Steel Country Boxset

by Fields, MJ

  My fists clench at my sides.

  “She’s usually a throw in for your type. Rich, too much money to spend, so they want you to keep coming back for more.”

  My body tenses and my clenched fists start to shake.

  “If I remember correctly, her teeth scrape.” He laughs, and everything goes black.

  When light returns, I am being pulled off of Razor by none other than the fucking hero—my big brother, Gage.

  “What the fuck are you doing! Garrett, what the fuck!”

  I see Razor’s face as he spits out a mouthful of blood. His lip is cut, nose bleeding, and his eye is already starting to swell. He deserves it. Deserves everything I unleashed on him for what he said about her.

  “He—”

  Razor hold his hand up and shakes his head. “My bad, man. Thought he was someone else.”

  “Bullshit! What the fuck happened, Garrett?” Gage asks, shaking me.

  I look at Razor, who shakes his head then walks away.

  “I’ll stay on my side of the track, rich boy. You just stay on yours.”

  “Garrett?”

  I pull away from Gage. “Guy asked me for money.”

  Gage looks at me, shocked, then like he doesn’t believe me.

  He shouldn’t.

  “Jesus, just leave me alone,” I snap, walking toward my car.

  From behind me, he calls out, “Stay the fuck away from here, Garrett. People like him are bad news. And this place—”

  “Yeah, I know,” I yell over my shoulder.

  - Snitches get stitches. Stay the fuck away from me, and stay the fuck away from my dealers, or your rich ass will be sorry. RZ

  I stare at the text for hours. My dealer is now an enemy, and the girl...the girl, she’s either being abused or it’s by choice, and I want to fucking know. I sure as fuck won’t ask him. I don’t want him to know I give a damn. And I do. I do for so many fucking reasons.

  I wait until dark, pacing back and forth in my bedroom, probably wearing a patch in the carpet, so I can sneak out and get answers. Hell, I will demand them.

  When the clock says eleven, I walk into my bathroom and open the window. I climb out onto the oak tree that I am thankful hasn’t been cut down in one of Mom’s landscaping rampages. Once down on the ground, I rush to my car that is parked on the side of the road.

  It takes twenty minutes to get from my house to hers. So fucking close, yet its difference is night and day. She and I are night and day.

  I park in front of the thugs’ house tonight. The three guys are standing on the porch, same as yesterday.

  I run my hands over my face, and then step out. Am I nervous? Fuck yes. But they will never know.

  At six-two, I am never carded for smokes. Hell, sometimes I’m not even carded for beer, but that’s not my drug of choice. Alcohol doesn’t chase demons; it brings them up close and personal, so rarely do I bother.

  I hear them snicker and say shit under their breath about me, making this too damn easy as I round the front of the vehicle.

  “Touch these wheels, and you’ll answer to me first, then Deeds,” I say in a deep, threatening tone, using the name of the man that Juliana gave me last night, the one who buys hot cars and strips or sells them.

  “Oh shit,” one whispers.

  “Safe here, brother,” the biggest one calls out.

  “We’ll make damn sure of it,” another says to my back.

  I walk to the porch, making sure I am really fucking careful where I step so I don’t fall through another one of those dilapidated, old, rundown, shithole of the house’s steps.

  I look around for her, for Juliana, but I don’t see her. I get annoyed, angry. No, I get pissed thinking she’s inside. I fucking wish she was out here. I wish she was out here and telling me to get her the hell out of here again. I would take her somewhere nice, not fucking McDonalds or Taco Bell. I would take her...

  I stop when the door opens and a scrawny-ass man opens it.

  “Who the hell are you and what do you want?”

  Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  I didn’t even consider how this would go down, just her. I only considered her.

  Thinking quickly, I pull out a wad of cash, all Benjamins, and tell him, “Deeds said I could get some Blueys.”

  He scowls at me, looking me up and down, not saying shit.

  “No? Fine, I can go elsewhere.” I start to turn and walk away when his voice stops me.

