Chapter 15 WITNESS
In the early morning darkness, security lights lit up the full scope of the supermarket, managing to give a whole Over here, lads, vibe. Stood back in a huge car park off Liverpool Road, they had everything on offer: sushi bar, hot food counter, bakery… pizza counter, not to mention a security system and night guards to keep out, well, non-paying customers.
Drift worked his way inside, the late-night hunger getting the better of him.
Large supermarket chains weren’t stupid. Most went upmarket with AI-driven video analytics and facial recognition cameras. So as soon as someone walked in and the cameras took their mugshots, it was sent back to a police database, and calls were made back to security guards, all before the flagged rat made it to the magazine aisle. To add to that, most relied on hard-wired Internet, so devices like deauthers that were worn around the wrist like a watch couldn’t interrupt connections.
So Drift kept to supermarkets that couldn’t afford hard-wired Internet, as that usually meant blackspots with cameras, as funds were too low to kit the building out properly. That left the issue of what cameras were in and outside of the supermarket, but Drift twisted a green high-powered laser pointer in his hand. It was a serious toy for serious players that drove many a lawman and business owner insane. Hit a camera sensor with a green laser pointer like the one he held, it could toast the sensor or crack the lens, but all he wanted was his movement blurred so no images could be taken. Avoiding the cameras worked best, especially the outdoor ones as the night and atmosphere in general could screw up the laser light. But for tight spots, the laser pointer was kept closer than a condom when it came to potentially fucking up.
Fucking up he couldn’t afford. Not around Ava, and he was on her time now. The rule was unspoken, but most kids in the know started to shift their heads away from the street and duck for cover come 10.00 pm.
Loose hood covering his head, a black skull scarf taking care of the rest, Drift quickly sent the green laser pointer light to a camera sensor that blocked his way to the storeroom as a jangle of keys and footsteps sounded off to his left. There was always a security guard or two on walkaround, so hitting the stray camera here and there that he couldn’t avoid kept him out of trouble.
Drift waited for the sensor light on the camera to flicker before making a move. Not getting caught was always one step closer to getting caught, though, so he took nothing for granted.
In the storeroom, he did take a multipack of crisps out of a box, along with a Coke, pack of sausage rolls, and some Super Noodles to make back at his temporary base, though. He’d kept away from the main rat-walker haunts, taking to an abandoned court just a few streets down, but he had everything he needed back there, including the standard pan, stands, and matches to make a fire.
Life back with Grant had been basic, but he’d learned a good lesson on not taking above his weight that could get a rat noticed.
The heavy weight of the darkness behind felt like Grant, and Drift shivered, finding the barest offer at the thought of him back there, more how Grant would send Jackson over to clip him up the ear for being out late. Drift would try to leg it, and Grant would be forced to come out. And the old bastard had been damn fast, catching him every goddamn time for a while.
His smile fell a moment later, and he stuffed the water back in this bag.
“Finally admit it to yourself: you were born to play enticement with me, and you bloody love it.”
Drift jerked around, his first instinct at seeing Ava cut off to the right of the pallet by Stella, a girl a few years older than him. Then to the left, Skin stepped in, his bulk besting Leon’s.
Fuck.
Ava.
She sat on a stack of film-wrapped beer, made visible by a sliver of moonlight breaking through the window, and she took a bite of something before throwing it Drift’s way. The apple tapped him in the chest, then hit the floor and rolled away. Drift didn’t make a move to touch it.
“Not hungry now, little… bro?” Ava smiled his way. “What can I say? I have that effect on people.”
Drift lowered his look. “Not your fucking brother. Not your fucking anything.”
“Yeah?” The look in near-black eyes looked so, so… old, like she’d lived through a thousand scenarios and sat back knowing the way anyone would take before they did, mostly because she’d picked the locks to certain doors long before the game started, loving herding the sheep. The long metal claw wrapping her index finger, all Japanese intricacy, saw she was one bitch no one should ever feed from. Not with the array of poisons she liked to try out on people. But it wasn’t that kind of humoured hunger that set in her eyes.
She got off the box and came over. “Still trying to convince yourself of that, hm? That you’re not my… fucking anything?” She looked him up and down, settling on his cock with a half a smile. “How’s that, well… going for you, bro?”
Drift shifted stance, almost blocking where her gaze lingered….
“Lost all your lip and attitude?” Ava came in lip-to-lip close. A naginata hung over her shoulder, the iconic weapon of the onna-musha, female warriors of Japanese nobility. She’d always fought for her identity, and that fight never was an empty threat. Watching him for a moment, she let her hand brush his jaw, the fingertip touch rough… distorted, connecting them back to shared… horrors, to grains of sand lived in the same hourglass that counted down the threat of heavy footsteps found only in the night….
It had taken so long to see that it was always Ava’s touch that controlled the turn of the hourglass.
Drift went to jerk back, but a grip in his hood and hair kept him still off Skin as Ava tutted, smiled.
“Fear… disgust…” She shrugged. “It’s just another part of you I get to hold. So you keep hating, baby boy. You keep hating me.”
Drift hissed as Ava traced her claw over his jaw, down his throat, over his abs, all to rest flat half in, half out of the undone clasp to his jeans she’d eased open.
His grip at Ava’s jaw made sure she kept her distance, stilled her touch.
A cock of brow came, then a rougher push into his grip before her kiss crushed hard against his lips despite the skull scarf trying to keep a barrier between them.
And in her eyes, that split second before the kiss…. Black ink strands turned her eyes night-black without any stars to lead him safely out of it.
