Chapter 9 BLOODLINES
Nearly every muscle in his body pushed to breaking, Drift kept his swim through the pool hard. The hurt in his body should have been warning enough to call it quits, the mid-afternoon sun as well, but the faster he swam, the dirtier he felt, so another lap turned into ten, fifteen, twenty….
“ Drift .”
Wiping at his face, the hard bark of his name forced him to stop, and he glanced quickly around, finally resting on the deep end. The glint of sunlight on water rebounded around the poolside, and he knew of only one Japanese man who had balls to wear a black Trilby hat here and make it look good.
Briefly closing his eyes, Drift made the long swim over to Essex before easing out of the pool.
Essex eyed him up and down as he got out. “Wrong turf, lick bait. You’re not due on mine for another two days. Jackson’s t’other side of London.” Despite the bite in his tone, an offer of a spliff came.
Drift shivered and rubbed water off his nose, grateful the pool was closed and work suspended on the renovations as he took the offer of the cannabis and leaned in to take the brief release. “Routine.” He eased back and blew smoke away from Essex. “It’s bad for the soul.” He offered a small smile he didn’t feel. “Good job you love me, eh?”
“Like a dose of the pox, yeah.” Essex watched him for a moment, then gave a sigh. “I got wind of what went down in Wales, that some of yours were down there too.” His English was cockney perfect, but now and again he’d style switch between English and Japanese, usually when it wasn’t talk surrounding Ava. The poolside fell quiet as the water began to settle, and Essex shrugged. “More I think that bitch forced us to catch wind of what went down in Wales. Nowt like using that shit to keep us rats running and in our place, huh?”
Yeah. Her whole point behind her weekend excursion. Word had gotten out, more like the pictures from Ava’s Welsh Connection had.
Drift looked back to the changing rooms, hating talk on work with Jackson, on Ava’s… way of communicating with day-walker crews. Essex nodded, but he didn’t know the half of it. Drift tried to bury it. But talk in general? It was why he never carried a phone. Talk from one crew to another could get him cut and tossed in the Thames. And this... this was Essex’s patch, his part of London, and a damn site closer to the Thames. But where Drift didn’t talk from one crew to another, he sure as hell didn’t breathe a word on… Freak. Word got around. Essex had just proven that.
The spliff was pinched, and Essex stole a few drags before handing it back.
“That one only.” Essex pointed at it. “It’s too fucking cold for a turf war with Jackson even though you’re mine as much as his.”
Drift snorted as he finished the spliff, his body relaxing into how the reflection off the water danced more brightly, stealing his look at it. But it didn’t hold his head and heart long enough, and he swore Essex had put him on a pint-sized ration of cannabis deliberately. “Bastard will only blame me anyway,” Drift mumbled.
Essex snorted a chuckle. “So stop giving him fucking reasons to, then. Say no to drugs.” He took the butt off him, made sure it was out with a crush of fingertips, then pocketed it. “You hiding out on my turf since you got back from Wales ain’t gonna help. What did you do down there to piss him off?”
Drift kept to his silence. He hadn’t gone back to Jackson’s to find out, not when it came to facing the heat. He needed to make sure it had cooled when he walked back in. But avoiding Jackson meant avoiding—
“Yeah, yeah, I know,” mumbled Essex, and he got a smack to his shoulder. “She’ll be the death of you, y’know. West… she got a twin? ’Cause Christ knows I need to keep your ass as still as Jackson manages to with her in his crew.”
“Shut up,” Drift said quickly. Too quickly for his own liking, and Essex’s shove came hard at his shoulder, almost sending him arse over tit in the pool.
“Look, no-nads… I mean traitor… I mean asshole… Drift .” Essex winked at him. “Nowt wrong with boy-crushes. Boy being the main, well, term here.”
Drift got a look up and down his body, and he was suddenly very conscious of how much the cold turned many a man to a boy when it came to… no-nad nomads, especially as Essex measured his piss-take up between thumb and finger.
“Fucker,” muttered Drift.
Essex pushed him away and clipped him up the ear, no doubt for the mouth. “You should have based at mine permanently. I’d have taught you how to have fun, but Grant and Jackson… they had to go spoil you with wanting payment and no fun in between.”
Drift let a frown creep up hearing Grant’s name, and his smile falling, Essex rubbed at his arm. Drift loved him for it. Despite all his toughness, Essex was here at the pool on a welfare check.
A sharp whistle off Stokesy came from the darkness back by the changing rooms. “Heads up,” he shouted. “More assholes. I mean traitors. I mean Jackson twats, erm… crew.”
