Adrenaline

⌊Chapter 6⌉

Rich didn't quite enjoy the idea of working on a job with other people. He had always been extremely independent and never wanted anyone interfering with what he did. People had a tendency to hold him back - which was probably a good thing considering that he was reckless most of the time and got himself into trouble. However, he couldn't have turned down Atlantis and Jayla even if he wanted to, because his goal was to get Alex out of prison, not get himself into it. So he led the way, keeping this all to himself.

The subway was on the other side of an old church and its graveyard. Rich didn't know if the church was even used anymore. Maybe some people still thought there was a God who gave a damn about them. That all the hell that there was in Adelmir was just a way to test their faith and morality. If he was God, Rich wouldn't have wished his worst enemy into this place. The more days that flew by, the more he saw how corrupted the city had become. People were being arrested and shot dead left and right for minor things that they were doing to keep their family alive. Black Prison was past full capacity, but they just kept throwing more prisoners into cells with other ones, leaving there to be zero space or privacy for anyone.

Well, you couldn't exactly expect 'privacy' in prison, but Black Prison put the lack of it to an extreme.

Rich pushed open the gate leading into the graveyard. It was more discrete to go through the graveyard than around it due to the fact that there weren't well-hidden backstreets around it. And if someone saw people walking around the graveyard, there was an easy excuse that they were paying a visit to a dead loved one. It wasn't so easy anymore to explain why someone found you sneaking around in an alleyway. Once the three were in the graveyard, Jayla shut the rusty, black gate. Atlantis walked forward a bit faster to be next to Rich.

"How do you know where Joe is?" Atlantis asked quietly. The sound of Jayla's footsteps catching up to the two could be heard, and she popped up by Atlantis.

"What happened to him being dead?"

"If there's a will there's a way and the criminal underworld just wants people to think Joe is gone. Unfortunately that's not the case. With a stupid name like his, I'd rather be dead. Literally and figuratively."

"Literally and figuratively dead?" Atlantis raised an eyebrow.

"His name. His legal name and the name he's made for himself. I'd rather be dead either way."

"And I'd rather be dead if I were you, but here we are."

"Exactly."

What she had said didn't offend Rich in the slightest, because his life wasn't for the faint of heart. And her heart seemed to be strong. Rich had managed to overcome the 'I just wish I would die already' mindset whenever he got shot for the first time. He didn't want that to be the last thing he felt. He wanted to go out with a bang, but not that kind of bang. But now, he was just trekking along waiting for time to take him - not another person. However, there was always that small part of him that thought there was an easier way out of this. But he knew better than to let himself act on those small urges that he got from time to time.

"The old subway station is the last place Joe was seen," Rich finally answered the question Atlantis had asked moments before. He maneuvered around the graves, avoiding stepping over anyone's dead body. "Considering his condition, I can only assume that it's where he is hiding out. Subways hardly run through it, but it's still technically abandoned. The control room is old and empty and it has been for a long time. And a lot of the control rooms in subways around Adelmir have a bunker underneath them in case of a natural disaster. In fact, a lot of buildings here do. They just aren't promoted enough for people to know much about them."