Gundam Wing Fan Fiction ❯ Witches Shoe ❯ Chapter 20
[ X - Adult: No readers under 18. Contains Graphic Adult Themes/Extreme violence. ]
By: deathangel125 
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Romance / Suspense | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 07.25.2016 | Pages: 6 | Words: 3.5K | Visits: 227 | Status: Work In Progress
Anime/Manga: Gundam Wing Fan Fiction | Genre(s): Action / Romance / Suspense | Type: Yaoi | Uploaded On: 07.25.2016 | Pages: 6 | Words: 3.5K | Visits: 227 | Status: Work In Progress
Warnings and disclaimers in first part.
“There’s a whorehouse in Shine named the Little Sister. I know the owner and he should help us.” I hoped we were meeting Chester and not someone else, but at the same time, I hoped we weren’t meeting Chester. That was going to be complicated.
“Why there?”
“Whorehouses are considered neutral territory. No one wants to mess up the merchandise, so it’s rare for fights to break out there; it doesn’t matter if people are sworn enemies, they won’t start a fight.”
“Why that particular whorehouse?”
Obviously, Trowa didn’t like the word. He was probably more used to the use of brothel or some other nonsense. “Hookers are called whores, for the most part. They take pride in living and working in whorehouses; it’s a well-paying job that most consider respectable in places like this.”
“Respectable?”
“Sure. They do an honest day’s work…they do it on their backs, but it’s still honest.”
“What about them?” Gesturing with his head, Trowa pointed out a group of women dressed in as little as possible, proposing the men that passed.
“Prostitutes. Street walkers. Same business, but they can be bought for a lot cheaper. Their company can be bought, but there’s no guarantee you’ll come out of the tryst unscathed. Whores are clean; they aren’t allowed to use seds or work while drunk and they’re tested regularly. Walkers are usually desperate to make money so they can score their next hit. We’re actually lucky to have a contact at the Little Sister. We’ll be able to get a room where we’ll be safe for a while.”
“You don’t want to go there.”
I glanced behind us to confirm the presence of the three men…yep, they were still there, less than twenty feet away from us. “These guys can’t be professional criminals; with skills like that they wouldn’t have survived a week here on their own. I said I know the owner of the Little Sister; I didn’t say I really wanted to deal with him.”
“They are rather obvious, aren’t they? Why don’t you want to deal with the owner?”
Thrilled with the idea of having two conversations at once, I shrugged, the motion prompting my fingers to move across the skin at his back. “They could be herding us into a trap, planning to surround us when we get in a less populated area. The owner of the Little Sister is…more than an acquaintance. I don’t like having to ask him for anything.”
“Why did you come here the first time?” his voice was strained, meaning he had figured out the past relationship, if it could be called that, I had with Chester.
“I don’t think you need to know that.” That line between me being a smuggler and him being an agent had just reared its ugly head again. “You might be questioned later.”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone anything that could be used against you.”
I knew that and was grateful; he could have had me locked away for a number of things if he had decided to, starting with the smuggler’s holds on the Hellion, “I don’t want you compromising yourself to protect me. If something comes up and ratting me out keeps you out of trouble, don’t hesitate.”
He stopped walking, pulling me to an abrupt halt, “Nothing would make me rat you out. Your secrets are safe with me, all of them.”
Trowa wasn’t just talking about the things he had seen or heard while we had been together. He was also talking about what had happened between the two of us. “Did you realize that telling anyone about us will make things harder for you?”
“Not really. I just realized that if anyone knew, they’ll ask questions I won’t be able to answer. I don’t want to have to lie to our friends.”
There was something I hadn’t considered. If Trowa did tell Heero what happened, even if Heero didn’t tell anyone else, there would be the usual questions a person asked when friends that seem to be complete opposites get intimately involved. How would Trowa explain why we weren’t seeing each other or that we didn’t plan to? Not only would it be awkward as hell, it could be potentially painful for a while, until he moved on.
With nothing to say, I gave him a tug to get him moving again. “The first time I came here it was on a Sweeper ship that had a powerful need for a break. They’d just been paid and were ready to blow it all on the pleasure they could find here. I think I was thirteen at the time.”
