Scribbles and Drabbles

Notebook Drabbles 14

Written: 2021

It took a moment when Kyle woke up to realise the danger he was in. His body hurt. The pain radiated from his chest and back. It burned. Yet it was dulled. Someone had tended to his injuries.

"Ryland!"

"Easy," a hand pressed him down, halting him in his straight sitting up. He landed on fluffy pillows. Soft things that had been shifted so he could sit up enough to be awake but not putting pressure on his back. "Ry is fine," they promised. "You know we would never let him be hurt again. Not like you almost did." The words started kind and ended with the twist of a dagger. Not an actual dagger but it didn't have to be. Ryland's family had them.

"Davion," Kyle's fingers curled up in the blanket. "Why am I not surprised?" He closed his eyes and waited for another layer of pain to wash over them. It was a genuine surprise when none came.

Ryland's family didn't like him. They didn't hate him. Like many people, they'd be happy if he was successful and useful to them. Just far, far away from one of their 'family' members. The fact that Kyle had repeatedly refused to stop talking to Ryland was a source of friction between them all. Only Kyle was not going to stop talking to his friend because his siblings were being possessive bastards.

"I'm hurt," Davion snorted, "It's almost like you don't trust us, pup."

Kyle screwed up his face. Oh, they were on that particular game at the moment. "I don't think I need to answer that one." He coughed, his throat screaming and his back not much better. Water filled his eyes and a hand rubbed his thigh as he tried to regain control of his body.

"Hurts, right? It was a nasty surprise those thugs had set up," Davion noted as Kyle stopped coughing. "Next time, the two of you should scout out the warehouse better. G is disappointed in both of you. Here, have some ice."

A bucket of ice chips was placed in front of him. They clinked together threateningly. Anything could be in them. Davion wasn't known for using positions but the housekeeper did. Not to mention, that causal fact. G, also known as Gorden, better known as the head of the family. If he was disappointed, Kyle was on a ticking timer under a bomb went off.

"No thank you."

"Don't be paranoid. If we wanted you dead, you'd be dead."

"You don't kill," Kyle reminded, picking up on shard of ice and letting it melt on his hand. It felt like normal ice. "You destroy but you don't kill."

They'd tried getting him hooked on heroin again using one of their attempts to separate Kyle from Ryland. The druglord had dosed him and they had left him on the floor of a bathroom high as fuck. Until one of his friends had appeared and rescued him. That had been a fun conversation.

Kyle had spent the last few months having everything he'd built up rip to shreds in front of him, simply for being Ryland's friend. Best yet, even when he'd stepped away from Ryland, they'd continued. Slowly and methodology taking away the pieces of them that meant anything and isolating him from them. Or flat out ruining beyond fixing. And now he was at their mercy. With their head pissed at him. He was so fucked.

"It has been a fun few months, hasn't it?" Davion laughed, a hand reaching into the bucket to pick up one of the ice shards. "And it can be so much better if you keep playing the way you are. The ice is safe." A shard was pressed up against Kyle's lips firmly. "Open."

Davion was the friendly one. Only he wasn't wearing that persona today. Things were really bad then. Kyle tried to grab him, moving his head to the side but the answering growl had him opening his lips to accept the ice.