Fire Meets Gasoline : After Ashes

Chapter Fifteen : Farewell Night

     JOHN MCHALE. We walked back to the truck, we saw Lin trying to make the radio work, and saw the sun setting again. We didn't notice how long we stayed away from the truck until we could feel our knees hurt from all the walking. Lin couldn't care less about us, until he noticed our faints and remembered something he had to say.

"I tried talking to Marta's men-" He got off the truck "-Apparently almost all of them were sent to the local police".

"And did they say something?" Mike asked.

"They didn't have to. The place in front of the casino caught everything on camera. Including us escaping!" He replied.

I scratched my head from the nervous feeling I started to encounter, and then I realized I was face to face with my anxiety.

"Oh we absolutely fucked!" I shouted.

"No wait. What about the people that started shooting?" Mike asked while red in the face again.

"They don't know anything about that!" Lin answered him in the same tone "-And apparently neither do we!"

"That's not true," Mike revealed.

Lin and I looked at him with stars in our eyes, and hope sparkled.

"Marta told me all about them. It's the Red Flower" Mike answered our hidden questions.

"Who's Red Flower?" I asked them both while rethinking some memories from a few days before.

"It's a faction. They run a cartel apparently" Lin answered first "Marta told me about them once but I never thought they would actually be a threat..."

"A faction?" I worriedly asked them "Are you sure about that?"

"Yeah? Why?" Lin was concerned.

I then told them about the job application I had right before moving to LA, the company was also named Red Flower, so what was a drug cartel having the same name? Was It a coincidence? Or was it simply the most mind blowing thing I ever encountered myself in?

"You said you went for an interview? Did they do anything?" Lin asked fearfully.

"No. no. They just got me through a fingerprint thingy. Then in an interview, some lady really took a long time to meet with me though-" I told them.

"Fingerprint?" Mike curiously looked towards me "Why would they need one?"

"I don't know. Probably for security? The place seemed really fancy".

"No you idiot!" Lin angrily punched the car's wheel "They did it to track you! That didn't occur to you?"

"Why and how would they track me?" I started to defend myself "They don't know anything about me!"

"Maybe they do. Maybe they tracked you so it could lead to me!" Mike guessed.

"That doesn't even make sense! From what you told me, you started being chased before you encountered John" Lin pointed out.

We scratch our heads once more, trying to figure something out that would explain the insanity we were in. My mind was itching from all the confusion, my eyes were strained with sand as they glanced side to side, and my throat became sore from all the arid air taking a dive inside me. We didn't know how they tracked me, or why, it was all a big cloud of misleads and false answers.

I looked around once more and then came to a conclusion.

"I think I know what it is..."

"What is it?" Lin asked impatiently.