Levi #6
I walked through that door and into a darkness that swirled and writhed, almost like I had fallen into a pit full of snakes so deep it could cover a full-grown man.
It was a place of misery and loneliness so pronounced and deep that I thought it was amazing I could even breathe.
After all, physical pain could grow so strong that the heart just couldn’t take it and would just..
.stop. So why the hell couldn’t the same thing happen when you were suffering from emotional pain?
What, the heart could only give up when you were physically hurting, but when its metaphorical half was stuck in the throes of agony, it just kept pumping?
How stupid, how ridiculous, and how very typical of what it was like to—
LEVI
—live in this world. All I could do was listen to the sound of him calling for me over and over again, which was...weird, because I didn’t remember him doing much more than yelling my name.
Wait, but I was...I was there...no...I’m not there, I’m—
LEVI, WHAT THE FUCK ARE—
—here, I’m right here.
No. I’m not seventeen...I’m almost thirty-three. I’m a grown man who once had to choose to leave his best friend behind for his own sake.
Was it his sake...or yours?
His.
Okay, I mean, you’ve been telling yourself that lie for years, why stop now, right?
No, I just—
LEVI
I was—
I’m just—
“LEVI!”
“M’awake,” I said, hearing the thickness in my voice as I tried to roll over and then remembered that...something had happened. I was—
Where was I?
It felt like an eternity, but I finally began to piece together what was going on around me.
I was staring down at the cracked asphalt of the parking lot, the smell filling my nostrils was smoke and something.
..sharp and acrid, and I dully realized it was probably the smell of gas or something similar.
Debris, some of it smoking, but most just chunks of wood and plaster, was littered on the ground around me.
Wincing, I pushed myself upright and looked around, trying to figure out more of what was happening.
Check yourself, then your safety, then everyone else.
She was just a voice I’d made up in a moment of loneliness years ago.
..but she wasn’t wrong. Taking her advice, I checked myself out, and although I couldn’t know the full extent at the moment, I could at least be sure I had all my limbs, and nothing was broken.
I had already moved everything I could to sit up, but I still made sure to pat myself, to check for anything sticking out or missing.
I definitely had plenty of adrenaline pumping through my veins, so I wasn’t going to be able to measure what damage had been done based on pain, but I could figure out if I could still move.
Okay, all the limbs and fingers were there, and unless my toes had disintegrated without my shoes being destroyed, I assumed those were there as well.
I had also seen Los Muertos take off moments before the explosion, so clearly they weren’t going to stick around.
There was always the chance they could come back, though, and I made sure to look around for any approaching vehicles as I got to my feet and checked myself over one last time.
I’d confirmed that I was more or less in one piece and began scanning for the others.
“LEVI.”
I jerked at the sudden bellow in my ear, hand flying to the side of my head and grasping...plastic? Oh shit. “God, am I still on the phone?”
“What the FUCK was that?” Dom demanded.
“Ergh, what did it sound like?” I asked as I scanned, taking in the scene of destruction scattered all around me, like the world’s worst ticker-tape parade.
“Like something blew up,” he continued to yell in my ear. “Fucking...did something blow up?”
“Sure did,” I said with a groan when I went to brush something off my face and realized my left arm felt like it was on fire.
It wasn’t. I definitely would have noticed that, but apparently, I hadn’t gotten away with only a couple of bumps and bruises.
At least the fucker still moved, and the fact that I felt pain meant I wasn’t that hopped up on my body’s own juices. “Oh shit...Will.”
“Will?” Dom asked, almost hilarious in how bewildered he sounded while trying to sound pissed and worried.
The younger man was sprawled on his stomach.
I ran up to him, grabbed him by the shoulder, and gently rolled him enough to look at him.
I let out a sigh of relief when his eyes fluttered open and peered up at me in confusion and fear.
Consciousness so soon after getting knocked out was one of the best signs to show you weren’t suffering from a serious brain injury.
Of course, there was still the possibility of other injuries, but he was definitely coherent, picking himself up as I looked him over and saw a few scrapes, but the biggest thing was the rebar sticking out of his forearm.
“Oh God,” Will said in a whimper as he reached for the rebar before I slapped his hand away.
“Don’t touch it,” I said, thinking that in his altered state and his high levels of stress, he would try to take the thing out, which was the last thing we needed.
I was no medical expert, but I knew full well that you don’t take something out if it was stuck in your body; leave that to the professionals.
“Oh God,” he repeated as he looked around. “The others—”
I looked up and grimaced. “They’re...just get up. We have to get out of here before those bastards decide to come back and—”
“Levi, I swear to God, if you don’t tell me what’s going on, I’ll—”
I pressed the earpiece into my ear, not sure where the other one was.
