Chapter 5
Orchid, Hero’s most trusted girl-product, pressed her fingers into his shoulders. “You so tense. Do you want another beer, baby?”
He didn’t. What he wanted was something different. Something different from all of this, but this was all he knew. This was, he thought amusedly, his comfort zone. He thought of Olivia’s firm breasts and grating attitude.
“No thank you,” he said, trying to enjoy the soothing pressure of Orchid’s fingertips. Having a good looking woman at your beckoned call was satisfying, in a dry sort of way.
The door opened. “Hero!” A four-year-old, her pig-tails bouncing the beat of her girlish run, frantically crossed the wood floor to Hero’s chair. “Hey—hey Hero!”
“Princess?” Hero’s feet planted and he rose, shaking off the confusion the girl’s presence was making him suffer through. “Hey, how you doing, sweetheart?” He managed a sudden phony smile.
Stone crashed into the room, a light frown taking him over as he looked at Pansy. Pansy, a twenty-year-old awkward prostitute, had apparently decided to bring her four-year-old daughter to a drug and alcohol-infested Blades after-party.
Hero scooped all thirty pounds of Kang’ju into his arms, the fingers of her plastic ballerina doll lightly scratching his wrist.
“Hey Hero! Hey Hero! My mommy bought me a coloring book!” She popped with tiny of explosions of childish enthusiasm. “It has fairies in it!”
Pansy made an attempt at control, sitting the book next to a box of crayons. “Come here, princess, why don’t you sit over here and color? Grown-ups gotta do grown-up business.”
“But I just don’t wanna,” pouted Kang’ju, her bottom lip protruding from her tiny face. “I just don’t wanna do that. Hey, Hero? I colored a girl who looks like a flower, and, and, flowers have wings just like fairies do!”
“Flowers don’t have wings, they have petals,” said Hero. “Now come on, do like your mom says and color, alright? You be good.” He tapped her behind and she scurried across the room.
“I wanna be good,” muttered Kang’ju, taking her place at the table. She opened the book and scribbled color into blank spaces. “Hey, Hero! I’m coloring!”
Hero turned his head and Stone had already planted himself at his boss’s side. Hero’s voice was low and stern. “Look over the house and get all substances out of sight. If I see as much as a joint, heads are gonna roll, got it?”
“Got it.” And Stone did his job.
In the kitchen, Hero tried to get caught up in some trivial conversation over beers, but focus wouldn’t leave Kang’ju. She was being good, as she always was, coloring and fidgeting with her doll, off in another world. Ace was talking, but Hero’s brain processes were so far away from his brother that he didn’t create meaning out of the words. He had no idea where Pansy had run off to.
“Why is she talking to herself?” Hero took a swig of his beer.
Ace switched to Hero’s gear. “She ain’t talking to herself.”
“Then who she talking to?”
“She’s just playing, Hero. Maybe that’s why you such a clusterfuck of psychoses, you didn’t do enough playing as a kid.”
“Fuck you, I played. I played 8th Block dodge ball. We called it dodge bullet.”
“Well I’ll be goddamned, Hero Vem, you so damaged and mysterious. No wonder you attract such upstanding women. Speaking of which, where’s your little snow bunny?”
“You mean your punching bag?”
“Fuck you, ain’t my fault you got a schoolboy crush on a freak.”
Hero headed toward the stairs and Ace followed.
“What?” called Ace. “Where you going?”
“I felt the strangest urge to not be in the same room as you anymore,” said Hero, headed for the stairs. “I gotta talk to Wildcard.” Naturally, he couldn’t make it past Kang’ju without being bombarded with ‘Hey, Hero!’ and a picture she had colored just for him. It ended up on the fridge before Hero made it to his first step up the staircase.
“Whoa, whoa, hold up.” Ace was at Hero’s side, and in a wicked hurry, Mixer appeared at the foot of the stairs as well.
“Hey, Hero!” said Mixer. Hero was already exhausted with the phrase. “You was out so late, man! What was keeping ya?”