“Did they leave you on your own?”
How sweet. He was willing to be angry over something that happened a lifetime ago. “Nah, I stayed with Howard, but I could have taken care of myself. I grew up in a place a lot like this, you know. The only law in the slums was the law of survival. My first trip here after the war…I had to unload some cargo that was a little too hot for my taste.”
“What kind of cargo?”
“The kind that had previously belonged to someone else.” Looking up at his sigh, I saw the annoyed look I was getting, likely from sharing only the minimum of information, something I was used to doing, but something that bothered him. Another glance showed our observers were still behind us, following at a relatively safe distance. After a moment, I chose to do something I wouldn’t have considered before; I shared information without having to be prompted, “A friend of mine named Jara thought it would be funny to rob a transpo going to one of the L4 banks and went ahead with his plan without asking any of the more experienced pirates why that particular cargo had never been hit even though they made the run every four months, like clockwork. If he had asked, he would have learned that it was heavily guarded, unlike most bank transpo’s that only have one or two guards.”
Letting the noise of the street wash over me, I remembered Jara’s love for life and the twinkle in his eye whenever he came up with some half-cocked plan. “I can imagine the panic when his team got on the transpo and found themselves faced with a dozen or so heavily armed guards from a private security firm. There was a fight that ended up with Jara’s crew dead and only one guard left alive. He figured it was too late to back out, so he cleaned out several crates on board before leaving.”
“I know what you’re talking about. Quatre’s company had hired the security firm.”
There was no argument or censure in his voice. “I found that out later, a lot later.”
“What happened to your friend?”
“He’d been wounded during the fight, but didn’t think it was serious, not until it was too late to do anything about it. His main concern was getting what he had gone for and getting away before he was caught. As soon as he was clear he got in touch, asked me to meet him on Gomorrah, his usual stomping ground. I was almost there when I heard the SOS from his ship. I got there just in time for him to tell me what had happened and extracting a promise that I keep his rep intact. He died less than an hour after I boarded his ship.”
“Is a rep really that important? I know it is to you, and why, but why would he care if he was dying?”
“If it had just been his rep it wouldn’t have mattered, but he had a wife and two kids to worry about. What he did, leaving his crew behind and running, made him look like a criminal rather than a thief with a bad idea. His family would have been stuck with that hanging over their heads. Their friends would have stopped trusting him and that opinion would have spread to the rest of his family. A rep, a name, is a lot more important in places like these.”
“I’m beginning to understand how important it is, Dan,” he lifted his eyebrows, reminding me of my alias. “That doesn’t explain why you came here.”
“I took what Jara stole and brought it here to get rid of it. When he was found, no one was able to connect him to the jacking.”
“That was the promise.”
“Yeah, to get rid of the stuff. I reached out to a few contacts and fenced as much as I could in a hurry, leaving the rest with another friend after I had to leave.”
“Wait a minute. Quatre told me he received a letter of apology, along with a large amount of money, almost the estimated amount of what had been stolen. That was you?”
“Indirectly; I couldn’t get the original amount and I sent some to Jara’s wife to help her out, but I sent back what I could. Those were the instructions I left, at least. I’m glad Quatre got the money. Jara was a good guy; he just let himself get caught up in fast money schemes all the time. I could have told him that those kinds of deals never work out.”
“Didn’t they arrest someone for that heist?”
“It wasn’t a heist, it was a hijack. A heist is when no one gets hurt. Yeah, there was an arrest, but the guy was released because witness testimony proved he wasn’t anywhere near that part of the ‘verse.”
A frightened shriek had Trowa’s steps faltering before I pulled him forward, “Not our fight,” I told him, but I was looking around for the source of that scream. It went against my nature not to help if someone was being picked on for no reason. When I couldn’t locate the screamer, I put it in the back of my mind where it left an oily stain on my soul. “Don’t forget where you are, whistler.” It was a soft reminder, but one he jerked at.
“Isn’t that rock jockey?”
