The Bad Boys and the Fighter

20

COLE

"There are fucking four of you!" Elijah yelled. "How the fuck could you dumbasses let this happen?" The house rumbled with Elijah's thundering voice.

Carlos, Jeremiah, Tyler, and I didn't respond. It felt like the air had been removed from my lungs and I was gasping for breath, but ultimately failing.

"Respond!" Elijah barked. "Do you know what this means?"

"Yes we fucking know what this means!" I shouted. "She's....probably dead." My tone was calmer, yet more emotional.

It wasn't the first time I had thought it in the hours since we discovered her disappearance, but it was the first time any of us had said it out loud.

Elijah bowed his head and ran a hand through his hair. "Death would be a better fate than suffering at the hands of Daniel."

"What are they doing to find her? What can we do to find her?" Tyler asked, trying to change the subject to something more hopeful.

"They're searching every abandoned house, compound, and cabin within a two hundred mile radius," Elijah sighed. "You four have done enough. We're going to transfer you to a safe house in the Poconos."

"We can't just sit around and do nothing," I protested. "I can contact some people that can—"

Elijah cut me off. "We have turned the other cheek at your stupid fucking arms dealing side business, but I swear to God if you involve them in this investigation you will go to prison for the rest of your life. Do I make myself clear?"

I stared down Elijah as a response. "Just fucking acknowledge him," Tyler seethed

"Yeah, I get it."

The next several hours were a blur as we packed up all of our belongings and erased any trace of us in this house. The boys and I spoke in tongues when we needed to say something, although there was nothing to truly be said.

Ariel was injured, or probably worse — dead — and it was all my fault.

I read her note again in the white shuttle van we had been stuffed in stopped at a rest station for gas and snacks.

"Stop fucking reading it, dude," Jeremiah moaned from beside me. "I get it. You're worried about her. We all fucking are. Don't make it worse for yourself."

"You don't get it." Jeremiahs silence was a clue he had given up trying to reason with me. "I renewed our deal with the Ghosts but with different terms."

The van suddenly silenced at my revelation. Tyler and Carlos spun around in their seats ahead of us.

"What the fuck does that mean?" Tyler seethed.

"An additional year of ammunition and arms supplying for country - wide protection," I replied. "I'll be taking the fiscal loss, don't worry."

Jeremiah started laughing. "You can't be serious." His smile faltered at my stone cold expression. "Cole, tell me us joking. Tell us you're lying."

"I really wish I could."

"You son of a bitch!" Tyler roared, lunging over his seat at me, taking me to the steel floor of the sprinter van.

He barely got one punch in before Carlos dragged him off of me. "Tyler, what the fuck!" Carlos yelled. "We're in a fucking van right now!"

"You're the reason she's fucking dead!" Tyler screamed. "You're the reason why everything's all fucked up! You caused this!"

"The Vipers are Daniel's gang, dude," Carlos told me as he tried to keep his anger at bay. "They'll kill her to send a message to us and the Ghosts."

Before I could utter a reply, Jeremiah asked, "What exactly does country wide protection mean?"

"Literally exactly what it sounds like. It began last night, when they got their shipment of bullets. My contact called on my burner to tell me."

"You've had a burner? This entire time?" Tyler's face fell, his voice lowering an octave.

"Elijah slips a burner in each bag. I've been using them to continue the business." My response was slow and calculated. My brain scrambled for responses for each possible question they could ask.

Jeremiah shifted in his seat so his legs were in the isle, inadvertently using himself as a barrier between me and our two friends. "You have got to be fucking joking."

Tyler's glare bore holes through my head. "Why didn't you fucking tell us?"

I ran a hand through my hair to relieve some tension. "I couldn't. It was hard enough to convince Elijah to buy me burners. It had to stay between the two of us."

"You should've fucking told us. And now you've killed Ariel," Carlos seethed.

It was my turn to get angry. "None of you understand this business like I do. I'm the one that answers calls and texts from unknown numbers at every hour of the day. I'm the one that negotiates the deals and sets up the transportation. We are an entity of the Ghosts, we have been since this fucking began. If we stop supplying all of a sudden, you know what they're gonna do? Kill us. Not even witness protection could save us. If I stopped, we'd all be dead, including Ariel."

The van silenced once more.

Carlos finally broke the silence. "No one asked you to take all of the responsibility."

"I know. I just wanted you all to have the opportunity to get out."

"That wasn't your decision to make," Jeremiah bit.

"So what does this new deal mean?" Tyler asked, breaking the tension between the four of us. "Like now, with Ariel missing, what does it mean?"

I rubbed my forehead. "It means they'll look for her and Daniel. I texted my contact, he made sure his men knew what they looked like. They'll spare no lives except for hers." I glanced up at Jeremiah. "I've been reading this note over and over again trying to figure out where she was going."

Carlos reached over and grabbed her note. "If you were a teenage girl that wanted to her noticed, where would you go?"

"The beach," Jeremiah offered.

Tyler swatted his arm. "Idiot. It's the dead of winter." He turned to Carlos. "I'd go to a bar."

Carlos nodded. "So would I."

Elijah opened the door to the sprinter. "Alright, I got beef sticks, doritos, and some coke."

The note was shoved back in my arms. "Elijah, I think I know where she went last night."