Dannika Dark - Six Months

Trevor licked the guacamole from his thumb and crunched on another chip. “If you work with Lexi, then there’s no avoiding it. You don’t need my permission to go—it’s your life. But if you’re going, I’m going,” he said reluctantly.

“It doesn’t have to be like that. We don’t have to go.”

“Yeah, we’re going. I know how you operate and you don’t fly solo to these things. You need to get out and have some fun for a change. You’ve been cooped up and not socializing. I’m here to rectify that. All this,” he said, pointing around at the trailer, “it’s bullshit. It’s not who you are or what your life is about. I don’t want to find you twenty years from now, chain-smoking at this table with a stack of scratch-off lottery tickets, dreaming your life will get better. That’s what your grandma was—a dreamer. Not in a good way. She couldn’t accept the cards she was dealt and always wanted somebody else’s hand.”

“We all want something better.”

“At what cost?” He lifted his brown eyes to mine and they softened. “Forget all this. Go out and have fun.”

I lifted my plate and set it on the counter behind me. “So you want me to live in denial?”

He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that.”

“There is, Trevor.”

He shook his head and scooped up another bite of dip. “Works for me. I go out, have fun, and don’t think about all the bullshit that tethers you to a life you don’t want. Better than walking around all depressed, and that’s what I’m seeing in you lately. I don’t like that, April. I hate seeing you change.”

“I’m just going through a patch these past couple of days. It doesn’t mean I’m changing, it doesn’t mean I’ll never laugh again or take a chance and go to a party. But this is my life, and I have to accept it even if I don’t like it. You can’t live in denial or it catches up with you.”

“ Fuck me . I feel an argument coming on,” he said in irritation, walking to the sink and rinsing out his glass.

I glanced at the clock and it was fifteen until eleven. I had to get out of there but didn’t want Trevor to get suspicious. “So then run away from your problems and go play some pool,” I suggested. “That’ll make it all better.”

I hated being so cruel, but when Trevor got mad, he usually bailed. I wasn’t sure where he went—probably the bar.

“April Showers used to be a pet name,” he said. “Now it’s just a shower of tears. Woe is me, I live in a trailer .”

I threw a pillow at him.

Hard.

“Go to hell! I’m giving you a place to stay and doing the best I can to work out my problems and make it right. I’m not the one who hooked up with a guy because he bought me tickets to Linkin Park. Oh, excuse me—backstage passes and a limo ride.”

Trevor flipped my paper plate on the floor, grabbed his keys, and stormed out the door. As I heard the engine to his hatchback rev, I wanted to run out and say I was sorry. We never bickered like that, and I was certain that I might have fractured our relationship. But I was protective of Trevor. He was like the brother I’d never had, and it was more important that he didn’t get involved in what I was doing.

I waited until his car drove off before running out the door. I had gone to the bank earlier for a withdrawal and stuffed the money in my oversized brown purse. If I had it my way, I would have just wired him the money. Loan sharks worked on their own terms, so I wanted to get this over with as quickly as possible and put it behind me.

The building where Sanchez wanted to meet wasn’t far from where I worked, so I jogged most of the way. When I arrived, I slowed my pace because the road leading up to the warehouse had some major cracks and potholes that weren’t easy to see in the dark. Out of breath, I warily looked around and observed nothing out of the ordinary, although I’m not sure what I was expecting to see. A tactical unit? Police dogs? A crowd of mobsters holding machine guns?

Just to the right of the road, the pale moonlight illuminated a white BMW in the parking lot.

I swallowed hard and approached the main door, clutching my purse tightly. Most of the windows had been boarded up or smashed in, and graffiti covered the dark brick on the exterior walls. It was an eyesore, but since it was away from the road, no one had bothered to have it torn down or painted. It probably cost more to demolish than it was worth.

I wondered how he’d gotten the key to open the door, or if it had always been open. Maybe squatters lived inside. I cupped my elbows and peered through the doorway to make sure no one was in there. When I saw it was clear, I headed toward a white glow of artificial light down the hall to my right.

The concrete floors were covered with pebbles, dirt, cigarette butts, and old soda cans. An acrid smell of filth infiltrated my nose and I couldn’t identify the scent, but it reminded me of the time I found a dead dog in a ditch. My stomach knotted when I glanced behind me at the dark corridor. I thought about leaving the money right at the doorstep and taking off, because I had no business being out here by myself.

“I’m in here,” he called out impatiently from a lit room.

I peered through the open doorway and Sanchez was sitting at a metal table, smoking a cigarette. He made little donut rings, which floated up to a hanging light and quickly broke apart. When I realized the room had working electricity, that’s when I got the impression he used this location frequently.

“I have the money,” I said.

He glanced at his gold watch. “Sit down.”

Across the table from him was a dirty chair and I wiped the seat with my hand before sitting, despite his chuckles.

Sanchez narrowed his eyes as he took another long drag from his short cigarette. I reached in my purse to pull out the envelope.

“You’re late,” he said.

“I’m sorry. I couldn’t get here any faster. Here’s the money.” I pushed the envelope across the table with a shaky hand. “It’s all there.” My eyes skated to the open door and back to him. I kept telling myself that my grandma had done this all the time, and she never came home missing a finger.

Sanchez bit the end of his cigarette between his teeth and tore open the envelope. Very meticulously, he separated the bills by denomination and counted the money. Then he eyed me closely and put his forearms on the table, patting out the butt of his smoke.

“Where did a vanilla girl like you come up with this much green so fast?”

“I had some tucked away,” I lied. “That should square me away with Delgado.”

He tapped a fingernail against his tooth as if contemplating whether to believe my story. “The man will be pleased he got his money.”

“Good,” I said, rising to my feet. “Let him know we’re even.”

“Not quite,” he said softly, beating me to the door. “You were late. There’s always a penalty for tardiness.”

I stared at him dumbfounded. “I paid what I owed.”

He clicked the door shut and leaned against it.

“I need to go home. Someone’s waiting for me,” I said calmly, reasonably. “If Delgado has any issues, he knows how to get in touch with me.”

Sanchez grinned in such a way that all the muscles in his face relaxed, as if it were drug-induced. “Sit down.”

Collecting my nerves, I said, “Open the door. You have the money and—”

“Sit the fuck down. Last warning.” He bared his teeth and chomped down once, causing me to step back at the sound his molars made when they clicked together. “I know you walked here, because there’s mud on your shoes and I didn’t hear an engine. You think you can run away from me? Let’s negotiate like civilized people and things won’t have to get ugly.” He folded his arms and waited for me to comply.