“Something I saw on the security monitors,” said Hero. “But right now I really need to speak with Wildcard.”
“Wildcard already drank too much and the fool is passed the fuck out,” said Ace. “Fucking dumbass. He may be a dumb shit, but isn’t he a nice guy? Always the life of the party, ain’t he Mixer?”
“That’s right,” nodded Mixer. “You give that guy a hundred bucks, ten years later he still gonna have your hundred bucks, that’s just the kind of guy he is. I love that guy. Don’t you, Ace?”
“Damn straight,” said Ace. “My best friend, til the day I die.”
“Right,” said Hero. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” said Ace. “The fool’s out of it. Can’t it wait until tomorrow?”
Hero searched their faces. It didn’t take long for him to find on them what he was looking for. “I’ll only be a second.” Without allowing any further interruption, not even another ‘Hey, Hero!’ from Kang’ju, he marched up the stairs and opened the door to Wildcard’s room.
He greeted two heated bodies, barely clothed in underwear, legs entwined, wrapped in disturbed sheets. Wildcard and Seneka were seated, facing one another, and both their reddened faces turned to Hero in unison, gripped with mortal terror.
“Hero,” said Wildcard. “You’re home—uh—I can explain.”
Hero said nothing for a long, few seconds. He looked at Wildcard, then to his sister, then back to his soldier. He sighed. “Please don’t fuck her when I’m home. I don’t want to hear it.” He could feel the sneer forming on his lip. “For fuck’s sake, get dressed. Kang’ju is here.” And he closed the door.
Ace and Mixer remained on the landing, saying nothing as Hero began his descent. There was nothing to say yet.
Once out of Kang’ju’s sight, Hero grabbed his pipe and weed and joined the black night, taking a seat alone under the gazebo and looking across his flowers. He sucked in a few long, deep, calming hits, and focused on the soothing embrace of the gently moving air. The smoke from his lips performed a lovely fractal ballet against the empty atmosphere.
Stone entered the serene scene, making his way to Hero’s side. “Hey, you alright?”
Hero exhaled, looking nowhere. “Yes.”
“So you alright with the whole Seneka and Wildcard thing? ‘Cause I think it’s a good thing. I mean nobody knows more about what happens to guys who fuck with your sister more than Wildcard. He knows what could happen to him if he fucks this up. So he must be for real then, right?”
Hero didn’t say anything.
“I mean, wouldn’t you rather her be with one of your own boys?”
Hero made a face at him.
“I mean than one of them project motherfuckers, or the damn posers at Lanka?” Stone added. “Wannabe shot-callers, stuffing their child support payments down her G-string, with credit scores as low as their IQs? In her line of work, where the fuck is she gonna meet somebody? What, you want her to be alone the rest of her life?”
“If I wanted to discuss this with you I would have brought it up. Why the fuck is Kang’ju here?”
“Pansy couldn’t get a sitter.”
“Why the fuck is Pansy here then?”
“You know you’d rather them girls be here than 8th Block,” said Stone, but he thought better of the statement a second afterward. “Sorry. Let me know if you need anything. Or want anything, you know, whatever. You know I got you.”
Stone turned away, but Hero lifted his hand to Stone’s wrist. “Wait. I do need you.”
Stone looked back. “What’s up?”
Hero raised his face, his lips giving a subtle but clear pout, his eyes glowing with the slightest hint of distress. He silently called to his friend, his honest need shining out from him. He was hurt. “Stone, Crash is betraying the Blades.”
“What?” He sat next to Hero. “What’s he done?”
“He’s been stretching his bliss and dealing it through the ladies room at the club,” said Hero. “I got a tip, and it was on point.”
“What tip? Who gave you the tip?”
“Don’t matter,” said Hero. He looked to his friend. “I need you to go to 8th Block and find out what he’s been cutting his bliss with and everyone who’s in on it.”
“No problem. What if he won’t talk?”
“For every time he denies you,” said Hero. “Break a bone.” He took another hit. “If you need to, break the motherfucker in half.”
Stone nodded. “You got it.”
