Now There's Drama

75

After picking Frankie Li up from soccer practice Marc made his way over to the bus stop, hoping for a chance to infiltrate the crime-ring.

After sitting on the bus for an hour in peak hour traffic Marc landed himself in the eastern suburbs, at the beach. Seagulls cawed as he walked through on the footpath opposite the beach, the waves crashing against the shore as the sun set over the water. The sand on the footpath crunched under his sneakers as he walked towards the address typed into his phone.

He fingered the yellow fifty dollar bills in his sagging pocket as he moved towards the local shopping centre. Pulling up the hood of his jacket he walked into the local McDonald's where he paid with the real twenty dollars in his pocket and carbed up, waiting until eight o'clock before walking over to the warehouse, swishing water in his mouth, trying to remove the grease from his palette.

It took him half an hour to locate the exact warehouse which operated the crime-ring. He turned off his phone watching it fade to black and shook the sand off his shoes before knocking. Flicking the hood back up he tugged on the drawstrings nervously as he knocked on the garage like door.

"Password?" a voice said.

It seemed almost cliché the way they spoke. Following the clichéd fashion Marc replied, "I can't tell you." Slipping one of Kip's fifty dollar bills under the door, he straightened up.

The door rolled up and Marc ducked down under the door, nodding to the man who opened it. Pushing his shoulders back and walking in he strode to the closest wall and surveyed the room. If Kip could assimilate so can I, he thought.

Over in the centre of the concrete floor stood a group of at least thirty men, screaming and yelling at the inside of the ring. Edging towards them, Marc strained his senses in order to make sense of the scene.

He turned his phone back on.

Squawks and clucks rang out of the ring, Marc's height helped him to peer over the men and watch the two chickens fly at each other the metal on their wings and claws glinting under the dim light.

Marc the elastic of the hood around tighten as his hood was ripped off. "Mate we aren't that kind of club," someone said, causing Marc to start and tug at his jumper. "I've never seen you around. Who invited you?"

"K...Kip Pulman," Marc said.

"Ahhhh Skippy, poor bugger. It's a shame about the kid but if I'm honest I'm not surprised," the man said, his ocker accent causing Marc to cringe a little. It looked like the man was a tradie if Marc made an educated guess big, bulky, wearing fluoro colours.

"It really does suck," Marc said.

"The little dick kept giving us fake money. The next douche who does that will be killed," he said.

Marc swallowed and tug at his sleeves, turning his head back to the cockfights. A loud chorus of cheers only countered by a collective cry of agony rang out.

One of the men up the front picked up the live chicken and held it up, victoriously above his head. "I love my cock," he cried.

Marc let out a groan at the pun, it was something that Kip would have loved, a pang of sorrow hit him in the stomach, even if Kip wasn't a pleasant person he was missed.

The man continued to hold the chicken as it clucked and scratched his hand. It's wings flapped but the metal weighed it down preventing it from trying to fly down to the ground.

Marc stepped back and observed everyone, their ages ranged from sixteen to sixty, anyone could have killed Kip. There were so many suspects. To think that he was risking his life for the boy and he'd end up dead too with one wrong move.

Taking his phone out of his pocket he took furtive photos of the members, making sure no one was looking. He texted the photos to Christie, and stepped back into the corrugated iron wall, readjusting his back so he was comfortable.

Looking at the rest of the men, he recognised two of the men from the list Kip left. He took another photo and sent it to Christie.

"Who are you texting? You know you can't tell anyone about us," the bogan whispered.

"Nah, just texting a girl, I want to know if she wants to hook up later," Marc said. If only Christie heard what he'd just said.

"Good on ya mate but it's a shame you won't get to do that."

"I'm sorry," Marc said turning his phone off.

The man put his hand on Marc's shoulder which caused him to flinch and tried to rip his arm out of the man's iron grip. The man put two fingers into his mouth and let out an ear-shattering whistle. Two other men (one of whom was from the list) grabbed him by the arms and dragged him off into the bathroom kicking and screaming.

They escorted him into the dingy bathroom, still fighting against the men.

A/N: Sorry this is so short but the next chapter I think is one of my favourites and this was just the Segway into it. Any mistakes let me know or any slang needs to be explained. Song of the chapter is Teenage Crime by Adrian Lux.

Thanks for reading :)