  “Shit. No, man. Come in. Any friend of Deeds’ is a friend of mine.”

  I turn back, and he steps inside, opening the door wider.

  I hesitate for a moment. Am I really going to do this shit, walk into a fucking dealer’s house with no one at my back? Not like you can ask your brothers, dipshit. And it’s not like you have any fucking friends, I answer myself.

  I walk in, keeping my head up.

  The place reeks of smoke, cigarettes, and pot, plus something else unfamiliar.

  “Maria, we got company!” he yells then turns to me, motioning me toward a couch that looks like the last time it saw a good day was back before my mom was born. It’s stained, and I legit have to force myself to sit on the disgusting fucking thing.

  A woman comes out. She looks Latino, like Juliana. But this bitch is almost lifeless. Her cheeks are sunken in, making me assume she has no teeth.

  I run my tongue over mine, hoping life doesn’t get so fucking bad I lose my shit, too.

  Her eyes are shallow, hollow, and clearly fucked up. Her pupils are dilated so big I can’t tell if she has the same color as Juliana’s. They are black.

  “Should I get the girl?” Her words are so slurred I can barely make them out.

  He looks at me with question in his eyes.

  I nod.

  He chuckles and nods. “She’s busy right now, but you give it ten minutes, and she’s all yours.”

  I want to reach across the room and take his throat in my hands, choke the life out of him, but that would get me nowhere, and clearly, it’s not just me, her, and two fucking soulless pieces of shit in this roach infested shithole. Who knows who else is in the room with her?

  He pushes his ass up out of the black recliner that sits crooked. “You said Blueys. You sure you don’t want something stronger? Got some good stuff in tonight from our people in the mountains.”

  “Blueys.” I nod.

  “Blueys it is, then. Give me a few minutes.”

  He leaves the old bitch in the room with me and walks into another.

  She leans against the wall. “You know you ain’t got to wait for her. I can scratch that itch you have, boy.”

  My stomach turns.

  “Been doing it a helluva lot longer than she has.”

  The man walks out with a bottle in his hand. “He don’t want your old ass. He wants a young one.”

  “I’m not too old. Thirty-two ain’t old.” She smiles, and now I am going to puke. Half a mouth full of black teeth, and at thirty-two years old. Fucking sick.

  He chuckles. “Only reason I took you in was ‘cause you was knocked up. Apparently not anymore.” He sits in the recliner and looks at me. “Gotta do some good to try and even out those scales. Been livin’ in hell all my days, hoping for some heaven when I meet my Maker.”

  “Shit.” She smiles again. “You born in hell, you stay in hell. Only heaven you get is ‘tween my legs.”

  “Only reason I keep your ass here is ‘cause you give head without teeth scraping.” He laughs at his own sick joke then looks at me. “Girl still got teeth; be mindful of that, young man.”

  I look at his hand. “How much and how many?”

  “Twenty at...” He pauses and looks me over. “Twenty a pill.”

  “Four hundred dollars?”

  He looks at me. “Five for the pills and the young one.”

  I nod, knowing the price is going to go up if I say another word. Still, I can’t help it. “She comes with me”—I grab my cash and peel off six hundred dollars—”for two days.
”

  “A grand, and you can have her for three,” he says, leaning forward.

  “She got school,” the old bitch tells him. “She miss it, they gonna come knocking.”

  “A thousand, and I promise she gets to school, but you give me a whole week.”

  “Fifteen hundred, and you’ve got yourself a deal,” he says, eyeing the cash.

  I have a grand in my hand, another in my car, but I’m going to need the fucking cash to put her up somewhere. “A thousand’s all I got.”

  He looks me in the eyes and shakes his head.

  Calling his bluff, I stand. “That’s what I got.”

  “You be back for more?” he asks.

  I nod.

  “Fine, but they come knocking once, and you ain’t gettin’ her again.”

  “She’ll get to school.”

  Less than thirty seconds later, two men walk out from the back, both high and fucking smirking.

  They look at me. “Have fun with that.”

  I want to slit their throats.

