Don't Pledge Allegiance

The Flower Girl

Layla's POV ~ 

Looking out the window I noticed all of the rain pouring down at an extreme rate, the thunder shaking my house, and the lightning lighting up the sky. There was no other weather that would perfectly describe the mood of this city. Dreary, dark, and in the right circumstances, deadly.

Throwing on my boots and my rain jacket, I ran out the door and to my car where my remote start had thankfully already been warming up to the interior of my fairly beaten up car. In a rage a few months prior to today I had beaten in the radio in my car, turning all five knuckled black and blue, while breaking my pinky and ring finger on my right hand. That left me with nothing but the silence that screamed throughout this damned car. 

The drive to the flower shop only took about 15 minutes, but every minute was filled with a strong longing to just go back home. Before the world turned to extra shit I had been in my last year of school to become an occupational therapy assistant. Now I was assigned to be a fucking florist at some store downtown. Everything in this town was open 24/7, which was ridiculous, but I wasn't going to be the one to open my mouth about that.

As I arrived at the store, I grabbed my backpack and ran as fast as I could to try to avoid getting completely soaked. My attempts were thwarted when I realized I had left my mug of coffee in the cup holder and had to run back out to get it. It was the only thing that would get me through this absolutely asinine 2 pm to 6 am shift.

It was an issue to keep every shop employed when so many people were currently being kept in places such as hotels and even the two local jails for committing crimes, and then there was, of course, the very upsetting and heart wrenching suicides that had occurred. Some people didn't have access to the correct coping mechanisms and when literally cornered they feel like they had no other options left.

That, I couldn't blame on the people in charge of Scranton, I blamed it on this entire situation occurring in our country. 

"Oh good, you're here!" Zak cheered, clapping with joy.

The scent of marijuana suddenly hit me and I couldn't help but cough as it entered my system. I gritted my teeth as I had begged and pleaded that he not smoke in the front of the shop. He could blaze his idiotic brains out in his car, outside of the shop, the greenhouse (which seemed very fitting to me), or any of the fucking back rooms we had. That was apparently too much to fucking ask for, so I just bit my lip.

"Were you seriously expecting me to just not show up? Especially when I know Angelo and Balz' shops are one block each away from us. I would never not show up." I stated.

"What, would you not show up if Chris' henchmen were so close to us," He asked, taking another hit of his joint. "Also, I'm appalled that you think I would sell you out to them. If anything, I'd punish you myself." Zak winked.

"Ok." I muttered, knowing that in reality if he so much as tried to touch me, I'd be tempted to to slice him with a knife. 

"Alright, so as always I left all of the orders that need to be completed for you, basically I smoked pot and jacked off to just about every category of porn today so there's a lot of stuff to be done, especially cleaning wise," Zak informed me, making me want to vomit at the thought of what I would assume was his disgusting dick.