Drift jerked his head back as two sets of footsteps made their way over to them.
“Fuck you, Stokesy.” The soft tones chased a repeat offer of a touch of hand to heart, a kiss at slender fingertips. “I only let you see us because I’m pissed off with him.” A finger levelled Drift’s way.
“West … ” Drift breathed, maybe, and Essex cocked him a brow at how it had been a breath she’d never hear. Drift didn’t care. Her reaction on his body was different to… Ava’s. Cleaner, more… pure, and he hadn’t felt that in a long time. West’s long and stunning straight red hair, slender neck, and bright blue eyes all set off by a Witches’ Heart black gem necklace stole Drift’s thought process as she came over. So too did her short Devil and Daughter Goth dress: half red, half black. And those DemoniaCult lace-up Boots on legs that never seemed to stop…. The getup acted to warn onlookers of attitude, which West didn’t have. She was a survivor, like the rest of them, and unfortunately most said that was an attitude. She also came with real kick-ass talent that earned her a place with Jackson’s crew. But yeah, life. It came hard to breathe it around her.
As West stopped by him, a slender hand drawing back such long red hair, he desperately shook off his shiver and rested an arm on Essex’s shoulder before turning side on and hiding just how cold he really was. Then he ran a very casual hand through his hair and tried to make it look really, well… casual. He could do sexy cool, right? “Erm. Hey.”
Essex snorted, then folded his arms, trying to bury a smile and failing in the process. “Practically dithering like a new-born deer he was a minute ago,” he said to West. “Balls all shrivelled and everything.” He shoulder-shoved him off. “See?”
“Cunt,” Drift muttered under a cough before cupping his goods and smiling at West. “What’s up?”
“You.” West looked him over. “Buy a phone for once in your goddamn life, Sid. You not read the writing on the fucking wall? We’ve been after you for a while now. And when I say we, I mean Jackson—then fucking me.” Her eyes were so hard.
She’d been told about Ava. How he’d gone after her.
He wanted to say sorry, just let her know it hadn’t been because of… bad habits, only needing to see what new ways she twisted life, and it hurt more how West’s anger eased a little as if translating it.
But writing on the wall…? He mostly stuck to old traditional Korean patterns: that he could at least handle, visual art dealing with symbolism, value, and emotion, ones he shared with crews he stayed with. He’d spray paint them discreetly where needed, but all crews had their ways of covert communication beyond the standard, and that included Jackson, who used Celtic symbols.
“Sid?” Essex cocked him a brow. “That’s a new one your way.” He was trying to stop a fight before it started. Drift saw that, maybe West did too.
“He wouldn’t earn so many if he kept his butt in one place.” Brighty offered a fist-pump Drift’s way, and Drift frowned. Since when had Brighty come in with West? In his own defence, Brighty was only knee-high to a nutsac. Or that was his excuse. Drift just didn’t see much around West. But nicknames… Like the cold, names… names he didn’t want to get used to, so places where’d they first met, they became the standard: Stokesy: Stoke-on-Trent, Brighty being Brighton, with Essex being, well, Essex, and West… Drift barely remembered the where and when it came to her, just her eyes, her hair, that they’d met somewhere out… West.
So what did that make Ava, because he’d damn well known her longer than most.
Caught out staring at West, Drift returned Brighty’s fist-bump.
“And Sid?” added Essex, his look saying he wasn’t letting this drop.
“As in Sixty Dinner Sid.” West didn’t let Drift’s look fall either. “Wednesday is pizza with you. He’s mine and Jackson’s for a long weekend, then he’s off either with Chelsey’s lot for a curry, Sheffield’s for Chinese, or at the chippy with Bilston’s crew to fill in the blank spaces. Like I said: Sixty Dinner Sid.”
Essex swiped a hand over his mouth. “Sheffield and Bilston too, huh?” Drift got pushed to arm’s length. “That’s not just sleeping with the enemy, it’s going full-on orgy with at least three of them, you fucking whore.” West got a wink. “Jackson’s okay from a distance.”
“Hey.” He put a lot of hurt in his look. “What can I say?” He patted his own abs. “Get good with feeding me properly after a job, mate.”
“Yeah?” West made a grip for his balls, and Drift tried to dodge it. “You need more meat in that kid’s chicken nugget meal offer you have going there, D?”
As Essex laughed, Drift deliberately pulled West in and nuggied her head, knowing she hated it. “Eighteen. You’re what? Eight months older than who here?”
