Fade

Chapter Three

Joe Parisi's idea wasn't better. That guy had to be the worst at "better ideas".

We made an agreement with him, regardless, because we valued our lives. Katrina, Christina, and I were being forced to bring in four hundred dollars a month. In exchange, though it was mostly for not killing us, Joe gave us a roof over our heads and put food on the table.

But there was a problem with that. The roof over our heads was a crowded two story house, crawling with people in his gang. Most of them were strung out on drugs. I had to share a room with eight other people.

My bed was a tattered blanket on the floor that smelled like cat pee and mildew. I had a single pillow and it didn't smell any better.

The only people I knew in the room were Christina, Katrina, Gareth, and Dawn. Dawn was an oddball. I think he might've been a junkie, but I wasn't sure. He only stayed over some nights.

The four others in the room were strangers. We didn't talk. Most of the time they were gone when I woke up.

The whole food on the table thing was way worse than the sleeping arrangements. When I say free for all, I mean it was like throwing a single piece of chicken into the middle of a pack of hungry wolves. Whoever managed to get food first ate, even if they came out covered in bruises and scratches. The rest starved in silence.

I had to go and eat leftovers out of dumpsters with Katrina and Christina just to make sure we wouldn't die of hunger.

It wasn't like I could just run away, or teleport. I didn't want to be looking over my shoulder for Joe Parisi my whole life. Besides, starting over would have been way worse. We were finally out of the cold at night and I wasn't ready to go back to sleeping in the snow.

I didn't see much of Joe. He stopped by the house every once in awhile to check on us. What freaked me out the most was the fact that Gareth and Dawn were so close to him.

"We're fucked, aren't we?"

Christina and I stood in our room. She was counting out the money she had gotten from pickpocketing. "We're two hundred short and it's already January sixteenth. We've got, what? Around fifteen days. Joe is going to kill us."

I struggled to breathe for a moment, chills spreading over me as the weight on my chest started to crush me.

It wasn't because of what Christina said that sent me into a panic. It was the direction my thoughts were going in. I knew what I had to do and it filled me with nerves.

I dropped my gaze, feeling sick. If I still lived with Miss Claudia, I would've thought that my next decision was insane. I knew it was a horrible idea, but I was getting too desperate to think it through.

"I'll handle it tonight," I said, my voice crisp with cold finality. I walked towards my duffel bag. "You don't have to worry about it."

Christina's eyes tracked me as I grabbed my bag, narrowing when I pulled my gun out of it.

"Give me a second," I told her.

Christina sighed and went downstairs, closing the door behind her.

I shook out my hands like it would get rid of my jitters before pulling out the suit I had stolen. I quickly stripped down and put it on, then the boots.