Something banging against the metal bars of my cell woke me. Opening my eyes I looked around me, shocked I had fallen asleep standing up. My cell was big enough for a child-size bed that took up ninety percent of the room and a metal bowl that acted as a toilet.

  The bed was been occupied by one Killer Mike.

  Mike was an interesting character who never spoke but merely stared at me. The name was tattooed across his neck with a blade dripping with blood underneath it. Whenever I moved his eyes would follow me like a dog waiting for its owner to throw their stick. I had taken a place against the far wall, as far away from him as I could, and I watched him as he watched me. I must have fallen asleep at some point because waking up now, I saw he still stared at me as he had done hours prior.

  “Time for you to go,” said the guard who had banged against the bars.

  I looked at him in relief.

  “You’re lucky to be alive if I’m honest; old Mike here doesn’t like sharing his cell with others. You see the dark stain on the wall behind you?”

  I turned around and noticed a large dark stain where the back of my head had been.

  “Well, that’s the brain matter left after old Mike here smashed his last cellmate’s head against the wall; he must have really liked you.”

  I watched the cell door open before me with a feeling of relief. Walking forward I stopped and turned to Mike. “Thank you.”

  His eyes widened in surprise, and then he gave me the slightest of nods.

  I turned back around and allowed the officer to escort me through the building until we reached a set of double doors, which brought us to the front of the building.

  “Your ride’s over there,” said the officer, gesturing to a smoky grey electric car that had been fashioned after a 1967 Ford Mustang.

  I allowed a sigh to escape my lips as I made the walk to the car. My eyes darted left to right looking for a means to escape but I was tired.

  Tired and fed up of being chased, beaten, tortured and lied to.

  I just wanted to lay my head down on a soft pillow and dream away my problems. Every step I took towards the car hurt, my muscles and bones creaked and popped as I tried my best to get my body working properly.

  “Look who it isn’t!” said Willis as he leaned out of the back window of the car.

  I stopped next to the car and saw expressions on faces that ranged from anger, disappointment and worry to amusement.

  “Thanks for helping us out after the car crashed,” Willis continued, getting out of the car and poking me in the chest. “I see you had time to save your ass, but no time to fucking help us out.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Help save you! You! The people who kidnapped me against my will. You! The people who ruined my life so I can never go back to what it used to be. Why the should I help you assholes when this is your fault?”

  “Oh, here we go again. Bringing up old shit! Get over it. What has happened has happened, but it was pretty unchristian of you to leave us like that.

  “If it weren’t for my quick thinking and cat-like reflexes then that dick weasel Arun would have had us for sure.”

  “Errr—quick thinking and cat-like reflexes?” Tuari said, stroking his chin. “You mean praying to your God and trying not to shit yourself?”

  “I was praying for God to give me the strength to lift your fat ass up, while you were half-dazed and slumped over the steering wheel.”

  “I was faking,” Tuari whispered to me not so subtly behind his hand.

  “You what!” said Willis.

  “And the fart I gave when you pushed my ass out of the window... intentional,” Tuari said, whispering the last word.

  Willis’s face went red as his hands clutched and unclutched at his sides. “My. Mouth. Was. Open.”

  Tuari burst into laughter as Willis chased him around the car park. Tuari was surprisingly nimble for a man of his size.

  “So,” José said, yellow-tinted glasses showing me my reflection, “you look like shit, and smell like it too.”

  “Thanks.”

  “I can see you’ve been through some shit, but at least you’re alive and kicking, hombre.”

  I nodded my head not knowing what to say.

  “What you did back at the car crash was pretty messed up, my man. Pretty messed up and selfish. How many times have we saved your life since and you just left us like that? If you want to stay in this crew then there are a few rules you must adhere to. First—”

  “Hold up,” I said, lifting my hand in the air to stop him, “who said anything about wanting to join your crew?”

  José tilted his head to the side as Poppy giggled behind her hand while she leaned against the car.

  “You were in jail and you called us to get your bitch ass out; you have nowhere to go, and nowhere to stay. If you had someone from the civilian world you could rely on then they would be here already, but seeing as you don’t, you called us to come to the rescue.

  “We had to pay a lot of money to that corrupt cop in there so we could get you out, more money than normal because he knows we have a deal with The Lady, a deal you told him about, so now we are out of pocket before the job has even been completed. Which means you now owe us, and seeing as you don’t have any money to pay us back, you’ll have to work it off till the debt is cleared.”

  “Will this do?” I said, pulling the data-stick out of my back pocket.

  José pulled out a handkerchief from his breast pocket and used it to cover his hands before he took the stick from me. “I know where this has been,” he said, putting the stick up to the light.

  “You sure this is the data-stick Xcorp gave you to deliver?”

  “I’m sure, trust me I’m sure.”

  He continued to inspect the stick before wrapping it in the handkerchief and passing it to Poppy.

  “Why now, mi amigo, after all this time,” he said, Spanish accent rolling over me, “did you decide to give this up? After everything we went through? I was sure I would have to get the ginger man to cut you open to get it.”

  I thought back to waking up in a cold bed and making sure the children I thought were mine were looked after because their mother wasn’t home. I thought about how I worked my ass off in a job that offered me very little, for a company now trying to kill me because I might affect their bottom line by a fraction of a percent. I thought about the emotionless words of Gregory, and how he cared very little if I lived or died, but worse of all I thought about the beating I had taken and how my body still screamed with every movement I made.

  “I’ve... it doesn’t matter. But will that do, will the stick be enough to clear my debt?”

  “It’s a start,” José said, smiling my way, as he whistled for Tuari and Willis to get back in the car, before he jumped in the passenger’s front seat. With a roar, the engine from the car started and we took off without saying another word.