But He Stopped Pt 2

Killing in the Name Of...

I grinned a wolfish grin as I slid the chems over the counter, simultaneously snatching the caps they pushed my way.

Paul and I had set up a nice hustling ring. We cook the chems, I test the chems, and we sell the chems. We even hired a few drifters to come in and peddle on the streets. I test the chems a little more if the sale is a big profit, or any profit really. We were getting big, starting to push some of Vic's best to the side, rousing competition in the markets for the low-level gangsters, which was a huge step up from the peddling, begging drifters or the travelling caravans.

"Thanks guys." I smiled, "Nice doing business with y'all."

I waited for them to leave before signaling Magnolia over. She arrived with a puckered grin.

"How can I help you, Sugar?"

"None of that, Mags." I frowned. She stuck her tongue out at me, "I just want a big bowl of noodles. I'm starving."

She smiled, looking me up and down. "You look healthier, John. I'm glad that Paul kid talked some sense into you."

I nodded, "Me too, Sister. I was really starting to scare myself there-" Her hand on my arm stopped me.

"You were scaring all of us." Her eyes were earnest as she looked away to another hollering customer, "I gotta go, but send Paul my way when you're done okay?"

I narrowed my eyes, about to ask the question that Paul had been refusing to answer but she had already made her way to the bar to put in my order. The sizzle of meat bits made my mouth start watering.

~*~*~

I wandered to our warehouse, ducking behind a dumpster to avoid some of Vic's men. They were in a terrible mood lately, probably from the diminishing revenue, and looking for blood. I wasn't going to be their martyr this time around. I darted through a hole in the wall, up a flight of stairs, across a very unstable walkway of two-by-fours and dropped five feet into our lab and home-base.

Paul was resting against the far wall, his nose buried in a comic.

"Hey short stuff!" I shouted, watching with glee as terror flooded his face.

"Dammit John!" His face changed when his half of the caps hit the dirt at his feet. "We get it all?"

"Even more." I grinned, "Offered higher and bargained down a little. Listen, I'm gunna head out, see if I can hit up a trader for more supplies and ... well." I scuffed a toe in the dirt.

"You're still hording weapons John?" He scoffed at me, the look in his eyes was withering. "I thought you were past all that."

I snorted, "Just because we're sort of safe now doesn't mean that we always will be. It doesn't mean that Vic doesn't deserve to be taken out. If I can't convince these people now then maybe one day there will be a brave enough team that I can."

"By why John?" His arms stretched above his head as he argued, "Why even worry about it? You're the one who always goes on and on about anarchy. This is anarchy. The strong takes what it wants, fuck the rules and society."

I bristled at the accusation, at my words being thrown in my face. "This isn't what I want. This is cruelty. Justice is completely different. Like when America declared itself free from England." He looked at me blankly.

I sighed, giving up. So much of who we were was lost now; never to be recovered. He shook his head, picking his comic back up, ignoring my decidedly immature banging and shuffling around.