S!N

Chapter Four

Chapter 4

Kat turned eighteen today. I've never seen a more beautiful sight. Over the years her curly brown pigtails have transformed into sun kissed locks of silk. Her little freckled nose, is now blemish free and a perky little button, that gives her a pixie princess kind of look.

"Argh" I growl at my own sappy thoughts. I adjust my back pack on my shoulder and move down the hall. Heading into the opposite direction of the object turning my thoughts into that of a romance novel quoting idiot. I have no intention of sitting through another boring class. Not when I'm only a couple of days away from finishing high school.

I'm broke. My mother hasn't been home in a week and I'm pretty sure the landlord is going to kick me out soon.

I meet up with Darius behind the bicycle shed. It's a useless structure, eaten away in spots by orange rust. He stubs out his cigarette when I round the corner. His face almost looks pale. I chuckle at him and he flicks the dead cigarette bud at me. Asshole. Darius grabs his bag and we leave the school grounds together. There's only one place to make a quick buck and that's down by the Pier. Most of the early birds will be gone by now, but we aren't going to go chuck a bunch of cold, smelly fish around. No our mission is one that requires a lot less work and a whole lot more stealth.

We enter the old warehouse and move through the room quietly. There are still a few guys wrapping up fish and loading them into crates. Those they sell at this shop. What we are here for is in the back. The very back. We open and close three more doors before we are stopped by the Mammoth Man guarding the door. Seth is maybe in his late twenties, with arms the size of both my legs. He eyes us up and down before he reaches for the radio tucked into the side of his pants. Darius pulls at some lose strands on his back pack. I almost bump him with my elbow, just to stop his fiddling. This isn't new to us. We do this all the time, so maybe he is just bored or maybe Darius will never get use to this kind of thing.

Seth finishes his conversion and walks over to me. I drop my pack and hold my arms over my head. He pats me down quickly before checking my pack, then he does the same with Darius. Surprisingly Darius stands very still. The last time we had to do this, Darius put on a big show about them not trusting us and that made the whole search a lot longer and just plain uncomfortable.

Seth opens the door and holds it for us to go in. Inside the room is shelf on top of shelf filled with small wooden crates. Those that are too big to fit onto the shelves, line the floor. There are three other guys in the room with us. Two of those are busy checking our parcel, the third one is leering at us with a smirk on his face. I don't like Tino Levon but he pays good for easy work, so I keep my mouth shut.

"S!N, Darius," he greets us with a head nod. I mumble a hi back and Darius ends up nodding his head before he walks over to the other guys to check the parcel. It's understandable, I know Darius doesn't like it here and he'd rather spend as little time here as possible. Me on the other hand, I grew up here.

The Seven's gang are like family. Seven, the leader of the gang took me in when I was just fifteen years old. He put the bread on the table when all my mother had was her vodka. Seven got arrested a few months ago and that's why Tino is in charge.

Mikael and John each clap me on a shoulder when I get close enough for them to reach. I hold me hand out for the bag that Darius is holding now. He hands it over easily. I pull the draw strings apart and peer inside. A single gun. Filed down. Untraceable. It's funny how much the rich would pay for this kind of stuff. I close the bag and sling it onto the shoulder not keeping my own bag up. I don't need the specifics for the drop, Mikael already went over them with me last night.

A few minutes later Darius and myself are walking down the pier toward Heather Heights. It's some rich guy lounge bar up town. Luckily we are meeting the guy in the parking lot, because we would stick out like sore thumbs. Darius is blowing out smoke rings while staring over the water. We've only been friends for a couple of months now. He got into a fight with this guy at school, unfortunately for Darius the guy who picked the fight with him, was part of the Jokers, a rival gang from the West Side of town. Two minutes into the fight and Darius had been outnumbered three to one. The Jokers mean shit in a fist fight and that's probably why Darius found himself with Loki's knife in his face. I couldn't just stand around after that, Loki would've stabbed him. And although my school is on neutral grounds that would not sit well with Seven. He tried to keep gang wars away from school, but sometimes they managed to creep in. Truces were broken, ties snapped. Hell on earth...or at least for a few hours any way. I managed to break up the fight and when Loki finally got a good look at my face and the Seven tattooed on my wrist, he backed off. The Seven's are a much bigger, more influential gang than the Jokers. We trump them with an easy forty members. I know that for a fact, because that's another little detail of my job as runner for the Seven's. I keep an eye on our rival gangs', new recruits. We can't afford to be outnumbered. Not in this game. Unfortunately with Seven in jail, things are getting tougher out here and I'm not sure how much longer the Seven's are going to be known as the lesser evil.