The Cupid Touch

The Cupid Touch Chapter 30 - There is Always Something Worse

 He's going to kill me. He's actually going to kill me.

Stupidly, it was the only thing I could think. I didn't mean Jeroniri the teenage-drug-lord, or any of his henchmen - I meant Joe. Because after all the conversations we'd had about Axel and how he deserved better and needed to be free of the world of drugs, I'd just paired him up for good with the biggest, baddest fish in that reeking pond.

I think even some of the stooges could see it. They didn't need my sense of my ability, or to know about it. They could tell from the way Axel stopped short, and Jeroniri rose from his chair.

The one behind Axel wasn't lucky enough to have worked it out. He gave the boy a shove, and Jeroniri's voice was suddenly like a whip-crack.

"Get your hands off him!"

There was a pulsing, tense silence. And then Jeroniri said, "I'm sorry that my associates aren't treating you with respect. It won't happen again."

He sat slowly and gestured to a chair by the wall. The bald guy close to me hurried to fetch it. It was the first real display of Jeroniri's power, and of his potential to be angry, and it gave me a sense of grim satisfaction to see that it was now all in Axel's favour.

Axel moved in that dreamlike state that hits them all. He sat in front of Jeroniri, and he smiled at him. If the guy hadn't been a drug baron, it might have been heartwarming.

"Axel. I'm glad that I found you."

"Me too," Axel said, and Lucas looked sharply over at the bald guy, who seemed like he was determined not to react at this bizarre turn of events. Lucas didn't just look confused; he looked angry. Of course he did. Here was Axel, his fall-guy, suddenly being treated like royalty.

Stick that in your cocktail-maker and shake it, Lucas, I thought. 

"I had lots of questions to ask you," Jeroniri said, leaning forward over his desk with a half-smile. "Lucas had me convinced that you were a thief."

Axel shook his head. "I was stolen from. And I don't think it was a coincidence. He used me because I was young and stupid, and it took a long time for me to see that."

I almost protested that he hadn't seen it: that I had pointed it out, but I didn't seem to be particularly important right now.

I saw Jeroniri's eyes go to Lucas, and then to narrow. I could swear I heard the prickle of his skin as Lucas the lizard started to sweat.

"That's ridiculous-"

"So why did you let an inexperienced youngster take your drugs, Lucas? It's a question I should have asked more insistently."

"I didn't think he'd get attacked," Lucas said, his voice tight. "Come on, it was just bad luck."

"All a coincidence?" Jeroniri asked, and his voice sounded quiet, and friendly, and dangerous.

"Yeah."

"I don't believe you, Lucas."

There was another silence, a longer one this time. Lucas seemed to have run out of things to say. He was blank and terrified.

Jeroniri, on the other hand, looked like he was only beginning; like he was poised to do something terrible. I felt a little ill. Was he going to have Lucas killed?

And then Axel moved slightly, and the drug-lord looked back at him, and something softened. He gave a sigh.

"I don't want anything more to do with you, or any harm or death. You wanted to persuade me to harm the one person who really mattered, and I nearly did it." He shook his head, and waved a hand towards Lucas. "Just go. I don't want to see you again. Find another city and another living, Lucas."