoline. He sat braiding three of his dreadlocks, unblinking vision searing the fire with its own inferno-like presence.
His eye twitched but Damien refused to blink as the micro-conflagration took over a large section of dry land following the whipping winds to the east. He felt the weight of the pistol on his lap which had not left his side since picking it back up after the first embers of the fire took root. The smell of burnt twigs and smoke started to block out the aroma of crispy human epidermis that clung to Damien's nostrils with little fanfare.
He started to walk away from the superheated spectacle but took another look at it not wanting to forget the night or this moment. Damien had spent the last year dodging this lunatic at every turn, his job at the local garbage dump was not even safe as the man who he only knew by Scar made rounds circling the entrance daily. The want to murder the harasser was there but he did not think when it came down to it he would have chosen to actually pull the trigger. He wondered on some level if the warning shot had actually always been a kill shot waiting since the moment he stole his father's gun.
Had his own older brother never introduced him to the dealer before his O.D. he possibly would have never made any choice at all, the death three years ago emptied the most remaining connection Damien felt he had in life. He could blame, make up lies, and fabricate reasonings all night long but he knew they would only lead him to the same point he has teetered for months now. His shoes crunched loudly on the dirt as he ran through the dry flood banks of a road near where they had set up the trap.
Damien burst down into a prone position at the sign of headlights blaring toward him at an unusually fast velocity, the tearing exhaust of multiple motorbikes made themselves apparent even from the barely visible vantage of the lowered flood bank. "What the fuck..." Not realizing that the biker gang though may have had less than modern ideas of eugenics and racial integration they did not lack the ability to use simple phone app tracking devices on one of their best runners and hitmen.
Before long they had turned into the inlet road just beyond where he found himself, they began to curse at the seemingly random fire not allowing them to get any closer to the last pinged location of their fellow gang member. Damien pulled the phone from his pocket and briefly flashed the screen on to check the time, what he saw made him bury his face into the ground and let out a long whine that vibrated the sand around him.
Staring idiotically serious with large fake busted women and American propaganda paraphernalia, the device's user was clearly displayed between all the random assortment of hyper-freedom culture; Large, bearded, and balding Scar. Damien popped his head up to see two of the motorists speeding in the opposite direction they came, the other four circled the fire but seemed not aware of the state or location of the phone's owner.
The four circling bikers came within Damien's range. He tensed, coiled like a rattlesnake. One strayed closer, rifle slung across his back as his footsteps kicked pebbles near the edge of the embankment.
Damien gripped the gun in his right hand without releasing a single breath. In a blur, he burst from the dirt shallows. His stolen pistol yelped with the trifecta fire and the biker dropped, clutching his leg as two more bullets tore through his burly chest cavity.
Damien ripped the rifle free just before it could hit the ground taking up the same prone stance he had before in the ditch. The others wheeled, raising their own semi-automatic weapons, but he was already hip-firing wildly from the darkened floor of the valley. Bullets kicked up tuffs of sand as they scrambled for cover.
A shot scorched past Damien's face sweating yet smiling face, shredding his cheek with instantaneous sizzling pain. He blinked away the discomfort, trembling yet unflinching as he let go of any semblance of apprehension. Several swift squeezes of the misappropriated rifle and two more bartone screams marked the bikers crumple.
End chapter 1