“Hair—” West twisted his nipple, making him cry out and dance away, cupping it. “Not the hair. Ever, you twatsickle.” He even got a warning finger his way, and Drift winced as Essex threw a slight shake of head his way again, a She’s not a bloody boy or your sister, mate .
Okay, okay… he didn’t know how to act around her. She wasn’t Ava where touch was grown into. He’d also tested waters both side of the fence, most times were just to try and get warm for a few moments, but…
But this was… West . She had her own unique way of walking both sides of the fence.
“Swim?” Drift thumbed towards the pool, fighting another blush. “You want one? With me?”
“ I do.” Brighty started to undo his jogging trousers, and Drift pushed him away without losing eye contact from West.
“Promise I’ll go easy on you.”
West looked towards the pool, and under all that anger, a bite went to her lip as—
“Me. I want to swim.” Brighty was down to his swimming trunks. He’d come dressed for it, and for a moment, Essex looked between Drift and West, more Drift’s focus on West, and with a shake of head—he shoved Brighty in the deep end.
“Jackson pool toy. Always wanted one of these.”
“Hey.” Drift’s reaction was as natural as West’s, only his was a lot quicker as he went to shove Essex in, the protection over one of their own kicking in.
Essex rolled with the momentum—then kicked at Drift’s leg, sending him over the edge.
Drift surfaced a second later, coughing and spluttering to a shout off Essex, “Ain’t that old now, am I, Sid?”
Not wanting to be outdone in front of West, Drift used the side of the pool to get him up to Essex’s waist, then tugged him into the pool with a grip at his boxers.
“Asshole.” Essex spluttered as he surfaced, trying to wipe at his face. “My fucking phone.”
West held up the prize. “All safe, sweetheart. Let me know when you’re really ready to come play with our lot.”
Drift shared her smirk as Essex shook his head at them both. Drift had slipped it out of his grip, and West had taken it off him. Double-tap.
Essex danced a finger between them. “Get back on your own turf before you really piss me off.” Brighty came over, and Essex softened his look as he dove underneath and came up with Brighty on his shoulders. “I’ll keep this little’n.”
As Brighty started doing I’m the champ shoulder poses, West finally laughed softly. Then as Drift came and crossed his arms poolside at her feet, head tilted to the side, she crouched down by him.
“You sure I can’t get you to come in?” He kept it low, soft, mostly without realising. “An hour goofing off?” He needed to hide for just a little longer in… normal.
Under the cover of her makeup and visible as sun broke through the crowd, a bruise darkened the soft skin just left of her jaw. “Hey.” Anger hit surprisingly hard, and he brushed a thumb along it, maybe a little too roughly with how West pull back. “Sorry. Who the fuck did that?”
West caught his thumb and let him trace more gently along it. “Street scuffle. Jackson’s sorting it, trust me.”
They both knew the streets, how… lethal it could get, but to see her hurt because of it? “He putting the bastard in the Thames?”
“Maybe” she said quietly, stroking at his jaw. “Not sure yet.”
Drift lowered his look. He should have been here, not in Wales, not— “Swim,” he said gently. “Come in with me? Take some time out.”
Again West’s distracted look went across the water’s surface and the light kissing water reflected in her eyes and witch necklace. But that bite at her lip came up, and she shook her head. “Not dressed for it.” The smile that crept up hurt in all the right ways. “But definitely another time. You… maybe me.”
You… maybe me.
Always maybe me . Never a certainty. He wished he knew how to get Ava out of her head, break through that… maybe me. Because it never was. It never had been. He felt dirty over Ava’s touch, but never more so when stood in front of West, after she’d seen them kissing under a dimly lit bridge with the scent of urine battling with the sludge of the Thames. Yeah…dirty… summed up how his whole head felt.
Drift buried a shiver.
Maybe it was the age thing too? Seventeen. It was too young for most, leaving him pissed off all the more. He’d been forced to grow up a long time ago. Christ knows he’d lived the harsh realities of Ava and her lot longer than most of these here, including West.
West frowned his way almost as if she picked up on his change, and a brush came at his eyes, one that shifted a wet strand of hair he’d allowed to fall. “I was serious. Jackson’s after you. You need to go speak to him. You need to speak to me.” A frown. “What happened between you and Ava in Wales?”
Drift eased his chin down to his arm, but it came so easy with West, that ability to talk. “Just a warning to stay off the streets even as a day-walker,” he said quietly, and only West’s look back at Essex reminded Drift he was there, with Brighty.
West nodded. “And you still chased her shadow, hm?”