His attempt at a joke fell flat, but I took it up anyway. We were nearing Shine and we needed to keep our heads; some walkers could be unpredictable if they hadn’t earned enough to score whatever sed they were shooting up or smoking. “Actually, I think you would be my cock-jockey, wouldn’t you?”
“Do you have some information I need that badly?”
“I’m sure I can find something you want to know enough to trade for a few favors.”
“I’ll remember that as soon as we’re finally alone,” he was looking down at me, eyes going behind us for an instant.
I guessed that meant our company had gotten closer. I figured they’d corner us before we left the Cross district, where bars and pubs are everywhere. It’s a good move, strategically speaking; the population is less sparse in Shine and it would be more difficult to tail us without being spotted, if we hadn’t already seen them.
“I don’t think I can wait until we get to the hotel,” I cut my eyes to an alley-like opening between a building and the airlock wall into Shine. It looked deserted, most people preferring to stay where the alcohol flowed as long as they had the credits to cover the drinks.
“You can’t wait a few more minutes?”
“I don’t think so. Come on, babe, it’ll be exciting to do it in the open like this, won’t it?” I was already steering Trowa toward the alley, although it didn’t take a lot of steering, just enough to make it seem that he was reluctant.
“I should have known you were an exhibitionist,” he drawled. “If I had realized it turned you on that much, I would have fucked you while we were in the bar.”
Trash was everywhere, but at least the wall seemed to be clean-ish. I was gonna have to sanitize my coat after we saved Quatre. We made it about a quarter of the way into the space before Trowa forced me against the wall, mimicking the position we had taken outside the bar.
His head was down, making it look like he was feasting on my neck, but he wasn’t moving. Seeing the men follow us, I let out a loud groan, watching them through narrowed eyes. “Babe, you keep doing that and I’m gonna come in twenty seconds, max.”
Trowa’s laugh was throaty as his hand found the knife I had hidden under my coat. Following his lead, I grabbed his pistol and blade, though I’m fairly certain it looked like I was gripping him for balance. “Can’t have you finishing too soon, lover. I plan to make you come twice before I’m through with you, at least.”
What a way to tell me he was going to take down two of the men, leaving the last one to me. “As long as you keep left, I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
The men were just behind Trowa. As soon as I moved my hands away from his body, my lover was in motion, striking one down in an instant, slicing the man across the arm and then punching him in the face before he had a chance to shout a warning. I leapt forward as soon as Trowa went into action, shoving my target against the wall and holding him there with a knife at his throat, the deadly end of Trowa’s pistol firmly planted against the man’s forehead.
A thud behind me signaled another man falling, but that wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the sensation of Trowa’s arms wrapped around my waist from behind, his body pressing into me, his erection snug against my ass. Yeah, it’s a natural reaction from adrenalin. “Who are you?” my voice actually sounded threatening, a feat since at least half of my brain was thinking how good it would have felt to have Trowa inside me. “Who are you working for?”
The man’s eyes flashed from me to the unmoving men on the ground. Possibly realizing he wasn’t going to get any help, he licked his lips nervously, “The men I work for have decided you and your kind are dangerous to our way of life. We don’t want or need your kind taking over things on the Shoe.”
“That’s funny as hell, considering people like me are the ones that founded the damn place.” I saw a moment of uncertainty and shook my head, “Who the hell do you think I am?”
“A whistler, a white pig. He reeks of authority,” he shifted his gaze to Trowa for an instant. “We were told to keep an eye out for anyone that matched his description, told that your partner was a whistler trying to infiltrate the groups that refuse to sell.”
That explained why the attacks had been focused on Trowa. “Jesus a Christ, I’m a smuggler, you dumb shit,” I hissed at him. His eyes once again strayed to where Trowa was standing just behind me. “My partner is a former whistler; he’s on the wanted list for breaking me out of a PSP prison.”
“Prove it.” He challenged, possibly one of the dumbest requests in history. “Prove you don’t work with those PSP fuckers.”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll just show you my card proving I’m part of the smuggler’s union. You dumbass.”