Giving a snarl, Drift twisted her around, forcing her down onto the pallet, the grip in her hair keeping her still.
Skin backed off, and into the quiet, Ava tutted and stroked a fine poisoned finger along the V of Drift’s abs.
“Yeah, there you really are, little bro.” Her body arched up into his. “But, hm…” She flashed night-black eyes. “What to do…. What to do with… this.” The sharp tip of her claw stroked through the soft material of his boxers, running the fine point along the hardness of his cock. “I’m your longest drug. You know that.” She eased beneath his boxers. “Always did love those… bad habits of yours….” A flash of eye came. “Love being your… bad habit.”
With a hiss, Drift pushed her off, giving her a wide berth but not taking his look off her as he turned away, fastening his jeans. Hiding… he was always back to hiding, to shying away from her seeing his hard push of cock against the tight confines of his jeans when she was around.
Ava chuckled as she eased up. Coming in close, she shaped him from behind and drifted her touch along the hard outline of his cock.
“Liked you watching me the other day.” Her breath sent shivers down his ear and neck. “Another bad habit of yours, you going all grown up and… watching me the way you do. Never did impress our Grant with that, did you? Hm? His little… voyeur.”
Drift shrugged her off, elbowing her hard enough in the shoulder that Skin did step in.
Ava tutted and distractedly waved Skin off. “You’re getting salty in your young age.” Her eyes cooled, but that blackness didn’t retreat. “Stop it.” She headed back over to her crate. “Or don’t.” She winked back over her shoulder. “Like I said: love, hate, the need to fuck… to hate, fight… I own you. So you pull the trigger. Let’s see who walks out of the dark. I mean….” She looked around the storeroom. “I’m kind of feeling the Russian-Roulette bitch-itch now.”
On her sharp whistle, the light snapped on, forcing Drift to wince and look away for a moment. The roller doors came up, and two guards padded through, completely by-passing Ava even though she stood closest, carrying a blade.
Drift gave them the once-over, for a moment staring longer than he needed to, then he looked back at Ava.
Right. The bitch and her paid bitches.
“Well go on, then. Your silence is boring me.” Ava waved him away. “Show me why else I keep you trapped in my maze to play with.”
A nod was sent the guards his way, and as they shifted for Drift, he snarled, vaulting the pallet, then scrambled up high for the roof. Forced to pull a crowbar out of his backpack, he prised open a roof tile.
By the time he made it out into the carpark, he’d knocked the sensors on the cameras to clear his way just as one of the guards from the storeroom broke free of the supermarket.
“Hey, you little fucker. Get back here.”
And when in life did that ever work? Drift came to a complete stop, let out a very long, calm breath, then turned back around and went over to the closest car.
Looking troubled that Drift had stopped, turned around… listened… the guard stopped just short of the car Drift stood by. Giving a brief smile the guard would never see, Drift smashed the car window, then pulled a beer bottle out.
The guard’s eyes startled as the fine mix of Molotov Cocktails sloshed side to side, looking almost like black tar in the streetlight.
Drift shook it off—and lit up the night as he threw it in the broken window.
As he cleared the blast zone, the flash of heat and fire lit up the carpark, knocking the guard off his feet. For a moment, the flames held Drift so, so still: how flickers of orange and red danced in the darkness, calming him one moment with how the flames burned through any offer of pitch-black eyes, then pissing him off with how the bitch writhing on the floor was on Ava’s payroll. And there were so many other paid bitches of hers…
Feeling dampness to his hand, Drift glanced down. The drip of blood to concrete from his knuckles and fingertips shook him out of it. A little dazed, not sure when he’d cut it, why the guard wasn’t writhing anymore on the floor as he stood over him, he cupped his hand to his chest and cursed at how smashing the window hadn’t been the smartest idea tonight.
He was gone in the next breath, down the alleyway and into the road beyond.
No hard pound of feet followed after him, but Ava knew most back alleyways. She wasn’t wrong about allowing the rats to run in the maze she owned. So Drift took what freedom he had, running hard and fast. He didn’t know how long he ran, just that he finally slumped down amongst the dirt and debris of the abandoned court he’d stayed in.
Tired and dirty. He felt so goddamn tired, so goddamn pissed off, but… dirty, and it had fuck all to do with the usual dirt digging into his skin from being on London streets. This had been with him so much longer, and he hugged his legs close to his chest.
The irony of the derelict court building and how any sense of safety had left London streets made him choke, and he threw up until it hurt.
Touch. He couldn’t fucking stand her touch. Yet…
He let out a cry, burying his head.
“Jesus… Jesus fucking Christ .”
Giving a groan, he tugged up his sleeve to look at the damage done in the car park. No cut on his wrist called where the blood had come from, and he pulled over his larger duffle bag, ignoring the dark crusted flakes that made scales of his skin. After sorting through the backpack, he pulled out some Anadin, dry-swallowed a few, then took out a small cannister of Nitrous oxide and a balloon.
Taking a deep inhale of the oxide he trapped, he screwed his eyes shut, wishing the fall on as he rested his head back, ignoring the cries and screams he knew only echoed around his head.
Ava.
It had taken so long to see it. How some… some kids were just born… ill.
And around him, people got up, laughed, partied over the ashes of others taken out during pandemics, calling out how poison already owned the streets. But another crept through the sewers beneath it, playing with madness, and sometimes, just sometimes, Drift hated the world and its blindness enough to let it. To run with it.
Which meant he hated himself too, because sometimes, just sometimes, his body reacted to the kind of poison Ava poured into his head, needing to run with it.
Out became the only sane option in an insane world.