Page 175 of Ready to Cash Out

That seemed to be the phrase of the day, and it repeated in Trev’s brain over and over on a loop. It wasn’t a very productive line of thinking, but it did prevent him from having an absolute fit over the prospect of seeing Juicy murder someone again.

“Hey!” a new man’s voice called. “What’s going on? Bear? Where are you?”

Bear’s taking a little nap nap right now, Trev thought crazily.

The permanent kind.

The new man stormed in, the door swinging open and catching on Juicy’s arm. He turned to glare at Juicy. “What are you?—”

Juicy grabbed the man’s wrist as he raised his gun and stabbed him in the neck.

Trev looked away, but he felt blood spray across his face.

Ugh, that was the second time today.

And it was hot and thick—wait, that…

Trev didn’t have enough time to figure out why that felt extra wrong, cringing as he finally opened his eyes to see Juicy taking the man down to the floor and stabbing him again. He turned his gaze back to the ceiling when he realized just how much of Juicy he could see right now. “Is he dead?”

“He’s definitely not alive.” Juicy stood with a grunt.

Trev peeked open one eye, seeing now Juicy had taken the man’s gun. “What now?”

“Now we get the fuck out of here.” Juicy pushed Trev back behind the door. “I need you to wait here.”

“No!” Trev growled. “You’re not leaving me here!”

“There’s only one man left unless more have arrived. We need to go while we can and I need to make sure the way is clear.”

“What way? The only door I saw is all boarded up!” Trev argued. “Which means using the fucking garage door and that’s loud as fuck!”

“All the more reason for you to stay put.”

“Suck my fucking dick, Juicy! I’m not?—”

A door slammed in the distance with enough force to rattle the entire rickety building.

Which was good because it let them know there was another door, but it was also bad because it might mean that more people were here—Sal?

Why not Godzilla?

Trev scrambled for anything he could use as a weapon. He pulled out one of the drawers from the desk, but then he remembered there was another corpse to loot. He checked over the man’s body and found a gun under his jacket.

There.

Better.

He’d never fired a gun but he understood the concept well enough and knew to check to see if the safety was on. He stomped over to Juicy’s side, saying firmly, “I’m going with you. We go together or not at all, okay?”

Juicy’s eyes appeared heavy, but he nodded. “All right.”

Footsteps rapidly approached, at least three or more people, but they stopped just short of the door.

“Well, shit.” It was Emil. “I only left for a few fuckin minutes, I swear?—”

There was a loud smack, no doubt Sal slapping him.

“You fucking idiot!” Sal shouted. “I can’t trust you to fucking watch paint dry, you fucking moron!” He growled in frustration, now addressing Juicy and Trev as he snapped, “You two. Come out, nice and easy. There’s nowhere else to go.”

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