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ONE

THORNE

Prologue 8 Years Earlier

“I’m out.” My words are met with a wall of silence from the other end of the phone. A long pause and then muffled, labored breathing. “You hear me? Done. Fuck!”

My eyelid twitches as I stare at the evening news on the television. It’s unusual for me to turn on the electronic teat, but today, I got word I might want to take a look. No one knows when shit like this is going to hit home. In my world, for most, it never does. But for me, today is my day. My epiphany.

The low static on the phone clears and I roll my eyes when I hear the voice on the other end. “You don’t get to tell me fuck-all about being done.” The man I know only as ‘Black’ is as pretentious as his pretentious code name.

In my imagination, he holds court behind an enormous desk carved from some dark hardwood, pinching a Cuban cigar in his teeth while minions nod in agreement to whatever pontifications fall from his lips. But, truth be told, I have no idea what he looks like. In this business it’s better not to know too much about your associates. We have phone numbers on disposable phones, keeping things detached keeps you safe. As safe as possible I suppose.

He takes a deep, raspy breath before he speaks. “Who the fuck do you think you are?” The gravelly voice twists with humor and my gut churns. The phone connection crackles, all I know is he’s on an island somewhere, which island I don’t want to know. Less is more. “And why the fuck do you care? People die. Fuck-all happens. It’s not like you pulled the trigger.”

‘Fuck-all’…his signature phrase. Jesus, get some new material. He’s a poorly written pulp-fiction character.

There’s a pfft sound like he’s shrugging his shoulders. “Life is shit, Thorne. You do what you can to make yours a little less shit than everyone else’s.”

“This is different. I did the drop. I delivered. But it went fucking sideways. Two civilians down. One’s DOA and the other in intensive care.” I steel myself to say what I have to. Let him know that I’m serious. I blink against the tears. Jesus, what the fuck is this? I’m soft in all the wrong places? “I’m fucking out. This is it. My name’s all over this. You and me, we don’t exist anymore.”

This is no fucking way to live. And for some inexplicable reason, I decide I don’t just want to live.

I want a fucking life.

Something more. I don’t know that will be, but I’m damn sure going to live to find out.

There is a rustling then a clunk on the other end of the phone and a distant chuckle. He does this shit as well. Sets the phone down in the middle of a conversation, just like that.

How did my fucking life get here? How did I slide into this swamp of piss and filth?

Somehow I’d convinced myself I wasn’t the bad guy.

People kill people. Not guns, right?

That’s what I’ve always told myself. I’m just an entrepreneur.

They will get them from someone if not me, so why not? I needed to make a living. No education besides what living on the streets had taught me, I convinced myself that the gun trade was somehow a step above the low life of drugs or the multitude of other crimes that to my rationalization were fucking below me. What a crock of steaming shit that turned out to be.

The lights came on for me today. Watching the news and finding out two people just died because they got caught up in the crossfire from guns I delivered not three hours ago. Why does this bother me now? I’d pushed away the reality of the facts for too long. Had people died before from guns that passed through my hands? Hell yes.

Fuck. I should be the one lying in a hospital bed or worse. Whatever he decides to do to me, I’ll take it, because I’m not doing this again. I can’t.

I hear Black barking orders to someone in the background, telling them to bring him a drink. The irony is I know nothing about him, and yet I know all the little details. I even know his goddamn drink. Always the same, he likes to call for it whenever we talk no matter the time of day. Fucker has some weirdness about him.

Dry vodka martini, two orange twists, in a rocks glass.

There’s other weird shit I hear, too. He’s an attention whore, likes to tell me shit I shouldn’t, and do not want to know. Thinks he’s impressing me by spouting off about fucked up shit I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. I swear to Christ, during one phone call he was fucking bragging about taking kidneys out of people. Not willing people either. That’s some next level evil there.

I pull the phone from my ear, hold it out at arm’s length and stare at it for a long minute.

Finally, the faint voice of Mr.‘Fuck-all-Vodka-Martini’ broadcasts out of the tiny speaker talking about doing a new deal but I’ve stopped listening.

Let the shit hit the fucking fan. He can find another gun runner. Someone will gladly step in to replace me. I get he might not like it, but I sure don’t think he’d take it so hard that he’d send me off the radar permanently but you never know.

I hit the ‘end call’ button and gently place the cheap pre-paid phone on the floor. I bring the heel of my boot over the screen and listen to the steady crunching noise as I grind it into the faded linoleum floor.

I’m out.

Whatever that means, I’ll die a man not a pawn. I’m good with that.

I sit there dead still for a long time. Long enough for the shadows on the tabletop to grow a few inches as the sun drops outside the window of my shit hole apartment.

I set my elbows on my knees. Looking at my hands and the ink that decorates them. Then I bring them to my head and rub back and forth, the friction heating my palms. There is a faint scratching of something that has taken up residence in the cabinet under my sink.

Truth is, I don’t have the heart to do anything about it. I don’t want to kill it, rodent or not, the damn thing just needs to eat and I remember scratching around for the same more than once in my life.

The pounding on my apartment door hits me, making my body jerk and turn.

Fuck. Maybe Black took it harder than I thought. Sent someone for me. A dark laugh comes out of me thinking he’s pissed that I broke up our little felonious romance.

I wipe the back of a hand over my cheek and it comes away damp. Tears blur my vision and I look like a fucking pussy, but it’s not because I’m scared. I’m not afraid to die.

After all these years, I accepted that risk. But now it’s just all hitting home: I never actually did anything with my life.

I could run, but fuck that shit.

The pounding comes again, harder.

“Open up. Police.”