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But the universe takes pity on me, and my breath comes out in a relieved explosion as the bus putters away from the curb and Gavin—and Marcos, and Vallejo—are somewhere back there. On the street filling with cops. Those assholes shoot guns and kill people, and they do it with cops all around them.
“Oh god.” I drop my head back and cry in silence. Tears spill from my eyelids, tracking over my temples and burying themselves in my hair. I just witnessed a murder by people who don’t really care that cops are nearby. By people who don’t mind killing another for money.
“Miss?” The driver—a middle-aged man, similar to the one I’m running from—drives along the street and does his job. But he leans across his seat and shows me a small smile when I open my eyes. “You gotta tap your card to ride.” He points up at a CCTV camera perched above the door and blushes. “They know how many folks get on. So you gotta tap, or I’m gonna get in trouble.”
“Yeah.” I swallow a ball of nausea and reach with a groan to take my phone from my back pocket. Part of me is surprised I didn’t lose it in my panic. Part of me expects my bad luck to continue. But I breathe a little easier when I pull it from my pocket and open the cover to find the screen shattered.
Shaking my head, I take my bus card from the slot inside the cover and reach across to tap it against the tiny yellow reader by the door. Then, collapsing back with a grunt of pain, I curl in on myself and think.
Panic.
Scream, but only inside my head.
I witnessed a fucking murder!
And now they want me dead, too.
Judy Jinx is not yet ready to release me from her ugly clutches.
Drake
BLAST FROM THE PAST
Three Days Later
Iwalk inside my police station and pass cops I’ve worked with for five years. My desk beckons me, and my life… well, bores me. I was once a man who lived the job. Breathed it. Dreamt of it. I was bordering on obsession, much like my father before me. But when my best friend was murdered right in front of my eyes, and his wife cried on my shoulder for weeks, months… years after, I decided the DEA was no longer for me.
Working for my father was no longer for me.
I didn’t want to hunt the kinds of pricks who ship hundreds of thousands of tons of powder across the world, all so they can make money. I didn’t want to work undercover anymore.
Fuck, I didn’t want to work without Gord at all. So I handed in my rank, took a leave of absence to heal up from a couple of bullet wounds, and then walked into this station and asked for a regular cop job.
My life now is about simplicity. It’s about my friends. It’s about taking care of those who matter to me and not giving a shit about the rest.
I was given a desk here. Access to a cruiser. I was given a new partner, though I loathed him on sight and wasn’t sad when he left again. Day in and day out, I work smaller jobs that mean nothing.
A dad holding up a liquor store to pay for diapers and food for his family? Yeah, okay. I’ll work it. I’ll solve it. But I don’t put my heart and soul into it.
A hit and run? I’ll go through the steps.
A home burglary? I’ll write the report and help them claim insurance.
I’m a constant disappointment to my father now. Working below my abilities, he says. A flake because I choose this over the career he lives and breathes.
He sleeps with files under his pillow.
I sleep with women as my pillow.
He works eighteen-hour days and reads reports while he’s using the bathroom.
I work eight, go home, spend time with my friends, and take pleasure in watching Matilda Fuller grow up. She’s nine already. Tall. The cutest little blonde-haired thing who enjoys roller skates and an uncle who’ll buy her any damn thing she wants.
It’s my duty to spoil a little girl who lost her daddy to a cause neither of us truly believed in.
It’s my job to be the father figure that was stolen from her.
That’s not to say Gord and I didn’t believe in cleaning up our streets and running the dealers out of town. But fucked if either of us was prepared to lose him to the cause. Neither of us would let him die and force a little girl into this life she’s in now.