Drift went to say something, but West shook her head. “That warning would have gotten out regardless,” she said gently. “We saw the pictures.” She frowned and stroked at Drift’s cheek. “Don’t let her drag you back down into her filth, okay? For your own sanity. I know you don’t want to go there.”
Drift fell quiet for a moment, then eventually nodded. “How pissed off is Jackson?”
“He got word from Wales an hour ago that a plain-clothed London rozzer headed down there. He did a search of the property.”
Drift stilled. Fuck. “The rozzer won’t find no prints or any DNA.” The vomit… yeah, he’d been stupid there, but it wouldn’t prove any good to anyone. He was lost to the system years ago.
“Yeah, don’t matter,” murmured West, and she briefly looked around to Essex. “He wants you off the street. Get back to ours. You—”
A sharp whistle cut across the pool from over by the changing rooms as a brief flick of a phone light called out something had spooked Stokesy, enough to get him moving.
The flash of cop-car lights flicking around the pool area called it out.
All fight drained from Drift’s body.
They couldn’t have used the DNA to track him, right? There was no way anyone could have traced him here, not so soon. Not the fucking rozzers of all scum?
West looked sharply at him, then tried to tug Drift out the pool. “Get out.” Seeing the panic in her eyes, he was by her in the next moment as she focused back in the pool. “Brighty. Now .”
Splashing hit the darkness, and Brighty scrambled over. Drift yanked him up as Essex scattered to the pool’s edge too.
A rush of feet, bodies burst into the pool, but Stokesy called it with a shout of—“Rozzers.”
Stokesy was on point for a reason, so his mass of shadow darted in front of the first policeman, and two took after him. That left three remaining, but this wasn’t Wales: it was Drift’s home turf, and the pool had been chosen for a reason. Camberwell leisure centre was a four-story, red brick Grade II listed building, with terracotta ornamentation and artificial stone dressings. Outside came with plenty to grip on when it came to finding footing and getting high, fast. It made getting in easy. The issue for most came from the inside and getting out, especially with the oval roof. It would have been an issue, but the gym behind saw scaffolding reaching up high to renovate the lighting, and as rain had called off work, Essex shifted for them, and West and Brighty followed Drift up, quickly reaching a space where lighting hung loose. Drift slipped up between the gaps, then pulled Brighty up first before offering a hand down to West, then Essex. West had kept pace despite the boots.
“Get Brighty out,” he snarled as she found her footing by him in the loft, then he snapped a look at Essex. “I’ll make sure Stokesy loses the bastards.”
Essex grabbed his arm. “He’ll do what he’s trained for. You take the hint and get your head off the fucking streets, away from those assholes too.”
Drift pulled out of the grip. “It’s my fault you’re here. Just make sure West and Brighty get a clear path to safe turf. Please.”
Essex eased off, but didn’t look happy. Drift got a nod, then a rucksack was pushed into his chest off West.
“Get some clothes on first, idjit.”
Double-tap. Where Drift had focused on the way out, West had focused on… clothes. He’d ran hard and fast, she’d thought… naked, wet, and very obvious with all three of them.
He nodded, then a touch of hand came to Drift’s heart off West, a touch of fingertips to his lips. “Make your way back to Jackson’s.”
Drift shook his head. “Not with the rozzers. I won’t put him through that again. I’ll lay low. Don’t worry about me.” Fuck, he just wanted her home with no more bruises. “Go. I’ll swing back when I know it’s clear.”
West went to say something, then anger hitting her eyes, she nodded, just the once as he quickly slipped on his jeans and trainers.
As he tugged on his T-shirt, she bolted up onto the roof with Brighty close on her heels, Essex finding the safest footing for them both. He didn’t need to. West was one of the best parkour building-runners, but she had Brighty on her heels today.
After following them up and making sure they were safe, off the roof, Drift made it to the roof’s edge for a moment, casing ledges, ridges, and the shouts from inside. Then he found his way down to the next window ledge, then jumped and slid down the streetlight before cutting in front of the rozzers as Stokesy ran outside. The distraction worked long enough for Stokesy to start on the next building, getting high and fast to head to Essex’s underground meet point, and Drift was running the opposite way with the rozzers biting at his heels.
He found his grip up the side of a home later, one of the rozzers trying his luck with following him up the old Victorian home, but London was his home, the streets, how the pound of feet on concrete below filtered to nothing the higher he went. He knew where this building would take him, and keeping away from CCTV, he’d lose this last rozzer in another minute… two at a push.
Running and getting high and out of sight he could do. He’d been doing it for most of his life, but stupid… he’d been so damn stupid trespassing here and on Freak’s job back in Wales.
Heads were starting to turn his way.