“I’ll vouch for both of these men.”
The gun swung to the newcomer before I recognized the voice. This was a meeting I would have put off as long as possible. “Fancy meeting you here, Chester; I thought we were going to see you at the Little Sister.”
“Chester?” the man squeaked, doing something Trowa and I hadn’t prompted him to do…he pissed all over himself. “Chester Whit?”
“That’s my name. Seems you’ve heard of me, just like I’ve heard of you. You can release him, Duo; he isn’t going anywhere, are you, Darnell?”
“No, sir; I won’t go anywhere.”
Trowa and I moved as a unit, backing away as I looked down at the puddle on the ground. “Damn, now I have piss on my boots.” Aware of Chester watching me, I handed Trowa his weapons and took my knife before facing the jackass Darnell. “Why are you so interested in my partner?”
“We were told he was one of the men trying to take over the Shoe. It was decided that we would follow you until there was an opportunity and then we were going to kill you.”
Chester’s laugh filled the alley, “You guys were going to kill them? That was a well-thought out plan, wasn’t it?” he asked, pointing a long finger at the men lying on the ground, one of them beginning to stir. “These two men would chew up a small time gang like yours and spit it out, Darnell. They’re more like me than Duo will admit.”
“I’m not like you, Chester.” The denial was automatic, but he was right.
“You’re a killer, Duo, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“I’ve killed because I had to. You…you enjoy it.”
Chester nodded, “I like my work and I get paid well for it. Darnell, you were tricked, boy. The man that hired you is working for the whistlers. You should check up on your employers before you agree to do a job. Duo, come with me,” he added, turning away from us.
“We’re on a tight schedule, Chester. Can we talk somewhere closer?”
Dark grey eyes met mine as he smiled, his teeth so white they shone in the dim light. “I know all about your schedule, Duo. We’re going to the Little Sister so we can have some privacy. You both look like you could use a break in a place where the people can be trusted.” When I hesitated, he pinned me with a look, “I would never hurt you and you know it. I’ll take care of you for a little while, but you have to trust me to do that.”
Damn it. I really didn’t want to have to go anywhere with Chester, but he was right. Trowa and I both needed a break and we’d be safe with Chester. Reaching behind me to take Trowa’s hand, I nodded, “Alright, let’s go.”
“There’s a whorehouse in Shine named the Little Sister. I know the owner and he should help us.” I hoped we were meeting Chester and not someone else, but at the same time, I hoped we weren’t meeting Chester. That was going to be complicated.
“Why there?”
“Whorehouses are considered neutral territory. No one wants to mess up the merchandise, so it’s rare for fights to break out there; it doesn’t matter if people are sworn enemies, they won’t start a fight.”
“Why that particular whorehouse?”
Obviously, Trowa didn’t like the word. He was probably more used to the use of brothel or some other nonsense. “Hookers are called whores, for the most part. They take pride in living and working in whorehouses; it’s a well-paying job that most consider respectable in places like this.”
“Respectable?”
“Sure. They do an honest day’s work…they do it on their backs, but it’s still honest.”
“What about them?” Gesturing with his head, Trowa pointed out a group of women dressed in as little as possible, proposing the men that passed.
“Prostitutes. Street walkers. Same business, but they can be bought for a lot cheaper. Their company can be bought, but there’s no guarantee you’ll come out of the tryst unscathed. Whores are clean; they aren’t allowed to use seds or work while drunk and they’re tested regularly. Walkers are usually desperate to make money so they can score their next hit. We’re actually lucky to have a contact at the Little Sister. We’ll be able to get a room where we’ll be safe for a while.”
“You don’t want to go there.”
I glanced behind us to confirm the presence of the three men…yep, they were still there, less than twenty feet away from us. “These guys can’t be professional criminals; with skills like that they wouldn’t have survived a week here on their own. I said I know the owner of the Little Sister; I didn’t say I really wanted to deal with him.”
“They are rather obvious, aren’t they? Why don’t you want to deal with the owner?”
