Caldera

Chapter 6: Carlie

A fucking stakeout. Carlie fumed, wondering why she got stuck with the bird-watching bullshit while Tate got to bask in the golden rays of the glorious Florida sun. That pale, yellow-ass, half-Asian Princess who brought several pairs of bikinis for the occasion.

She should have been the one out there. The one with the honey-blonde hair, the golden tan skin and the voluptuous figure-eight that some swarthy cabrones would kill for. Who would keep them up all night – and that was only before the sex part.

Then there was the business about the ink on her back, on the right lat. The kind that would raise more than a few eyebrows, even in melting-pot Miami Beach. Created a literal bullseye on her back. The last thing they needed was for the mission to be scrubbed, all because she wanted to show off her killer body and tats in a two-piece. Carlie understood that much without Tate having to mention it. That didn't make her any less angry.

Years ago, before the fiasco in Hokkaido, Carlie walked into a tattoo parlor on Melrose. She had a bright orange tiger with pronounced black stripes etched on her back. It was to commemorate her tenth big job, a hit on a Wise Guy in Atlantic City who'd been leeching off a client organization of Hades' in the Eastern Seaboard. Done on a spur of the moment, right after she'd flown back to LA and celebrated with Lizzie. She had turned eighteen just a month before.

Under Hades' employ, Carlie was rewarded handsomely for her work. She was all jacked with money but with nothing to blow her wad on. On her days off, she would go shopping; after a while, she'd gone through all thirty markets in the Hollywood area. Every now and then, she would go out to see a movie, until she got bored with that, too. So Carlie often stayed at the Raptors' Nest, the organization's sprawling, ten-acre complex in the Platinum Triangle, amid the mansions of West LA. Waiting for her next assignment.

Carlie would do weights at the gym, grapple with the MMA guys, pop off rounds at the range. At night, she passed the time by vegging out in the rec room. Much to Lizzie's dismay, she developed a fondness for blacksploitation movies, especially Dolemite and Shaft. To save her rotting brain, Magister Ludi tried to have her sit through some informal classes on language and math; she hadn't finished past the seventh grade. Magister enlisted the help of some enforcers who happened to have college degrees. But after she found ways to ditch the sessions - either with the pretense of a job, or out of blatant disregard - he gave up trying altogether.

There was only one person she'd sit still for an hour or longer. But now, she wished he was dead. Carlie rubbed her right shoulder, as if trying to remember what the tiger looked like.

She wouldn't have minded going to a real school, but not for the lessons. It just would've been nice to know what it was like to be with other kids like her, maybe some with the same twisted interests. Kids who would be into Rick James, funk music, even anime of the gory variety. She could get properly shitfaced or stoned with them. Maybe she'd even find true love.

That was, if she was like them; or they, her. She bet none of these kids with their fad diets ever starved a day in their lives, let alone a week, dumpster diving through heaps of trashed pasta and rancid meat. These brats with their Bel Air veneer wouldn't have grown up dodging bullets, drug dealers and dirty cops in the streets. She could never have any true friends, especially outside of her world.

Hades would never allow her to go past those degrees of separation. For as long as she was with them, they owned her ass. She was free to fraternize and even bang whoever she wanted - as long as they were within their sphere. Otherwise, in this line of work, you gave up all of that happy shit. You renounced your humanity, like a goddamned monk.

It would have been nice to at least celebrate in a bar, even alone. But being a baby-faced killer ruined that. Ten confirmed kills, and I can't even legally buy a drink on my own, for fuck's sake.