Hero finished the rest of his bowl looking into the house through the window. Kang’ju colored peacefully, and Olivia never came for him.
She turned the corner to do some straightening in the men’s section, and poof, her fantasies suffered from bizarre reality bleed-through trauma. There he was.
“How long have you worked here?” asked Hero as he sifted through belts.
“How the hell did you even know I worked here?”
“I’m a pretty resourceful guy,” said Hero, walking away from the accessories to continue clocking her. “So how long?”
“A few days. I just graduated.” She kept her face pointed at the Monarchy and Salvage T-shirts in front of her.
“Did you grow up in Westcliff? Your parents live there?”
“Uh, yes…?” She turned away to focus on her task, but he just followed her.
“What do your parents do?”
She looked up at him. “What?”
“What do they do? For a living? What, they into the ballet shit too? What?”
“Stop interrogating me. I have to get back to work, these hundred dollar T-shirts won’t fold themselves.”
“I ain’t interrogating you, woman, I’m just asking you some questions, what’s wrong with that?”
“Hero, calm down.”
“What? I’m just asking.”
She smiled a devilish, smug smile. “You found out something about Crash, didn’t you?”
He rolled his eyes and shifted his weight away from her. This new battle was one that she had apparently won.
“I was right, wasn’t I? About what he was up to?”
“Where did you work before you worked here? Did you work at a club?”
She kept folding. “What are you trying to find out? Sounds like a job interview, is that what this is?”
“No. Yes! Yes, it’s a job interview, for a very important job.”
“I already have a job, as you can see, but I won’t have it for very long if you don’t get the hell out of here.”
“Just hear me out, I got a good offer for you with great benefits.”
She put the shirt down. “Like what?”
“Well, for one, you’ll get into all the hottest events in the city. Concerts, premieres, grand openings. Whatever. You name it.”
“Eh, no thanks.”
“Wait! You’ll be respected. Envied. Even feared. Wherever you go.”
“Hmm… That sounds pretty sweet. What’s the catch?”
“There ain’t no catch.”
“But what do you want me to do?”
He looked around the room as if he were being watched.
“Come on, what’s the job? I’m not going to patrol your bathrooms, if that’s where this is going.”
“I don’t want you to watch my damn bathrooms.”
“Then what the hell do you want?”
He moved his tongue around in his mouth as if he were forming his words in advance, and he moved his body up and down, bouncing his weight on his toes. If she hadn’t known any better, she would have thought she was looking at a scared little schoolboy about to ask the head cheerleader to prom.
She leaned into him, raising her eyebrows, waiting for an answer.
He looked at her. “Go to dinner with me.”
“What!?”
“I want to take you to dinner.”
“You’re joking.”
“Was that funny?” His face opened, making his almond eyes turn into orbs. He pressed his lips together. “Come on, let me take you out.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Excuse me?”
“I said no.”
A frown cut into his face. “Women don’t say no to me.”
“That’s because you’re too chicken shit to ask questions, you rely on the assumption close. Are you asking me out or are you commanding me out?”
“I’m asking you.”
“Then my answer is no.”
“Are you playing games?”
“No, I’m not. You’re an egomaniacal, patronizing dickhead and my answer is no.”
“You’re being real unfair.”
“No, I’m not. You were a jerk to me.”
“You were a jerk to me first,” Hero pointed out. “I tried to buy you a drink, which you didn’t accept, and a few hours later you’re in bed with my brother two doors down from me in my own damn house! What was I supposed to do, huh? Wheel out the welcome wagon and shower you with confetti next time I saw you come round? Ace hasn’t even washed the sheets he nailed you on yet, sorry I ain’t been a big shiny beacon of friendliness to you.”
She looked down and decided not to tell Hero that Ace had ‘nailed her’ on the floor. “Why are you asking me out?”
“I’m not asking you out like asking you out. It ain’t like that. I’m asking you out because I want to discuss something with you and this ain’t the place to do it.”
“Come on. Before I was a soulless aristocratic harpy. What changed?”
