Fresh fruit
Chapter 32
"Hey, look," one of Alejandro's men called out. Three of them were supposed to be on watch, but they'd clearly forgotten the job entirely, hunched over a game of chess with their weapons slung carelessly across their backs. From the look of it, none of them had any real experience beyond pulling a trigger blindly when told to.
The boys slipped into the club through the back entrance — the one usually reserved for drug runs, or for slipping out fast when the cops showed up.
"Hahaha, *now* that's what I'm talking about, boys." Alejandro stepped out through the back door, already laughing, one of his men having tipped him off the moment they arrived — sparing everyone the trouble of dragging this out indoors. "I'll admit, when you didn't show yesterday, I figured you were dead. Turns out you were just making me sweat. Hahaha. You two really are something else."
"What's actually in it?" Duncan asked, circling the car slowly. "All that risk for a fancy sports car, in times like these? Something's not adding up." After nearly losing their lives twice over this one vehicle, he wasn't exactly wrong to wonder.
"You better shut the fuck up," one of Alejandro's men barked, stepping in close, gun raised on Duncan. One look told you everything — tattoos covering every inch of skin, piercings scattered without pattern, a shaved head over a frame too thin to carry the attitude. The kind of frail, strung-out look that came with a habit, not discipline.
Alejandro didn't even blink. He pulled his nine-millimeter from its holster, calm as anything, and pressed it gently against the back of the man's skull.
"No — *you* shut the fuck up." He pulled the trigger.
"Now," he said, wiping the fine spray of blood off his sleeve, "enough with the foreplay. I'm sure you boys have places to be."
In the end, they left the club with the car, free and clear — and a basket of fresh fruit, for good measure.
"Mmh... that's good," Duncan said, popping a plump purple grape into his mouth as they drove.
Leo said nothing, just glanced at him — somewhere between surprise and quiet disbelief, the look of a wife catching her husband doing something she'd rather not comment on.
---
"Why do I have to be the one doing this," Alex muttered, elbow-deep in the breaker box. They'd all spent the night before in the dark. The girls had claimed the one room that felt safest; Alex had slept curled in the corridor near the entrance, Brad in the kitchen, and Kaito out in one of the cars parked outside.
"There — *finally*, done." He slammed the breaker box shut, more irritated than relieved, the feeling of being used sitting heavy on him. He stormed out of the building and headed south down the street, scanning for a telephone booth — anything he could use to reach his family.
The last real conversation he'd had was with his father. His parents had split when he was ten, and he'd spent most of that decade feeling more like property than a son — his mother chasing the idea of having a son without ever bothering to actually know him, cycling through men and drinking too often; his father, a gambler who'd lost the house to unpaid debt, leaving Alex to grow up in his grandmother's care. She was the one reason, if he was honest, he still had any pull toward living at all.
He checked building after building, hoping for a working cell phone, even a landline — anything. Everything he found was either dead or needed a charge it would never get.
Frustration finally won out. He started hurling furniture through windows.
*"FUCK!"* he screamed.
"I don't know about you," Jane said, stepping carefully over the broken glass, "but last I checked, chairs are for sitting in. Not weapons of mass distraction."
She'd actually come looking for him to ask about reaching her own family, but by the time she found him, that question had already slipped away from her. None of the others had seen him go — the girls who'd asked him to fix the power had no idea where he'd ended up, Kaito hadn't surfaced from his nap, and Brad was still deep into his morning routine.
He stood there, saying nothing, for a long moment while she stepped past him into the store.
"Wow. Whoever designed this place had taste," she said, looking around at the interior.
"So — what's up?" she asked.
Silence. Just a look exchanged between them, and nothing more.
"Okay," she said, letting it go. She could tell he was carrying something he didn't want to unload on anyone else. Neither of them had heard a word from their families since the outbreak started — it had come out of nowhere and taken everything with it.
"What do you want?" he finally asked, making the effort. She'd walked all this way to find him, which meant whatever she needed, it had to be something only he could help with.
Before she could answer, a black Mazda rounded the corner, honking a deliberate, patterned rhythm that caught both their attention. Jane, closest to the door, stepped outside. The windows were tinted — she couldn't see who was driving until the car slowed, and there was Duncan, grape in hand, chewing away.
She pointed toward the pink building where they'd set up — their signal for where to meet once the car was parked.
"Guess it can wait. Come on," she said, waiting for him to follow.
For a second he thought she'd just leave without him. She didn't. That was enough to get him moving.
"Sure," he said.
"See? That wasn't so bad," she said, reading him easily as they walked the pavement together, watching Leo and Duncan climb out of the car to Amy and Sasha's welcome.
