Page 34 of Into the Blue

Makeover?

A blow to my ribs comes first. I had been too busy watching Junior to notice that the men in the room had surrounded me. I don’t catch who delivers the first hit before another comes to my back.

I cry out, unable to protect myself when I take a fist to the face that stings instantly. I feel the skin separating over my cheek, blood running down my face at the impact.

Dangling helplessly, I take more hits and time seems to slow as I fight with my consciousness.

How did I end up like this? An actual punching bag and for what?

Eventually I blackout though I know I’m still being attacked. Turbulent and tumultuous darkness blessedly consumes me again.

I wake again, this time in the trunk of a car. It moves and jostles me. I try to scream, but there’s tape over my mouth and around my hands.

Frantically, I look for any way to free myself. One of my eyes is completely swollen shut and the other is bloodshot and sore. It hurts just looking in the dark space that’s only illuminated by a safety light.

Music plays loudly around me, I can barely breathe in the tight space. Weed smoke seeps from between the backseat and into the trunk. It’s getting thicker and thicker as we drive along.

I don’t know what to do. I can’t reach for an escape latch. It’s dark as hell back here.

My body is one giant bruise. Pain assaults every part of me like sizzling fire. It’s a miracle I’m not dying from internal bleeding. I don’t even know for sure that I’m not.

I hurt.

Am I going to die?

The car stops moving and the music playing from inside does too.

Should I be relieved or more nervous that we’ve reached our destination—whatever that is?

Not an ounce of daylight remains. It’s so dark that I don’t know where I am when the trunk opens.

It’s scary thing 1 here to take me somewhere. I’m like a rag doll losing her stuffing as he drags me from under my armpits. My right shoulder is blazing the hottest with pain but only muffled sounds come from where my mouth is taped.

There is only one security light above a metal door that I can make out through my good eye. This building is massive and I can’t see where it ends or begins in the relative darkness.

Another unknown location. I must still be in Louisiana at least. Other than that I don’t know where I am.

“In case it wasn’t clear—you’re not welcome with the Fayes. We see you around,” he sneers, “and no one else ever will again.”

With a boot surging quickly toward my face, I lose consciousness again.

Chapter 12

“Boss,” the staticky voice of one of the men at the back comes through on my desk.

Redd looks over to the radio and grabs it before I can. “This Redd. Wassup?”

Neither of us were supposed to be working this late, but for the third time this week, there was a delay in the package over state lines. Blue Dream, our biggest seller and the newest cannabis strain we offer, gone like smoke. Unlike the one from Colorado, this one from California was missing a quarter of the shipment from one truck.

How does a quarter of the weed just disappear?

Tracking down illegal shipments of weed should be easier since we are paying more than the government does for dispensaries in that state. There are plenty of extra funds to be able to secure the packages in some kind of way. Aside from hiring private security or developing some kind of trackers to put in every package, there isn’t a way. It’s not USPS insured or some shit.

Granted, we’re able to move more weight without the stipulations and guidelines of red tape registered dispensaries regulations face, but it’s the fact that from point A to point B, shit is missing.

When I took over for my father before he passed, all I had to worry about was the boot, Louisiana. Terrell Senior was still handling moving this shit. He’d run it from Mexico, and we’d distribute it.

Easy.