  “J, you got company,” the woman calls down the hall.

  “Bitch wasn’t worth the fifty, old man,” one says as he walks by.

  The old man looks at me and smiles. “They just fucking around. Trust me; she’s worth it.”

  “I got places to go,” I sneer at him. “Get her out here.”

  I hand him the cash and grab the pills.

  When she walks out, her hair is a tangled mess, her eye makeup is halfway down her face, and her body is trembling. When she looks at me, she begins to cry.

  “J, keep your shit together. This one paid real good for you. Maybe you could actually give it up to him,” the woman whispers.

  “I don’t do that,” she half-whispers, half-hisses as she hugs her trembling body.

  “Pack a bag, J,” I tell her. “I have you for a week.”

  She looks at me in confusion, scared, and I have to force a small, hopefully reassuring smile on my face, to which she stiffens.

  “Come on; I haven’t got all day. Grab a bag.”

  She looks at both of them as she walks back in the direction she came from. When she comes back out, she is carrying a filthy book bag and has on a tattered black coat that, to my best guess, was once a men’s pea coat.

  I turn and head toward the door, knowing that, if I don’t get the fuck out of there, I’m going to kill someone.

  When I get to my car, the thugs are leaning against it, which pisses me off.

  Chapter Five

  They’re All The Same

  (Fifteen Years Ago)

  Juliana

  “It’s your birthday,” I hear whispered through the layers upon layers of clothes and blankets piled on me to keep me warm while sleeping in the car for what seems like forever.

  Although I am frozen to the bone, I smile, knowing what that means.

  “Donalds?” My voice cracks when I say it.

  “Yes, Juliana, McDonalds.”

  “The one with the slide?” I ask as I pull the blanket from my face and look up at my mom, then just in her twenties.

  “Of course,” she says.

  She’s beautiful. Her hair is in braided pigtails; her eyes are like mine, the lightest brown; and her lips are big.

  “Now?” I ask as my eyes adjust to the light I had just exposed them to.

  “First a walk.” She smiles a sad kind of smile.

  “Bottles?” I ask.

  “The more bottles, the more Happy Meals. The more Happy Meals, the more treasures.”

  I smile big, because birthdays are my favorites. No rumbling angry belly, lots of rides down the slide, and lots of treasures.

  Ten Years Ago…

  “This one will be different.” Mom smiles with her mouth, not her eyes, as she pulls the car up a few feet to the car in front of us. “Roland is a nice man.”

  I smile back, wanting to make her happy, but I don’t believe her. I want to tell her I would rather be cold and my belly rumbling than stay here at night. Would rather hear her cries, some sad, some something else that I don’t know, but it doesn’t sound happy.

  When she opens the door to the big, fancy car, smoke rolls out and he smiles at me. I don’t like his smile, and I don’t know why.

  “Hello, Juliana. I hear you like McDonalds. Let’s go get something to eat.”

  “No,” I say immediately.

  “Juliana,” Mom whispers in an effort to hush me.

  “No?” he asks, his big, stupid smile fading.

  “Burger King,” I tell him, hoping he gets mad so we can go back to the big gym with the hard beds and all the people like us.

  He doesn’t get mad. He laughs.

  “The little one wants a crown, Maria.”

  She laughs back, though it’s not a laugh like she gives me. It’s weird.

  “You know girls,” she says.

  He looks at me, his smile different, then he looks at her and winks. “You know I do. And you know I know how to treat them, right, baby?”

  I immediately feel sick to my belly. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s because I’m going to hate Burger King and the crown Roland is promising.

  Seven Years Ago…

  Last night, I had the best day of my life.

  From as far back as I can remember, birthdays were my favorite days. Everything was special, Mom was mostly clear-eyed, and we would go to McDonalds, one with an indoor playground. I would get a Happy Meal, and inside was a toy. It was always the best gift ever...until Roland.

  This year, my seventeenth birthday, she didn’t even remember. But as luck, Fate—whatever those people who dare to dream believe in—I met a boy, Garrett Falcon, and he took me to McDonalds. I got a Happy Meal, and he thought it was funny, so I laughed, too. Then he ordered one.

