by Naomi West
“Stone, you and Gray get to work on that door over there. You two, come with me.”
The men did as Grit asked, and he headed down the hallway to the large room. Stepping into it, his jaw nearly hit the floor. It was a drug lab, all right—one of the most advanced that he’d seen in his life. The room was brightly lit, with three rows of tables packed full of drugs and drug manufacturing gear. It was like an industrial chemical lab down there, and Grit almost couldn’t believe that such a place was right below some regular strip club.
“What’s the move, boss?” asked Razor.
But before he could say a word, a pair of figures stepped out from closed doors in the lab.
Grit realized in a split-second that they were guards. And they weren’t fucking around.
Gunshots cracked through the lab, and Grit and the men took cover where they could. Lab equipment exploded all around them, sending shards of glass crashing onto the floor. Once Grit found some cover behind a desk, he took the safety off of his gun, raised it towards one of the men, and fired off a quick pair of shots. They both hit home, and the man dropped onto the floor in a heap. Killian and Razor went after the other one, bringing him down in a hail of gunfire.
“You all okay in there?” shouted Stone from down the hallway.
“Room’s clear,” responded Grit. “We good?”
Killian and Razor stood up and nodded.
His heart racing, Grit looked over the lab.
“Fucking hell of a setup,” he said. “Thousands of dollars’ worth of shit in here.”
Razor walked over to one of the tables, loaded down with drugs ready to ship.
“This is it,” he said. “This is the fucking poison.”
He picked up a packet of the powder, looked it over, and tossed it into the corner in disgust.
“I say we burn this fucking place to the ground,” said Killian. “We’ve got the gear for it; what’re we waiting for?”
“No fucking way,” said Grit. “You see all these fucking chemicals here? We set this place on fire and we’ll send all this shit into the air. All this poison.”
“Then what the fuck’re we gonna do?” asked Razor. “Just smash the place up and send ’em a message? They’ll have this joint up and running in a week.”
Grit thought the situation over. Then, he had an idea.
“I saw this documentary once about how they’d seal up mines way back in the day. See, you don’t want to just blow the place—you’ll just fuck everything up that way. All you really need to do to make the place inaccessible is to smash up the entrance tunnels. The rock collapses in on itself, and no one’s fucking getting in there, even if the network underground is still intact.”
“And what’s that got to do with all this?” asked Razor.
Before he could say a word, Stone and Gary returned to the room, each carrying a loaded-up bag.
“Jackpot, boss,” said Stone. “Must’ve just hit ’em before they had a chance to sock away cash from a recent buy. Must be hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Razor punched the air in victory.
“Fuck, yeah!” he said. “Loot the fuckers, trash the lab, leave ’em high and dry.”
Grit was still thinking.
“Let’s get back up top,” he said. “We’re gonna wreck this place from the outside in.”
Chapter Thirteen
Honey
Honey had raced back to her home in a daze. After she’d called the police and waited for them to arrive, telling them everything she knew about Bethany’s death, she’d felt like she was in some sort of terrible, terrible dream. Every time she’d closed her eyes all she could picture was Bethany’s lifeless body sprawled out on the bed, her eyes glazed over and her limbs limp.
She can’t be gone, she’d thought. This isn’t happening. They’re going to take her to the hospital and they’ll find out that she was just unconscious or something. She’ll be back to normal in a few weeks.
Honey had known that thinking that way was delusional, but facing the reality of what had happened, what she had seen, was too much for her. She’d spent the day in her apartment, pacing back and forth and trying to come to grips with everything. She’d had a shift that night, but she didn’t give a damn; as far as she was concerned, her life at Fantasies had ended when her friend died.
No one from the club had called her, and Honey’d figured that they’d known that she was hardly in a mood to work. After all, news of Bethany was likely rushing through the staff.
But when midnight had rolled around, and she’d realized that sleep wasn’t an option, Honey had decided to call Charlie and figure out just what the hell he knew about what happened to Bethany. After all, he’d been the one giving her drugs, and he’d been the last one to see her alive.
“Honey!” he’d shouted through the phone. “Where the hell are you?”
“Didn’t exactly feel like working,” Honey had said, her voice calm and cold. “But I want answers. You were the last person to see Bethany alive, and I know you’d been giving her drugs. I want to know everything you know about what happened to her.
A silence had fallen over the conversation.
“We’re closing up early tonight on account of Bethany,” he’d said. “If you want to talk, meet me at the diner near the club at around two-thirty.”
“In the morning?”
“You know how this business works,” he’d said. “We don’t exactly have the luxury of regular hours.”
“Fine.”