“You’ll what? Hunt me down? There’s a whole ass city you’ll have to comb to follow through on whatever stupid ass threat you were about to lay down.
I’m dealing with dead men, an explosion, and a kid who is in over his head because he and I have no other choice but to have him around.
So if you could please shut the fuck up so I can get through this situation and get those that I can out in one piece, then please do so; otherwise I’m going to find the biggest, meanest, most experienced group of men to find you and smack you around for being an idiot! ”
There was a pause. “That...was weirdly hot.”
“Jesus,” I muttered, not even sure where to go with that particularly unnecessary comment. “Look, I will text you, okay?”
“Don’t you dare hang up on me.”
“It’s not hanging up if I tell you I have to get off the phone,” I told him, grunting as I helped Will to his feet. “But I can’t...I can’t focus with you in my ear, okay? So I’ll let you know when I’m safe.”
“You’ll tell me where to find you, that’s what you’ll do.
Otherwise, I’m going to start searching every hospital in this city, and if you think I can’t find you, if you think I can’t get enough help to hunt you down and make sure you’re okay, that means you haven’t done enough research about my life,” Dom growled in my ear.
Oh, God save me, he was still trying to help me, even with clear proof that he was nowhere near prepared for the kind of shit that could happen around me. He was still pretending like he had some control over things or could help me.
And God save me twice over...part of me liked it.
“I’ll send you an address...I promise,” I tacked on at the end with a wince.
“You promise?” he asked, the anger draining out of his voice.
“Yes. Many things have changed about me, Dom, and a lot sooner than you think you’ll come to learn what those things are, and we’ll see how willing you are to put up with them.
..but that hasn’t changed,” I told him. That phrase had always been the best way to get across to him that I meant what I said.
For as long as I could remember, I had never used the words ‘I promise’ lightly, and I despised the idea of making a promise that I didn’t at least intend to fight tooth and nail to keep.
So if I used those two little words, it was the quickest way I knew to show him I was completely serious.
“I hope that hasn’t changed about you,” he said softly.
“It hasn’t,” I told him, smirking as I reached up to my ear. “I promise you I’ll get you an address to check up on me personally...within the next twenty-four hours.”
“You son of a…” But he never quite got to finish insulting my parents because I hit the button on the earpiece to end the call.
“I’m going to assume he was going to say ‘bastard’ or ‘fucker’,” I told the disoriented Will. “No way he would speak about my mother like that.”
“Huh?” he asked as he looked up at me as I helped him to the car.
“Nothing,” I said as I helped him in. “Just a bit of personal drama. I’ve made someone very angry, is all.”
“Los Muertos,” he said as he hissed when he bumped his arm against the center console while getting in.
“They’re not pissed at me,” I said as I closed the door and walked around to the driver’s side.
There was no point waiting for everyone else.
..there was no one else. I had just lost half a dozen perfectly good men because those bastards had decided they were going to make their answer known in the most..
.well, explosive way possible. Alright, I hadn’t seen that possibility coming, and maybe I should have at least considered it, but Jesus, who brings ready-made bombs to what is supposed to be a negotiation?
Then again, I guess I had shot that in the foot from the beginning.
Come on now, Levi. We both know it wouldn’t have mattered if you’d approached it with kindness or even given them some room to move.
The first would have just left them to walk all over you, and the second would have been an inch to a mile sort of thing.
This whole thing was doomed to end like this from the start.
True, the only regret I really had, the one thing I could and would kick myself for later, was not having them killed the moment I realized they weren’t going to cooperate.
That was fine, though. I’d made plenty of mistakes in my life, but the funny thing was, I was a fast learner.
If I ever had them in a position where they were more vulnerable than usual, I was going to take advantage of it and make sure they never gave another order again.
It was almost a shame that I couldn’t be sure that their deaths would get me the victory I needed in the city, or I would have it ordered and paid for by far better killers than them.
Alas, The Company was too damned expensive to use on what might amount to figurehead thugs enjoying their temporary power.
I got in, grimacing as my injured shoulder brushed the seat, reminding myself to stay sitting forward. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Sounds good to me,” Will muttered, staring at the bar in his arm.
“Don’t touch that,” I repeated when he had an almost intent look in his eyes as I pushed the button and got the car started. Sighing at the feel of my phone buzzing in my pocket, I plucked it out and groaned. “Oh, perfect.”
“Who’s that?” Will asked as I whipped the car around.
I threw the phone into the console. “My father.”