Snakes and Splinters [PUBLISHED]

7

© Jojo B 2018

All rights including those in copyright in the content of this story are owned by Jojo B. It's Illegal to steal and/or copy.

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Snakes and Splinters

7

I heard shouting through my sleep.

For some reason it unsettled me. I could feel a lot of anger behind it and I couldn't open my eyes. All I could hear were sounds of great aggravation and I felt like it was wrapping around me in a dark fog. I couldn't breathe, but I only started to really panic when I smelt that familiar scent. It was always so real, even though I knew deep down that there was no way it could be. However, when half asleep, it was hard to make sense of what was reality and what wasn't.

"Coral. Coral, calm down, you're okay."

"Walter?" I frowned, pressing myself closer into his body.

"Yes, it's me," he said soothingly. "Relax. You're okay."

I hadn't even realised I had been whimpering. I slowly opened my eyes and blinked in the darkness. Walter was looking down at me with a crease between his brows. I knew he was worried. I hadn't had a nightmare in a while.

"What's going on?" I clung onto him, still hearing the shouting from downstairs.

"It's Phoenix," Walter said as he rubbed the space on my back, right between my shoulder blades. "He's mad about something."

"About what?" I pulled back from his chest to peer into his face.

Walter's eyes glinted in the near darkness of his room, "I don't know."

Yes he did.

"Walter, tell me," I said. "You don't need to give a lot of detail, I just want to know. I've never heard him this angry before."

Downstairs I could now make out Landon's voice too. It sounded like he was trying to calm Phoenix down. Unsuccessfully.

Walter sighed and rubbed my tangled hair, "Some of his men were killed."

I widened my eyes and started to sit up, "What do you mean? Who are...who were they?"

"Just people who worked for him," Walter said. "The people who dealt the product to our clients on the streets."

"Oh my gosh," I stared at him. "How many were killed?"

Walter frowned and pulled me back down so I was lying, facing him, "I honestly don't know and you shouldn't either. I don't want it to upset you."

I didn't even know how many men Phoenix had in the first place but the fact that he was this mad meant that either a lot of them were killed, or that he had very little to begin with. Hopefully it was the latter. Death wasn't a nice thing, no matter the circumstances. People would always be left with pain. I'd never really put faces to the drug dealers that Phoenix had working for the Simpson gang, but hearing this shocking news I started to wonder how old they were, if they had families, how they'd died, who'd been responsible.

"I don't think it was the Santiagos," I said to Walter. "If they wanted to kill Phoenix's men, why would they wait until now after all of these years?"

Walter, to my surprise, nodded in agreement, "I don't think so either. It's never happened before, not to us and not to them. Neither side shoots to kill."