Page 14 of Dirty Rock

He sounded like that big fuck in The Green Mile—only this one wasn’t filled with sunshine, butterflies, and lifechanging epiphanies. He was filled with darkness, demons, and a trigger finger that could make you say goodnight before you were ready to.

“What the fuck is going on?” I croaked.

Candy sighed and pushed herself off the wall. “Do you know how many times I’ve dealt with weasels like you? It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic. You rich kids waltz in here, dressed in black, hard, willing, and desperate for me to stroke your ego before I stroke your dicks.” She looked behind her, and I felt the barrel of the gun press harder into my head. “You think you can own people like me. Newsflash. We own you.”

A camera flash went off somewhere behind me, and I closed my eyes, imagining the shit that was being filmed or photographed while I stood there, caught between a hitman and a fucking stripper.

“Is this about money?” I whispered roughly.

“It’s always about money, sweetheart.” Candy dropped her smoke to the ground, and when I opened my eyes again, she was pushing the front of her stiletto into it before she used a single finger to raise my chin. “Money talks, right? That’s what you believe in. You think I want you to fuck me for free? Hell, no. You wanted this, and now you pay.”

“How much do you want?”

“How much you got on you?”

I shook my head. “I dunno. A grand.”

“A what?”

“A thousand dollars. A thousand.”

“That’s it?” Candy scowled. “I don’t believe you.”

The gun pushed against me, forcing my head forward.

“Fuck, dick, back off,” I huffed out, immediately regretting it when a fist pummelled me straight in the kidneys, forcing my whole body to scrunch to one side, and my hands to fall from the wall. I clutched that side of myself, hating the vulnerability of the moment more than the actual pain I was in. The memories of all those high school bullies taunted me, and the way I used to limp home and have to pretend nothing was wrong.

Nothing’s wrong.

I’m okay.

They can’t hurt me.

Fake it. Fucking fake it, Rhett.

“You hit like a girl,” I croaked, only to receive another fist in the same spot that made me groan out in pain. “Fuck, okay, fuck!”

“Not yet,” Candy hissed at her partner in crime.

“He needs teaching a lesson,” the guy groaned.

“Soon, Benji. Just wait. Let’s do this right.”

“Benji?” I wheezed, a small cough of misplaced humour rising. “I’m getting fucked over by a… Benji? Jesus. With a voice like that, I would have thought you’d at least be a Vincent, a Barry or, I dunno, a fucking Maverick—SHIT!” I cried as another hit came in the form of his gun striking the side of my head.

“Benji!” Candy cried as I stumbled to the side, clutching my pounding head.

Blood.

That shit was quickly coating my hand and invading my right eye.

“Fucking Benji,” I found myself laughing sadistically anyway, despite the pain. “Here, Benji, Benji,” I chuckled. “Man, you sound like a damn cocker spaniel—”

Another blow came, and that one forced Candy’s voice to rise.

Fuck them. Fuck these jokers. Fuck Benji. Fuck anyone who’d ever taken a strike at me.

I’d rather go out in a ball of broken flesh than give this fake pair of tits and her Barry White wannabe a dime of my money.

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