Chapter 32: Unnatural Dealings
Dante leaned into the corner and squinted to focus on the ill-defined figures slouched by the steep stairway that led into the attic. The albino had the eyes better than John Smith’s high-definition zoom lenses, that was for sure.
“Probably dealers,” he said, watching as a junkie came lumbering down from the attic and off in the opposite direction, “And whatever they’re dealing is up there,”
Phantasia leaned in close – too close for comfort. “We need to get up there,” she said, “Do you think we can trick them?”
His adrenaline levels were starting to kick in, his heart was beating and his breath came fast. It would be so much easier to run away and never come back, but then what? Live the rest of his life not knowing the answer? Always paranoid that it might be true? All the theories and possibilities were rushing into his head and creating an auditorium of noise that threatened to crush his mental stability into tiny pieces. If this continued there was only one possible outcome – he had to do something. He had to throw himself into the river and let the stream wash away the darkness.
He strode out into the open. There was no time to explain his thinking to the girl – he’s just have to trust that those razor-sharp instincts of hers equated into equally sharp improvisational skills. The dealers looked up as he shuffled towards them, imitating the drunken coordination he’d witnessed from their customers.
“You come for a fix, kid?” asked one. With skeletal faces, dirty hair and salvaged clothes, both men looked as much a victim of the drugs as their clientèle, yet the revolvers hanging at their waists made them much more of a threat.
Dante put on his best drunken slur as he gazed at them with vacant, half-closed eyes. “Hit me,” he said, recalling slang he’d heard from Joel.
“You got cash?” asked the other dealer, moving his hand closer to the grip of his weapon, “Or you paying some other way?”
Cash! Of course he’d need to pay, why hadn’t he thought of that before? He fumbled around inside the pockets of his coat, but all his fingers could grasp were a half-eaten protein bar and some pens – Not the sort of material goods that drug dealers would be interested in. Both were eyeing his with suspicion.
He didn’t know if she’d sensed his trouble with some weird albino power or she’d just been paying attention, but Phantasia stepped out from behind the corner to save him in his moment of despair. At the sight of the teenage girl the two dealers perked up.
“Don’t tell me she’s your payment,” said the first, his hand moving away from his gun.
“You dirty bastard,” said the second, “Bringing your girlfriend here to pay the habit for you. I like your style.”
Phantasia skipped towards them, a cheerful smile on her face. How ignorant was she? Didn’t she understand their subtext? Or was she proving just how astute she was?
The first dealer attempted to comb his hair with his bony fingers. “Mate, you can have ten minutes with the Mistress,” he said, “And we get twenty minutes with your bitch,”
Dante was losing his grip on the act as images plagued his mind of the things these men wanted to do and the guilt he’d feel for letting them. He glanced back at Phantasia, hoping that somehow she could read his thoughts.
“I’ll give you thirty minutes,” she said, “But I wanna go up there too.”
The dealers glanced at each other. “You gotta pay up first,” said the first, “Your boyfriend can wait here,”
“Okay!”
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