Title: Beta Test 01
Subtitle: Bitches got me rolling
Author: Harper Kingsley
Rating: mature
POV: First person
Summary: Into which there’s a job to be done and a lesson to be learned.
.Bitches got me rolling.
Working for Damien Storm wasn’t the debacle I’d halfway feared it would be.
All I had to do was take packages to wherever he told me to and deliver them to their new owners. I could have been working for UPS and I was getting paid good money to boot. Awesome.
The packages were all the same size and shape, fitting easily between my two hands like a bird’s nest. They were all carefully wrapped so not even a single loose fold was showing, not that I was tempted to look inside.
I may have a hyperaware sense of curiosity, but I’m not stupid. I knew what I was carrying had to be something important and probably illegal, so just knowing what was inside could probably see me serving some hard time. So I was better off not knowing for sure, that way I could pass the LieTests.
I ended up traveling all over the city and it kind of sucked, but it really wasn’t so bad because I would stop and eat lunch or dinner after I made my deliveries, so I got to try all kinds of food. My stomach had never been so happy and my wallet had never been so flush with cash.
I felt like my life was looking up and I was grateful to Curtis for being so cool in helping me get a job. He really was a good friend and I’d have to remind myself of that later, in those moments when I was being a completely selfish fuck and treating everyone in the world like scumbags and losers.
Curtis had won himself an exemption in having to deal with my darker moods. Because coming down to it, awesome was awesome, and he was awesome.
With my first money, I bought myself some more clothes. I’d been wearing the same outfit for weeks and I was already tired of it. I also grabbed myself a full shower kit to keep the stink down and a pair of cheap Knucklebusters to use just in case.
Being the mule for illegal goods meant there was a chance someone was going to try to steal from me at some point. I wanted to be ready, and literally being able to bust their chops was a good leg up.
Three months into my job and I’d moved out of Curtis’ place and into a closet of my own and had even bought a bed and some secondhand furniture. I was really starting to feel that my life was on a total upswing. There was hope just over the horizon and everything was going to be all right.
So about then, Damien told me to take Tiny — the big black guy that usually handled Damien’s personal security — and go make a delivery to a real sleazebag neighborhood. Tiny was to watch my back so I didn’t end up on a slab in the morgue.
I didn’t argue. Because if Damien was that worried about my safety, then there was a more than good chance I was going to be looking at trouble. Trouble that might be averted by having a hulk like Tiny around.
“You cool with this?” I asked him as we hoofed it up G-street.
He flashed me a look that made me want to cringe in shame. “It’s my job.”
“All right, all right.”
We started off, crossing the street toward our building of choice and I was wearing my Knucklebusters and I didn’t even give a fuck. If anyone tried to kill me I was going to bust their jaw. We were on G-street and there was nothing sacred or safe.
So it wasn’t much of a surprise when we were stopped before we could get into the building by a big dude with a wicked sneer and five buddies lurking in the shadows of the alley, waiting to see what was up.
“What’s your deal?” I asked, cocking my head.
“I’m thinking you’ve got something that belongs to me,” he said in the weirdest accent I’d ever heard. It was kind of whistly-clicky and I had to strain to understand what he was saying, which made me instantly hate him.
“And what’s that?” I asked. Tiny was standing at my back, letting me handle the talking while he kept his eyes on the toughs too scared to approach.
“You deliver for the King. Give me the package,” the guy ordered.
There was no thinking involved. Just pure spite moving through my body and making my eyes squint dangerously. I could have stopped it, called up all my anger management tricks, but I didn’t. Sometimes it just felt too good letting go.
I sneered at him. “You look like an old man’s vagina.”
He gave me a “WTF?” look, but before he could say anything I punched him in his face. He went right down and I couldn’t help my grin. There’s something so awesome about bringing the hurt on. He’d be spitting up teeth once he woke up and there was a good chance he’d be wearing the mark of my Knucklebusters for a long time.
I turned my glare on the rest of the goons, but they were busy looking off in other directions. I may be a skinny guy, but obviously I was tougher than they’d been expecting, and with Tiny to bring on the pain, we just weren’t worth attacking, not by that bunch of lowlifes.
I turned to Tiny. “Let’s go. We got a delivery to make.”
He gave me a long look, then shrugged. “All right.”
.
Damien was a little pissed, but not too bad. In the end, he said “You know how to handle yourself. It’s good I don’t have to worry.”
I just said “Okay.”
And I didn’t mention how nice it had felt to hit that guy, to just jab-punch him a good one and see the results of my “thunder punch,” but that was the kind of thing I’d learned not to say to people because they got all uncomfortable.
And I know that it’s wrong, how good it feels to me when I knock someone down and don’t give them the chance to get back up. It was the kind of thing I’d spent my whole life trying to learn not to do. But it lurks there inside me, the violence that wants to get out. But that’s my secret as long as I can keep it. Because I’d learned how to pretend to be like other people.
“You got anymore work for me today?” I asked.
He smiled with all those teeth and my hand itched.
/ CHAPTER
[table “19” not found /]