His body sank a little as he exhaled, but he straightened his shoulders. “Nothing. Not a goddamn thing has changed. You’re still a bitch, I’m still a stubborn, patriarchal asshat, but this is your one shot. You want trouble? I’ll give you all the trouble you could ever want. Go to dinner with me.”
She kept folding—one more repetitive movement of dry, thin cotton. She pictured the next spoiled, 20-something blueblood that was going to stampede through and destroy her good work. “So, you need me.”
“I don’t need you.”
“Yes, you do,” she said, her impatience tightening her jaw. “Admit to me that you need me, that you’re not invincible. That even someone like you needs somebody sometimes.”
His eye twitched. “No.”
“Then go home.”
Amused but bemused, Olivia watched Hero walk out the door. What a child, she thought, and she continued her work wishing to God she could get him out of her head.
As he attempted to lift himself, he put all his weight on his ‘okay’ hand, but judging by the damage his face had done to his toilet boil, he was afraid to move his jaw—he felt fear. Fear was an emotion that Crash had been unburdened of since the time he had spent in prison for the Blades. He thought that prison life had beaten the ability to have that feeling right out of his brain, just like it had done with love and self-respect.
“Come on, nigga!” Crash had said to Stone after the second bone broke. “You give me the bliss, I give you the money, everybody’s happy! Who gives a fuck if I stretch it, man? I’m just supplementing my income!”
“You’re selling drugs under the Blades name that ain’t approved by Hero,” explained Stone. “You want to sell your own bliss? Get your own supplier, get the fuck out of the Grove, and cut that tattoo out of your chest.”
Good point. What had the Blades ever done for Crash that he couldn’t do for himself? Fuck them. Fuck Stone, fuck Hero, fuck Kai’lah, fuck the code, fuck the Dragon-Blade rivalry.
But most of all, fuck the snow bunny – the bitch who spotted Carni in the bathroom, the girl who surely ratted him out. That scrawny white cunt was about to learn to mind her own business.
“Hey!”
Olivia’s daydream got hit dead-on by a verbal semi as Taylor, the guy from lingerie, approached the station with a slight skip in his step. His bleached hair was gelled into a series of two-inch lemon colored weapons, and the pinkness of his cheeks was still visible under evening’s dulling light.
“Yo, you roll with the Asians?” he asked. “Sorry, I wanted to ask you about it in the shop, but, you know, north of the freeway, Sequoia Grove doesn’t exist, you know?”
“I definitely know.”
“Can you hook me up?”
“Hook you up with what?”
“Bliss,” said Taylor, handing her a crisp hundred dollar bill. “As much as you can get with this. See if you can get a gram out of him, would you?”
Blink. Blink. “You want me to help you get drugs?”
“I normally get it through Crash, do you know Crash? Anyway, he’s not answering his phone. Just bring it to work with you, okay? Thanks. I appreciate it.”
“Hey, wait—”
“Thanks again, Olivia! You’re the best! See you tomorrow.”
Olivia looked down at the money in her hand. Red line. Blue line. Red line. Red line…
Well, she thought, fuck. She put the money in her purse.
Tags: Ace, Crash, Crash's Point of View, Hero, Hero's Point of View, Kang'ju, Mixer, Olivia's Point of View, Orchid, Pansy, Seneka, Stone, Wildcard
[...] hope you all enjoy what I’ve tried to accomplish with the new chapter 5 – you should find it’s a vast improvement from the original, and you may even notice some old [...]
Thanks to my dear friend Midori and the fact that I can no longer take Xiah Junsu seriously anymore, I was unable to read this for about an hour, but I still managed to work it in right before I hit the hay. Anyways, thank you for leaving the whole Seneka bursting out with love bit, but why couldn’t you somehow manage to work the frying pan part in? XD That like made my night the last time. (Told you I’d be back
) And although this is so random, Mixer and Ace trying to keep Hero from seeing Wildcard made me choke on my Sweettarts. -_-”
I pretty much loved that. I love the banter between Olivia and Hero. It’s amazing and it always makes me smile.
I still wonder where you’re going with Hero/Stone….?
