DRASTIC (Book 4 of the Soundcrush Series)

Chapter 65: Drummer Boys Become Liars Forever

Perhaps a bit long, but I really needed all this action in one chapter, to show you the intensity of Bodie's trip and the pressure he is under....

Bodie

The jungle is thick and humid and dripping with gorgeous life, and the terrain is rugged and exhilarating. The jeep transporting me says Thai Adventures. The driver is doing his best to make the ride feel like a roller coaster. I can't help grinning as a monkey looks down imperiously at me from a tree, while we slow only slightly to navigate a river that crosses the trail.

It's weird how the whole time I was in Thailand before, I never felt this alive. All I experienced was boujie resorts, indistinguishable clubs, booze, pills, blurry naked bodies. Then came worse...the constant edge of withdrawals and the fleeting relief of smack.

Now—sober in the jungle with my senses acute? This is a completely different place. I can see why Leed loves the exotic, raw world.

If it weren't for the fact that I'm about to do a drug deal, I would be having a great time.

I have a fleeting thought that I would love for Marley and Darius to see the jungle, but then I reconsider. Marley might not like the idea of coming to the place where I tried my best to kill my demons first with booze, sex, and pills, and then smack. Also, who knows what kind of bridges I'm going to burn here?

Naw. If I make it through this alive and not incarcerated, I'll take them to the Amazon instead.

"How much further?" I yell at the driver as the afternoon monsoon begins, and rain pelts us in the open jeep.

His only answer is a careless gesture forward as he guns it up a precarious rise and then slams to a stop at a 12 foot metal gate.

The massive fence looks like something from Jurassic Park. Foreboding and unnatural in this place. The guards with fully automatic weapons aren't exactly indigenous, either.

In minutes, I'm standing beneath a luxury canvas tent, overlooking a terraced valley, tilled and planted with a new poppy crop, refusing thousand dollar brandy from the man I hate most in the world.

Yeah, Connor Ryan is at the top of my ultimate shit list. At least Daemon will kill you quick. Connor Ryan? He'll murder you slowly, eeking out every bit of blood money he can from you first.

He smirks as I refuse the brandy and looks me up and down.

"Thought you'd be dead by now, boy-o," he says casually, "But here you are, clean and sober, still making me money. How is that, again?"

I shrug, taking my time with the answer. I cross to the refreshment table, using tongs to plunk ice into a lowball, then raking choosily over the lime selection for a perfect piece. The hiss as I pour club soda from a can is not nearly as satisfying as the look of impatience on Ryan's face. After a long insolent gulp where I stare at him over my glass, I finally answer.

"You know how family ties are," I say with a shrug. "Sixmob saved my life as a kid, over and over. I owe my gang leader...everything. He served twelve years in prison for us all. He got out and I bankrolled him to take the gang straight, but...thugs are thugs, you know what I'm saying? The straight life don't suit. Any of us, apparently."

No way will I ever breath Marley or Darius' names to Connor Ryan, or tell him the price of their freedom from Daemon is pushing poison to the streets of Atlanta. It might give me a more believable motivation, but it also gives him leverage.

He narrows his eyes, his accent broadening in skepticism. "So you'll have me believin' you wised up? You're thinking it's more of a rush to monetize smack than shoot it, are you now?"