  We ate. We even went on the playground until we got kicked out, which made us both laugh again. Then we went to Taco Bell. I had never been there before. It was good. So good that I think I will go again next year.

  He asked me lots of questions about what I like. I told him I like school, which is true. It’s the only place I don’t feel like I will be whored out to some junkie at any moment for Roland and Maria.

  How funny is it that school is my sanctuary? No one likes school. Everyone complains about it.

  When I am having a brave day—a day when my hair isn’t a mess, a day that I have the luxury of a shower before school, with soap, and no worry I will have to fight off any of Roland’s “clients,” a day when my clothes are clean, a day when I don’t have to hide in the library, a day I can be someone I’m not—those days, I even laugh at some of their jokes. And sometimes, on my pretty days, they laugh with mine, and not at me.

  Yesterday was better than even the best day of my life. It was more special than any day ever. In fact, it was the best birthday of my life, and he didn’t even know it.

  He wasn’t like all the other men I have met. He was different.

  I fell asleep last night for the first time with a smile on my face.

  That smile is now gone, however.

  He is no different.

  I am following him to his stupid fancy car with a bag packed for a week because he paid. He paid for me!

  I want to scream, I thought you were different! Instead, I bat away tears as I follow him.

  When I get to the car, he’s standing there with the door open, his back to the thugs. Stupid white boy move.

  “You got yourself a piece of ass, man?” I hear Angel say.

  Garrett turns and grabs him by the collar.

  I stop, ready to run, knowing that, at any moment, one of the three will pull out a gun, and he...he will be gone.

  “You fucking talk about her like that again, you see someone looking to fuck her, you better fucking handle it, you hear me!” he yells, pushing Angel against the hood of the car.

  “Fuck, man. Yeah, I hear you,” Angel says, raising his hands in defeat, a move I have never witnessed from him.

  “You see tha
t place, that shithole over there?” Garrett releases one of his hands and points at Roland’s. “There are enough whores on the street that are of fucking age. This girl, whether I’m here or not, she’s protected, you got me?”

  “Yeah, man, of course. Man, don’t tell Deeds we knew. Don’t tell him,” Angel nearly begs.

  Garrett releases him and steps back. “You make damn sure she’s fine when I drop her back here, and I won’t say shit. That place goes up in flames, you let the fucker burn.” Again, he turns his back. Stupid, stupid rich boy.

  I wait for the loud sound of a gunshot in terror.

  “Get in the fucking car, J,” he snaps at me.

  I don’t move.

  “Right fucking now!”

  I jump when he yells and hurry to the car.

  “You fucking tell her, man,” one of them jokes as I start to get in the car.

  “You shut the fuck up!” he spits as he starts to move toward him.

  I grab his elbow, stopping him from making a bigger mistake.

  “Please, just get me out of here,” I whisper as a plea, for me and for him.

  His body loses some of its tension as he looks back at me, his eyes soften, and he nods.

  When he gets in the car, he peels out, gripping the wheel harder. His tension has returned, and I know I should be afraid, yet I’m not.

  He turns the corner and heads in the direction of those damn golden arches.

  “What do you want?” he mumbles as he pulls in.

  “Taco Bell,” I answer, the tears beginning to fall again. “I want Taco Bell.”

  He jerks the wheel, and we are back on the road.

  I wipe away my tears as he pulls up to the Taco Bell and orders without asking me what I want. Sweet tea, he orders sweet tea like I did last night. That...That makes me start crying again.

  He looks at me, then quickly away, running his hands through his hair and letting out a slow, held-in breath.

  “Thirty-two fifty-four,” the girl at the window says.

  “Shit right?” he asks, reaching over toward me. When I tense, he notices and pulls his hand back. “Juliana, grab me some cash out of the glove box.”

  I open it and see a huge pile of money. I look at him, wondering where the hell he got it all. Then I remember he came for drugs. I hate drugs.