Page 33 of Your Soul Is Ours

The one on the left only nods before opening the door and walking through it. I follow behind him before being seated at a long table.

“Mr. York, how are you today?”

A man with an air of authority, who I assume is Mr. Sharp, walks in from the side door. He is wearing dress pants and a loose button down, his dark brown hair and moustache professionally trimmed. “I’m well, thank you, yourself?”

“Quite good. Do you know why I pulled you in here today?” The hair on my neck stands up. I consider if this is a trap, a way to get me off the board. I didn’t even tell Marla how much I loved her this morning.

“Not a clue, I don’t believe I’m behind,” I tell him.

His light laugh fills the room. I grit my jaw, calming my nerves.“Relax. If I was gonna kill you, I would have had you brought to the garage or the backyard. I don’t want your brains across the expensive rugs.”

I take a breath and lower my shoulders, doing my best to smile.

“You aren’t behind. You are the best drug runner in the city–better than Clyde. I have a proposition for you.” I lean back in the chair, resting my hands on the tabletop as he continues. “I know you’ve been running crack for a while, that downtown core is great for it. I’d like you to run coke to the upper crest. You’ll be working more hours. Is that doable?”

I nod. “Yes, sir.”

“Excellent. Steve will be messaging you shortly with drop locations and where to meet in the future. If you need anything from me, here is my card.”

I take it from him and bid farewell before walking back out to my car. This could give me the money to give Marla the life she deserves. With enough hard work, I could offer the same level of mental care that only the wealthy can afford.

When I’m in the car, I check my phone, noticing the text from Marla. She wants to go ahead with her sister. I wish she would have listened to me about taking our time. The detectives are going to put things together, or at the very least amp up the investigation, but I drive to her sister's house anyways

When I pull onto the road, I watch her sister filling the back of a moving truck. It’s a bad day to grab her. As I sit in the car, my eyes remain fixated on the scene unfolding before me. The truck sets off, and I tail it, watching it steadily approach her mother's house.

Although I shouldn’t, I drive down the street and see two moving trucks along with the same guy from that day we werehere. I continue down the street and take the exit to the highway headed back to town.

Marla will not like it, but I have a different idea. If they are both moving into the house that is a museum of her trauma, the ghosts in the walls and the dark cloud over it, we should kill two birds with one stone and burn the motherfucker to the ground with both of them inside.

As I turn onto the road, she’s waiting for me in the park, her dark hair over her shoulder. She’s looking down at her phone, scrolling through whatever, her shoulders slumped. I can tell it’s been another shit day at the centre. When her head lifts, her hazel eyes meet mine. A smile crosses her lips, and she gets off the bench and walks to the car. As she’s setting in, I lean over to kiss her.

“I have bad news and good news,” I tell her as I drive towards the flower store. I promised we would go this afternoon when she was done at the clinic so she could pick out flowers for her aunt and uncle.

“Bad news first, I guess,” she says, opening the centre console and pulling out her cigarettes. She lights one, hands it to me, and lights a second.

“I didn’t grab your sister today. I pulled up after my work meeting and she was all packed into a moving truck.”

She sighs, blowing out a plume of smoke. “Fuck.”

I pull into the parking lot and park, turning to her. “Good news: I drove to your mother’s house and both your brother and sister were moving in.”

“How is that good news? They sure wasted little time. Jesus Christ, no one has even called me.” Her face reddens, and I can see the hint of tears forming in her eyes.

“It’s our time to shine. We’ll burn that fucking house of suffering to the ground.” I grin at her. I know we run the risk ofbeing caught, but after this we should let the trail go cold for a while. Everyone will be gone, and we can move on with our lives.

“Okay, will we do it soon? How did your business meeting go?”

We finish smoking. “We will do it soon. It was alright. I’m going to have to work more nights, but I’ll be home by midnight, and I’ll be making more money.”

I get out of the car and she puts her hand in mine. We walk through the aisles and look at the different flowers. “Those are my favourite, but I don’t want them for this.” She points to the pink dahlias, and I smile. They have always been a favourite of mine, but they were far too pretty to cover the dead. She moves over to the burgundy dahlias and picks up a few pots of them.

“Excellent. We’ll get them home, plant them, and then have dinner.”

“What’s for dinner?” she asks as we make our way to the checkout.

“Can we pick up pizza?”I look at her. The steady diet of tacos, burritos and toast is getting old, but I’d eat whatever she wanted until the day I died if it meant she was happy. “Sure, that sounds good.”

As we sit at the kitchen table eating pizza, she stares out the side window. The flowers have been planted, but she hasn’t said a lot about what happened at the clinic. “Did anything happen today?”

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