Witness

14. Chelsea

Friday night comes around too fast.

Used to love the weekend, now all I feel is dread. 

Damien isn't throwing a party tonight. I can tell the second we - Vik and I - pull up outside of the house. It's quiet, dark, desolate. 

I don't have any plans for afterwards even though Maddie invited me over to her house, and I'm not sure whether that's a good or bad thing. 

"Where is everyone?" I ask Vik as he opens my door, holding out his arm. 

I take it and step out of the car. 

"No party tonight. Damien's orders." 

"So he's home?" 

"It's Friday," Vik says, locking the car and beginning to lead me to the front door. "On Friday, he's home." 

"Right," I murmur. 

Guess Damien has more of a routine than I'd originally thought. 

We walk into the house together, Vik still leading me by the arm. Instead of turning right into the kitchen as we usually do, we turn left down a short hallway and open the second door on the right. Vik gestures for me to go inside. 

The room is dimly lit, warmed by a crackling fire place, and full of men. All ages - some with soft, young skin, barely looking out of primary school, and others as old as Damien, older. They turn to me as I enter, each stood against the wall or sat in a plush chair angled around a large, worn rug. 

My eyes widen. 

"Ah-" I turn back to Vik, questioning, frozen in place. 

"Come on, Stockholm." Damien calls. "You're letting all the heat out." 

Vik nods into the doorway. When I turn around, I feel him step inside and close the door behind us. All eyes on me, nobody blinks as Damien lazily gestures me over towards him. He's sat in a red velvet chair pushed into a back corner of the room, right near the fireplace. He taps the arm of the chair. 

"Anyway," he drawls, all eyes turning back to him immediately. "Carry on." 

I scurry over and sit on the arm of his chair as soon as he glances over at me. 

A boy stands in front of him, no older than sixteen. His little fists are curled up by his sides, he's scowling, swallowing words on his tongue that he knows he shouldn't say. 

Glancing around the room, I realise there's are two open boxes on the rug, both filled with bricks of - something. Some drug. Every eye in the room avoids looking at them, so I do too. 

"It was just a shipping error," the boy says. "I'll take them over to the warehouse tomorrow, no big deal." 

Damien stiffens beside me. 

"Tomorrow?" He asks. 

"Tonight," the boy corrects. 

The energy in the room doesn't feel right. 

Nobody is looking at us - not myself, not Damien. Even Vik won't meet my eye. I don't understand why I'm here, what I'm supposed to be seeing. I realise that I've never seen drugs at Damien's house before, not even at his parties. He doesn't say a thing about how he makes his money, he just makes it known that he has it. 

I know he pushes drugs though. That's his whole thing; hiring guys to handle the product, hiring guys to cut it, hiring more guys to sell it out to the masses. 

"Look at me," Damien sneers, the words cutting into my thoughts. 

My eyes immediately snap to his, as everyone's do, but he's staring holes into the boy stood at his feet. He stands up, tall, and looms over him.