Thrilled with the idea of having two conversations at once, I shrugged, the motion prompting my fingers to move across the skin at his back. “They could be herding us into a trap, planning to surround us when we get in a less populated area. The owner of the Little Sister is…more than an acquaintance. I don’t like having to ask him for anything.”
“Why did you come here the first time?” his voice was strained, meaning he had figured out the past relationship, if it could be called that, I had with Chester.
“I don’t think you need to know that.” That line between me being a smuggler and him being an agent had just reared its ugly head again. “You might be questioned later.”
“I wouldn’t tell anyone anything that could be used against you.”
I knew that and was grateful; he could have had me locked away for a number of things if he had decided to, starting with the smuggler’s holds on the Hellion, “I don’t want you compromising yourself to protect me. If something comes up and ratting me out keeps you out of trouble, don’t hesitate.”
He stopped walking, pulling me to an abrupt halt, “Nothing would make me rat you out. Your secrets are safe with me, all of them.”
Trowa wasn’t just talking about the things he had seen or heard while we had been together. He was also talking about what had happened between the two of us. “Did you realize that telling anyone about us will make things harder for you?”
“Not really. I just realized that if anyone knew, they’ll ask questions I won’t be able to answer. I don’t want to have to lie to our friends.”
There was something I hadn’t considered. If Trowa did tell Heero what happened, even if Heero didn’t tell anyone else, there would be the usual questions a person asked when friends that seem to be complete opposites get intimately involved. How would Trowa explain why we weren’t seeing each other or that we didn’t plan to? Not only would it be awkward as hell, it could be potentially painful for a while, until he moved on.
With nothing to say, I gave him a tug to get him moving again. “The first time I came here it was on a Sweeper ship that had a powerful need for a break. They’d just been paid and were ready to blow it all on the pleasure they could find here. I think I was thirteen at the time.”
“Did they leave you on your own?”
How sweet. He was willing to be angry over something that happened a lifetime ago. “Nah, I stayed with Howard, but I could have taken care of myself. I grew up in a place a lot like this, you know. The only law in the slums was the law of survival. My first trip here after the war…I had to unload some cargo that was a little too hot for my taste.”
“What kind of cargo?”
“The kind that had previously belonged to someone else.” Looking up at his sigh, I saw the annoyed look I was getting, likely from sharing only the minimum of information, something I was used to doing, but something that bothered him. Another glance showed our observers were still behind us, following at a relatively safe distance. After a moment, I chose to do something I wouldn’t have considered before; I shared information without having to be prompted, “A friend of mine named Jara thought it would be funny to rob a transpo going to one of the L4 banks and went ahead with his plan without asking any of the more experienced pirates why that particular cargo had never been hit even though they made the run every four months, like clockwork. If he had asked, he would have learned that it was heavily guarded, unlike most bank transpo’s that only have one or two guards.”
Letting the noise of the street wash over me, I remembered Jara’s love for life and the twinkle in his eye whenever he came up with some half-cocked plan. “I can imagine the panic when his team got on the transpo and found themselves faced with a dozen or so heavily armed guards from a private security firm. There was a fight that ended up with Jara’s crew dead and only one guard left alive. He figured it was too late to back out, so he cleaned out several crates on board before leaving.”
“I know what you’re talking about. Quatre’s company had hired the security firm.”
There was no argument or censure in his voice. “I found that out later, a lot later.”
“What happened to your friend?”
“He’d been wounded during the fight, but didn’t think it was serious, not until it was too late to do anything about it. His main concern was getting what he had gone for and getting away before he was caught. As soon as he was clear he got in touch, asked me to meet him on Gomorrah, his usual stomping ground. I was almost there when I heard the SOS from his ship. I got there just in time for him to tell me what had happened and extracting a promise that I keep his rep intact. He died less than an hour after I boarded his ship.”
“Is a rep really that important? I know it is to you, and why, but why would he care if he was dying?”
“If it had just been his rep it wouldn’t have mattered, but he had a wife and two kids to worry about. What he did, leaving his crew behind and running, made him look like a criminal rather than a thief with a bad idea. His family would have been stuck with that hanging over their heads. Their friends would have stopped trusting him and that opinion would have spread to the rest of his family. A rep, a name, is a lot more important in places like these.”
