Angel Dust (vignette)
Short beginning passage from a story I'm brainstorming on. Any feedback is welcome!
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Rain hammered hard on the tin roof of the little shed just outside the villa, but not hard enough to obscure the sounds of the violence occurring within.
Sebastian Flores lay curled on the floor, groaning. Both hands shielded his face from the bat’s reach; the cocaine in his system dulled the pain from what was hitting him, but it wasn’t enough to let him ignore who held the bat.
“Stop fucking lying to me!”
Johnaton slammed the bat down before Sebastian could respond, catching him in the ribs.
“I’m not,”
Blood came with the words, but another swing cut the thought short as it caught his thigh, causing him to yelp despite himself.
The third man in the room winced but said nothing. He leaned slightly through the doorway and into the rain-heavy evening, right hand clutching the imprint of the pistol in his jacket, and left hand holding the stub of a cigarette he had been neglecting since the beating started.
Johnaton pointed towards a table in the corner of the room with two chairs pulled up to it. Three small plastic bags sat disheveled on the surface, along with a scale. A single misshapen brick of white powder sat between them, wrapped unevenly in clear film.
“Did you think Ramon wouldn’t weigh that one before we shipped it?”
At the sound of his name, the man at the door winced again, before taking a step through the door and closing it gently behind him.
Noticing this, Johnaton's tone lightened, and his words became hushed.
“You stole from them again. Do you even know what I had to go through for them not to slit your throat last time?”
Sebastian pulled himself up against the wall, clutching his ribs with one hand while he steadied himself with the other. He faked a laugh, the act of which brought another wave of numbed agony to his side.
“I was going to put it back before anyone noticed.”
Johnaton looked at his little brother in disbelief, his angry scowl softening into a look of pity.
“Put it back?! You snorted it! It’s gone!”
Johnaton sighed, letting his grip on the handle of the bat loosen.
“You know I can’t keep saving you from this.”
Sebastian looked away, avoiding his brother’s eyes.
Thunder boomed outside, reverberating through the thin walls of the shed, and leaving an unusual quiet in its wake. The rain had softened to a drizzle.
“They wanted you in a barrel by the time the sun came up. You have a wife. A daughter. And yet you’re still acting like a fucking rat.”
Sebastian’s stomach turned. He had received these threats before, but he knew his brother was telling him the God-honest truth this time.
Johnaton threw the bat into the corner.
“What happens now?”
Sebastian had looked up, catching Johnaton’s gaze. Both men had tears in their eyes now, and Sebastian’s false bravado had faded with the rain. One brother helped another to his feet.
“You got lucky again. Or cursed, I still haven't decided which, but you don’t really have any other choices but the one I’m about to give you. There’s a camp. Down the river.”
Sebastian shook his head, knowing what Johnaton was about to say before he could get the words out.
“No.”
“It’s five years. You only have to be there for five years.”
Sebastian shook his head harder, the realization that this was his only option bringing him closer to the brink of sobriety than he’d been in weeks.
La Selva.
“Five years is a long time when nobody there has lasted longer than three!”
Johnaton put his hand on Sebastian’s shoulder, an attempt to comfort him. Sebastian pushed him away.
“You won’t have to go into the jungle. It’s a desk job mostly.”
“What about Marisa? Anabel?”
“I told Marisa you got work downriver. Better money, five-year contract, strict confidentiality.”
“So you lied to her?”
“And what was I supposed to say, brother? That her husband keeps stealing cocaine from killers?”
Sebastian’s posture loosened up slightly at hearing this. Johnaton was right again, and he knew it.
“What happened to the last guy in that job, then?”
Johnaton shifted uneasily on his feet, his hand instinctively going to the back of his head to scratch an itch that didn’t really exist.
“He kinda… disappeared.”
The glow of headlights washed through the spaces in the door jamb before Sebastian could protest.
“You’re ride’s here.”