Can’t wait for the next update!
yeah…notice some scenes from the previous one though i think i like the waiting hero did in the other one…lol…don’t know why.
and yes, liked the change in the wildcard and seneka scene a lot better than the “little mermaid like” scene you had before.
i guess it’s the red line for her next chapter!
Hani — The frying pan bit was just too cheesy! To ridiculous, Hero would never do that, I can’t believe I wrote it to begin with. Funny, yes, but this chapter’s “dodge bullet” line and things of the like are more the CT sense of humor. Glad the Mixer/Ace thing made ya laugh, though.
Shepardlover — good question. XD
tEpAj — what do you mean, the waiting Hero did?
omg I just love the interaction between Hero and Olivia. It’s really weird, usually when I read, I distance myself as much as possible from the main character, but here, I feel like I really am Olivia, and I can’t do anything about it ^^
A prostitute named Pansy??! Made me crack up so hard for some reason xD My mom is now 100% sure that I’m insane. I wouldn’t be surprised if I ended up in a mental institution by next week. But hey, who cares, as long as I have access to Internet & CT
heh. i think..this was a huge improvement from the previous CT. it’s much more mature and realistic. like how olivia already knows that they are drugdealers (she does right? lol) rather than her being super surprised last time around. love the argument between them too
I didn’t get the blue line, red line thing.. .__. What is that? Should I re-read? XD
I think this version of chapter 5 is definately better. The fryingpan incident seemed a little off, since Hero is the coldest and calmest person ever. Other than maybe Stone. I still laughed at how he dealed with it, though XD Love how you pieced everything together, and how you didn’t go cliché and have Hero give in to Olivia’s demands
Kang’ju is adorable~~ <3
momirotan – If you didn’t get the blue line, red line thing, re-read the middle of chapter 1, right after the sword. Thanks for the kind words — yeah, as funny as the frying pan thing was, it was out of character for Hero.
fae – yeah, i mean she saw what Crash was up to at the club, so of course she’s not stupid about what goes on at Club Lanka. Glad you liked the new version.
Leelath – yeah, you’ll notice Hero’s “girls” all have flower names. We’ve met Orchid and Pansy, and soon we’ll meet Rose. He’s got a thing about flowers…
Hey Lindsay, you’re back! Merci beaucoup! I’m happy to read your work and see your talent!
Seriously, Olivia is going to meet that guy?! While he wants her death? Yaaa, that’s exciting. Isn’t what she was looking for?
This chapter is scary. It seems like there’s not a lot of action but I can feel that something is coming.
Hero looks like he’s planning something in his mind, and that makes me worry. Kind of suspensfull.
Omo, the way he talks about his Seneka knowing that she’s here is so humiliating.
The end of the chapter is terrifying! I like it
Ah I want to know if there will be misunderstood about that, if Hero is gonna see her approching Crash.. treason leads to human craziness…
Well, now I can’t wait to read the next chapter.
I’m happy that your hiatus helped you to come back stronger! Please don’t leave us again! lol
i like this chapter a whole lot more than the previous one. “Fuck you, I played. I played 8th Block dodge ball. We called it dodge bullet.” is going to be my favorite quote from now on. makes me kinda wish i grew up in the ghetto so i could use that line.
as for Crash, i can’t wait to see what that dumbass is going to do. he’s going to end up with more than just a sawed off toe and a f*cked up jaw if he goes after Olivia.
hey!! like it better this chapter 5, i’m always extra happy to read you!!! thank you
I had to re-read the 1st capter to understand the red line, blue line thing… I get it now ^^ thank you! and I love the way Hero and Olivia interact, I like this Olivia a lot. Is not like “oh Hero, a drug dealer!?” she knows what’s going on, or at least she have a hint. I wonder what’s going to happend with the Hero/Stone thing too…
This is AWESOME! you are awesome! I can’t wait for the next chapter!
When i finally got the time to check my e-mail, i checked chasing taboo first, and boy am i pleased. Although the frying pan part was funny, this new chapter 5 doesn’t disappoint. Love it!