“I’m beginning to understand how important it is, Dan,” he lifted his eyebrows, reminding me of my alias. “That doesn’t explain why you came here.”
“I took what Jara stole and brought it here to get rid of it. When he was found, no one was able to connect him to the jacking.”
“That was the promise.”
“Yeah, to get rid of the stuff. I reached out to a few contacts and fenced as much as I could in a hurry, leaving the rest with another friend after I had to leave.”
“Wait a minute. Quatre told me he received a letter of apology, along with a large amount of money, almost the estimated amount of what had been stolen. That was you?”
“Indirectly; I couldn’t get the original amount and I sent some to Jara’s wife to help her out, but I sent back what I could. Those were the instructions I left, at least. I’m glad Quatre got the money. Jara was a good guy; he just let himself get caught up in fast money schemes all the time. I could have told him that those kinds of deals never work out.”
“Didn’t they arrest someone for that heist?”
“It wasn’t a heist, it was a hijack. A heist is when no one gets hurt. Yeah, there was an arrest, but the guy was released because witness testimony proved he wasn’t anywhere near that part of the ‘verse.”
A frightened shriek had Trowa’s steps faltering before I pulled him forward, “Not our fight,” I told him, but I was looking around for the source of that scream. It went against my nature not to help if someone was being picked on for no reason. When I couldn’t locate the screamer, I put it in the back of my mind where it left an oily stain on my soul. “Don’t forget where you are, whistler.” It was a soft reminder, but one he jerked at.
“Isn’t that rock jockey?”
His attempt at a joke fell flat, but I took it up anyway. We were nearing Shine and we needed to keep our heads; some walkers could be unpredictable if they hadn’t earned enough to score whatever sed they were shooting up or smoking. “Actually, I think you would be my cock-jockey, wouldn’t you?”
“Do you have some information I need that badly?”
“I’m sure I can find something you want to know enough to trade for a few favors.”
“I’ll remember that as soon as we’re finally alone,” he was looking down at me, eyes going behind us for an instant.
I guessed that meant our company had gotten closer. I figured they’d corner us before we left the Cross district, where bars and pubs are everywhere. It’s a good move, strategically speaking; the population is less sparse in Shine and it would be more difficult to tail us without being spotted, if we hadn’t already seen them.
“I don’t think I can wait until we get to the hotel,” I cut my eyes to an alley-like opening between a building and the airlock wall into Shine. It looked deserted, most people preferring to stay where the alcohol flowed as long as they had the credits to cover the drinks.
“You can’t wait a few more minutes?”
“I don’t think so. Come on, babe, it’ll be exciting to do it in the open like this, won’t it?” I was already steering Trowa toward the alley, although it didn’t take a lot of steering, just enough to make it seem that he was reluctant.
“I should have known you were an exhibitionist,” he drawled. “If I had realized it turned you on that much, I would have fucked you while we were in the bar.”
Trash was everywhere, but at least the wall seemed to be clean-ish. I was gonna have to sanitize my coat after we saved Quatre. We made it about a quarter of the way into the space before Trowa forced me against the wall, mimicking the position we had taken outside the bar.
His head was down, making it look like he was feasting on my neck, but he wasn’t moving. Seeing the men follow us, I let out a loud groan, watching them through narrowed eyes. “Babe, you keep doing that and I’m gonna come in twenty seconds, max.”
Trowa’s laugh was throaty as his hand found the knife I had hidden under my coat. Following his lead, I grabbed his pistol and blade, though I’m fairly certain it looked like I was gripping him for balance. “Can’t have you finishing too soon, lover. I plan to make you come twice before I’m through with you, at least.”
What a way to tell me he was going to take down two of the men, leaving the last one to me. “As long as you keep left, I promise I’ll make it up to you.”