And now the hour to meet had arrived. Honey checked her phone and saw that it was a little after two. She didn’t know exactly what she was going to say to Charlie, or how he’d react. All she knew was that she needed to find out just what kind of man Charlie was. It was all she could do.
Honey arrived at the dingy diner on the corner down the road from the club and spotted Charlie in one of the back booths. She sat down with him and stared hard at her boss, the man she thought she knew.
“What the fuck happened?” she spat out before he could say a word.
“It’s a goddamn tragedy,” said Charlie, shaking his head sadly and looking away.
“Don’t give me that bullshit,” said Honey, her words ridged with venom and rage that she didn’t know she was capable of. “I know that you’d been giving her drugs, and I know that you were the last person to see her alive. So tell me everything you know.”
“I don’t know if I like this tone from you, Honey,” he said, taking on the tone of a scolding father. “I am your boss, in case you’ve forgotten.”
“Maybe so, but I’m the one with a dead best friend, so I think at the very least I’m entitled to some answers.”
Charlie sighed, looked away, and sipped his coffee. Honey got the impression that he was preparing to tell her something that would be very difficult to say. Or, at least, he wanted it to look like it was something that’d be difficult to say.
“Bethany … well, she was troubled. You knew that, I knew that—we all did. She did her best to turn her life around and stay off drugs, but a girl like that is just an addict down to her bones. It was only a matter of time.”
Honey said nothing, instead staring hard at her boss as she tried to figure just how much of what he was saying was bullshit.
“I found out that she was using again, and it broke my heart. I asked her where she was getting her drugs from, and she didn’t even know the guy’s name. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. And I’ve been around enough users to know that going from clean to doing random drugs that you don’t know what the hell they’ve been cut with is a good way to end up OD’ing.”
“So you figured you’d do the ‘nice’ thing and give her drugs of your own.”
“I’ll come clean—we’ve been running drugs out of the basement of the club. And I’m telling you that because I know I can trust you with this information—I’ll even make it worth your while to keep it secret. I figured that if Bethany was going to be using, then at least
I could give her what I had. That way she’d be using with drugs that I knew, and she wouldn’t be shooting garbage into her veins from god-knows-where. It was all I could think of.”
“Aren’t you sweet,” said Honey.
“I was looking into rehab clinics for her,” he said. “I wanted to save her life. If she had to do a little bit until I could help her, then I figured it was better than her buying from some random shithead who didn’t give two fucks about her. But I just didn’t know how low her tolerance had gotten. When I left her that night she must’ve woken back up and shot up the rest of what she had.”
Honey crossed her arms and sat back in her seat.
“And I’m supposed to believe you?”
“Honey, you can believe whatever you want. But I tried to help Bethany in my own way, and you can think I’m a liar or you and trust me. Either way, I’ve gotta make sure that I can trust you with what I’ve just told you.”
“About the fucking drug lab that you’ve been running under my goddamn place of employment?”
“It’s just been a temporary thing. We’ve been cooking under the club while a bigger facility gets built outside of town; shouldn’t be longer than another month or two. And in the meantime, if you can keep this information to yourself, and tell the police that neither of us had anything to do with what happened to Bethany if they ask, then I can get you enough cash to make sure that you don’t have to work as a stripper ever again. Say, enough to pay for a full-ride to college, maybe?”
It was a tempting offer, and Honey didn’t know what to do.
Maybe he’s telling the truth? she thought. Maybe he was just trying to do right by Bethany, in his own fucked-up way. And that money sure would be nice, especially with the fact that she was pregnant and would need all the help she could get.
But then she remembered Grit, the father of her child. He was doing everything he could to take that place down, and if she went to him with what Charlie had just told her, he’d have enough to move in and wipe that lab off the face of the earth. She could do the right thing, and maybe patch things up with Grit in the process.
“And …” said Charlie, a small smile forming on his lips, “I know that you have other things going on in your life that you need to be worrying about.”
“What?” shot out Honey.
“Bethany let it slip the night she died,” said Charlie. “I know that you’re pregnant, and it’s with a man who you’re not exactly in a committed relationship with.”
Fuck! thought Honey. She took a deep breath, letting the fact that Charlie knew about her biggest secret wash over her.
But before she could give the matter too much thought, she saw that over Charlie’s shoulder a small group of diner patrons and employees was gathered near one of the front windows.
“What the hell is that?” said one of them.
“Is that a fire?” said another.
“I think … is that fucking Fantasies?”
Honey and Charlie shared a surprised look before shooting out of the booth and rushing towards the window. Sure enough, down the road, Honey spotted the glow of a fire in the distance. She couldn’t tell from where she stood that it was Fantasies, but it sure looked like it.
