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“That depends on what you want,” I purred, relishing his unfounded terror.
Visibly swallowing, Nate inhaled deeply. “Uh… half a baggie?” he mewled. “I’ve got like… uh… fifty?”
I didn’t speak, gaze raking over him as the corners of my mouth twitched. I let the silence linger as he struggled to find his mojo, but the longer it went, the more uncomfortable he became.
“Well, uh, I could go somewhere else?” Nate suggested when he couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t help it and laughed aloud.
“Yeah?” I challenged. “Where are you going to go for your chimp if not me?”
Nate immediately realized his mistake and paled to translucent, taking another step back as I advanced on him. He was the runt of his group. I surmised they kept him around like they kept around any token scapegoat.
“Go,” I urged him, drawing nearer to the barn door until Nate’s corduroy jacket touched the plank wood, and he started at the impact. “Go find your smoke from somewhere else.”
Through my peripheral vision, a shadow crossed, and I whipped my head toward the dirty window. Mark peered through the panes, trying to look inside. Nate took the opportunity to turn and flee, but I didn’t bother going after him as the kid stumbled out to meet his friend outside my barn.
The wheezing panic of his words met my ears as I sauntered toward one of the unused stalls. Yanking the gate open, I headed inside shoving an untethered bale of straw aside to retrieve the solid, pewter safe buried beneath it. The muffled voices outside continued, Mark’s tone rising an octave as he argued with Nate about returning, but the waif-like teen expressed his dismay. If not for my intensely acute hearing, their words would have been impossible to make out as I crouched down, unlocking the safe.
“He’s going to kill me!” Nate whined. “He told me he doesn’t want to sell us chimp anymore.”
I rolled my eyes at the blatant lie.
“What? Why? What did you do?” his friend cried, sounding panicked.
“Nothing!”
“Get back in there, Nate! Eli’s the only guy in twenty miles whose stuff is worth half a shit.”
Ungrateful punks,I thought, yanking out a pre-sectioned package and slamming the safe shut with a clang so loud, it silenced the growing argument outside temporarily. By the time I stood again and brushed the straw from my pants, Mark had entered the barn.
Unlike Nate, he oozed confidence but still reeked of the same uncertainty.
“Hey, Eli.”
“Elijah,” I corrected him flatly, having considerably less sympathy for this one than the other.
“Yeah, right—sorry, man. Look, I don’t know what Nate said to you—”
“He seems to think that you can get better chimp from someone else,” I replied, tossing the herb from one hand to another. “What are you still doing here?”
“Nah, man,” Mark chuckled nervously. “Nate doesn’t know what he’s talking about. We shouldn’t have sent him here. Can you hook us up?”
I offered him the same deadpan stare I’d given Nate, savoring the discomfort it presented in him, too, but Mark didn’t take as long to break the silence as his friend had.
“So, you gonna set us up or what?”
“You gonna bust my balls over taking your business elsewhere ever again?” I challenged, narrowing my eyes.
Mark balked and shook his head vehemently. “No, man. I swear, we wouldn’t even consider it. Your shit is the best. No one within miles of Seven Rock can compare.”
He was practically begging without saying, and I’d had enough of these teenage brats already. Tossing the package toward him, I stalked simultaneously toward the door.
“Gimme my money.”
Mark rushed to keep up, the rustle of cash meeting my ears as I burst through the doors into the weak, morning sunlight. Nate had made himself scarce, scampering to the far end of the property like a terrified rabbit.
“Hey, Eli—uh, Elijah!” Mark finally managed to catch my stride as my foot caught the first step of my back stoop, hand already on the screen door to allow myself inside my single-story cabin.
Grunting, I turned to extend my hand for payment, but that wasn’t all Mark wanted from me.