The men were just behind Trowa. As soon as I moved my hands away from his body, my lover was in motion, striking one down in an instant, slicing the man across the arm and then punching him in the face before he had a chance to shout a warning. I leapt forward as soon as Trowa went into action, shoving my target against the wall and holding him there with a knife at his throat, the deadly end of Trowa’s pistol firmly planted against the man’s forehead.
A thud behind me signaled another man falling, but that wasn’t nearly as satisfying as the sensation of Trowa’s arms wrapped around my waist from behind, his body pressing into me, his erection snug against my ass. Yeah, it’s a natural reaction from adrenalin. “Who are you?” my voice actually sounded threatening, a feat since at least half of my brain was thinking how good it would have felt to have Trowa inside me. “Who are you working for?”
The man’s eyes flashed from me to the unmoving men on the ground. Possibly realizing he wasn’t going to get any help, he licked his lips nervously, “The men I work for have decided you and your kind are dangerous to our way of life. We don’t want or need your kind taking over things on the Shoe.”
“That’s funny as hell, considering people like me are the ones that founded the damn place.” I saw a moment of uncertainty and shook my head, “Who the hell do you think I am?”
“A whistler, a white pig. He reeks of authority,” he shifted his gaze to Trowa for an instant. “We were told to keep an eye out for anyone that matched his description, told that your partner was a whistler trying to infiltrate the groups that refuse to sell.”
That explained why the attacks had been focused on Trowa. “Jesus a Christ, I’m a smuggler, you dumb shit,” I hissed at him. His eyes once again strayed to where Trowa was standing just behind me. “My partner is a former whistler; he’s on the wanted list for breaking me out of a PSP prison.”
“Prove it.” He challenged, possibly one of the dumbest requests in history. “Prove you don’t work with those PSP fuckers.”
“Yeah, sure, I’ll just show you my card proving I’m part of the smuggler’s union. You dumbass.”
“I’ll vouch for both of these men.”
The gun swung to the newcomer before I recognized the voice. This was a meeting I would have put off as long as possible. “Fancy meeting you here, Chester; I thought we were going to see you at the Little Sister.”
“Chester?” the man squeaked, doing something Trowa and I hadn’t prompted him to do…he pissed all over himself. “Chester Whit?”
“That’s my name. Seems you’ve heard of me, just like I’ve heard of you. You can release him, Duo; he isn’t going anywhere, are you, Darnell?”
“No, sir; I won’t go anywhere.”
Trowa and I moved as a unit, backing away as I looked down at the puddle on the ground. “Damn, now I have piss on my boots.” Aware of Chester watching me, I handed Trowa his weapons and took my knife before facing the jackass Darnell. “Why are you so interested in my partner?”
“We were told he was one of the men trying to take over the Shoe. It was decided that we would follow you until there was an opportunity and then we were going to kill you.”
Chester’s laugh filled the alley, “You guys were going to kill them? That was a well-thought out plan, wasn’t it?” he asked, pointing a long finger at the men lying on the ground, one of them beginning to stir. “These two men would chew up a small time gang like yours and spit it out, Darnell. They’re more like me than Duo will admit.”
“I’m not like you, Chester.” The denial was automatic, but he was right.
“You’re a killer, Duo, whether you want to admit it or not.”
“I’ve killed because I had to. You…you enjoy it.”
Chester nodded, “I like my work and I get paid well for it. Darnell, you were tricked, boy. The man that hired you is working for the whistlers. You should check up on your employers before you agree to do a job. Duo, come with me,” he added, turning away from us.
“We’re on a tight schedule, Chester. Can we talk somewhere closer?”
Dark grey eyes met mine as he smiled, his teeth so white they shone in the dim light. “I know all about your schedule, Duo. We’re going to the Little Sister so we can have some privacy. You both look like you could use a break in a place where the people can be trusted.” When I hesitated, he pinned me with a look, “I would never hurt you and you know it. I’ll take care of you for a little while, but you have to trust me to do that.”
Damn it. I really didn’t want to have to go anywhere with Chester, but he was right. Trowa and I both needed a break and we’d be safe with Chester. Reaching behind me to take Trowa’s hand, I nodded, “Alright, let’s go.”