“Oh fuck!” shouted Charlie. “Fuck, fuck, fuck!”
He took off through the front doors and Honey followed after him. She ran down the road as fast as she could, and with each step it became clearer and clearer that it was, in fact, Fantasies that was on fire. The club was totally in flames, fire shooting out of the windows of the place and smoke rising into the air. Even from where Honey stood across the street, she could feel the heat from the flames on her skin.
“What the fuck happened?” shouted Charlie. “How the fuck could this have happened?”
His questions were answered as a group of figures emerged from the alley around the flaming building. Honey couldn’t tell who they were at first, but as their bulky bodies came into clearer detail through the smoke, she realized just who was behind the fire.
It was Grit and the Vandals.
Grit stepped out into the street, his eyes locked on Honey.
He did it, she thought. He actually burned the place down.
“You Charlie?” called out Grit. “Sorry about your club.”
Charlie was beside himself.
“You fucking piece of shit!” shouted Charlie over the roar of the fire. “Do you have any idea what you’ve done?”
Honey saw a smart-ass grin form on Grit’s face.
“I think I’ve got a pretty goddamn good idea,” he said. “I’m the one who started the fucking fire, after all.”
“You know how much shit you’ve just sent up into the air?” shouted Charlie.
“Not a problem,” said Grit. “We just torched the club on top of the lab. Once this place collapses, your little operation will be good and buried.”
Honey, despite everything that was happening, couldn’t help but smile. The place that had made the drugs that were responsible for so much death was now going up in flames. They’d delivered a hell of a blow to Charlie and his operation, and judging by the way that Charlie was freaking out, Honey could tell that this incident put him in a hell of a position.
But before anyone could say or do anything else, Charlie reached into the small of his back and pulled out a pistol. With lightning speed, he rushed over to Honey, grabbed her, and put the gun to her head. At first, she wasn’t quite sure what was happening, but as she felt the cold steel of the barrel pressed to her temple, she realized right away that she was being used as a human shield.
“You fuckers drop your goddamn guns now, or I swear to Christ that I’ll put a bullet through this bitch’s head!”
“Whoa!” shouted Grit, raising his hands into the air. “Don’t do anything stupid! You don’t have murder on your head yet; don’t need to make this shit any worse for yourself.”
“You have no idea just who those fucking drugs were for, do you?” Charlie shouted, his breath hot against my skin. “I’m as good as fucking dead. But I can still take your goddamn baby mama with me, you miserable fuck!”
Honey could see the anger boil in Grit’s eyes from where she stood. He wanted blood, but only the fact that Charlie seemed on a hair-trigger seemed to keep his rage at bay.
“Come with me, you bitch!”
The gun still pressed against her temple, Charlie dragged Honey down the road towards where his car was parked. She looked at Grit with a terrified expression, tears in her eyes. She’d never been so scared in her life, and she wanted nothing more at that moment than to be safe and in his arms. But there was nothing Grit could do.
“Honey!” he shouted out. “I’ll come for you, I swear it! I won’t let him lay a fucking hand on you!”
Charlie and Honey reached the car, and he opened the truck, threw her inside, and closed it tight. She heard the engine rev, and soon they were in motion. Her heart pounded with fear, and she prayed to anyone listening that Grit would come to her rescue.
Chapter Fourteen
Grit
Watching the car peel off into the distance, Grit felt more helpless than he ever had before in his life.
“Boss!” shouted Stone. “What’s the plan?”
“We get the fuck out of here, now!” he shouted. “And follow that asshole!”
The men nodded and, grabbing their gear, they rushed for the van. The building creaked and groaned, and the fire roared. Grit took one last look at the place, hoping that his plan to bring the club down on top of the lab would work. If it did, it would prevent the chemicals from getting out, and give the cops who dug it up some evidence to bring to justice anyone who was involved in that operation.
The men piled into the van and soon they were off. Grit was in the driver’s seat, and he gunned the engine and tore down the road. Charlie’s car was a sporty thing, and Grit knew that it wouldn’t be easy to keep up with him. He wished more than anything that he had his bike; if he were on that, he’d be ab
le to catch up to Charlie no problem and put a bullet in the man’s head before he managed to get a mile away.
Grit gunned the van’s engine, redlining the thing as he weaved through the late-night traffic of the city. Eventually, he caught up to Charlie’s sports car and got close enough that he could see the now-manic man’s face.
Fuck, he thought. If I shoot the asshole, he might just crash that thing into the nearest telephone pole. And I can’t exactly tail him in this.
Before he could think too much about his next step, he watched as Charlie raised his gun, aimed it at Grit, and fired. The bullet smashed into the windshield and sent spider-web cracks crawling across the glass.