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Closing the trunk, I head to the stairs leading to the entrance, which involves me having to pass by the drunks, and greet them back. “Hey.”
“I wouldn’t call you pretty,” the other one says, and then the third guy smacks him in the chest. He shrugs. “At least I’m honest. She’s average at best, plain at worst.”
Amusement sparks inside me at this, although I’m in no mood for their bullshit right now. “Thanks for that, I guess.”
The first one who noticed me grins, wiping away his mouth with the back of his hand and smearing some dirt on his face. “Don’t listen to him.” He seems younger than the other three, and judging by how mischief still plays in his eyes compared to the devastation in the others’, it tells me he hasn’t encountered his share of disappointments in life.
He will, though, if he remains in company with this group.
The oldest of them all, who stayed quiet the longest, introduces himself. “I’m Kevin.” Since he says it as if it should mean something to me, I give him a long stare. “I run things around here. You’re new.” He glances at my suitcase. “Moving in, I assume.” He takes a long swig from his can, finishing it up and then crushing it in his grip before throwing it away. The thing lands by my feet with a screeching sound. “There are certain rules to know.”
I roll my eyes at this display of pseudo dominance that’s probably supposed to scare me, but all it does is just annoy me because all of them are wasting my time.
“I’m Isla. I know how to use a gun and kick all of your asses without breaking a sweat.” They all blink at me, their jaws dropping as I assume they don’t hear such replies often. “Now let’s make a deal. I won’t bother you, and you won’t bother me. I’ll even buy you a pack of beer to celebrate our deal.”
Drunks aren’t my favorite people, but they’re mostly harmless unless they have violent tendencies. And these specific individuals rarely drink outside in company. They do it at home before beating their family up.
Plus, there are no better spies in the neighborhood than them. If used right, they can give you all sorts of information, and I need such people in my circle at this new place. So I can be mean enough to show them not to fuck with me but nice enough to sway them in my direction.
As my grandmother always used to say…life is a game, so play it smart and get what you want, not forgetting that greed and stroking someone’s ego can go a long way into achieving what you desire.
Kevin loses some of his bravado. “No need to get offended, Isla. Just little jokes to welcome you in the neighborhood.”
More like scare me into it, but I guess we are past that.
The younger one adds, “Beer sounds nice.”
“Splendid.”
I pick up my suitcase, going up the granite stairs with so many cracks in them I’m surprised they don’t break under my leather boots, and the drunks sway a bit to the side, making room between them before resuming their game and chugging alcohol.
It takes several more stairs before I enter the building, my brow raised at the stained-carpeted floor that’s a washed-out green color along with yellowish walls with graffiti on them.
The single light bulb brightening up the hallway flickers several times, creating a rather gloomy atmosphere around me. Rock music blasts all over the space, vibrating a door on the right and mixing with screams and baby cries coming from another apartment.
I walk to the narrow stairs leading to the second floor, the wood creaking under my shoes while the wind blasts from the broken window. More graffiti greets me on the wall from threats to swear words and children's drawings.
The second floor isn’t much better, although bile rises in my throat at the sweet scent polluting the air. The bulb in here flickers as well, although several lights are scattered on the floors, as if the residents left them there to find a way back home once they returned.
No music is blasting in here, however my relief is short-lived when loud noises echo in the hallway emerging from one of the apartments.
“I’m tired of your bullshit, bitch!” a man screams, banging on something. “All you do is nag and fucking nag!”
“Maybe if you did something besides drinking, I wouldn’t nag!” she yells right back at him. The door rattles, sounding like someone was pushed against it. I halt my movements, my instincts going on high alert. “Let me go!”
“Tired of me? I took you in with that fucking bastard! Shut the fuck up!” The door rattles again, and then I hear a scream followed by crying, and I can’t do this anymore.
Without thinking much about it or my vow not to get involved in anyone’s business because announcing you’re a cop in such a place is almost a death warrant, I knock on the door three times. “Everything all right in there?”
After a long pause, the disgusting male voice replies, “Keep going.”
“Not unless you open the door.”
He opens it swiftly, and I come face-to-face with a man around my age with a long beard wearing a shirt and sweatpants with several brown stains on them. Anger crosses his face as his glassy eyes sweep over my features. “Who the fuck are you?”
“Your new neighbor.” I crank my neck to the side to see a woman hastily adjusting her dress while quickly wiping away the blood from her lips in a rather small apartment that doesn’t seem to have much besides a couch right in the middle. “I heard you scream.” I keep my eyes on her so she has no choice but to look at me, and complete terror fills her eyes, which lets me know this has happened before. “Is everything okay?”
She glides her palm over her hair before nodding, her voice slightly hoarse when she speaks up. “Yes. We just had a small argument.”
