Page 114 of Existential

“Tell her the whole story, brother,” I grit out. “Tell her what you’ve been up to.”

He rolls his head my way, and smiles a bloody, toothy grin. “Fuck you.”

My hand itches to drive into his stomach, yet I stand firm. Jo Jo rejoins our party, pulling up a worn chair to sit on.

“How long?” he asks, getting comfortable.

Digits looks the other way.

Murphy lifts his middle finger in response.

“How long, what?” Dagne asks, looking between us all.

“We deal in drugs, right?” I explain.

She nods.

“But the end game to our trade is that we slowly kill the demand by offering free help services to addicts, trying to get our clientele clean.”

“Controlling the supply?”

“Yeah.” I glance at Murphy who nods for me to carry on. Telling people outside those who wear a patch what we do isn’t normal. “But lately we’ve noticed somebody else filling that void with cheap, dangerously cut product.”

“Economical,” Digits rasps. “Not dangerous, economical.”

I fix him with a glare. “Cutting the product with toxins isn’t good economics, you idiot. Got to keep your customers alive if you want them buyin’.”

“What do I care?” he slurs with a swollen jaw. “One fucker dies, ten more take their place.”

“I don’t get what’s going on,” Dagne says, stepping closer to me.

I take her hand and give it a squeeze. “Fuckhead here thought he had the best position as an insider to take up the slack we created.”

“You were the person filling the gap in the market?”

“Yeah, and I would have got away with it if it weren’t for you kids and that dog.” He laughs, bone-chillingly mad.

“Why hurt me though?” Dagne asks the room in general. “I’m not involved.”

“But you are,” Digits says solemnly. His black eyes flick between the two of us. “You are.”

“If he hurt you, he got to me,” I explain.

“Numb-nuts here thought he could blackmail Hooch into turnin’ a blind eye to his new drug venture,” Murphy says. “Thought if he hit pres where it hurts, he could get him to do anything.”

“I never would have let you,” Dagne says, conviction in her eyes as she stares at me. “Not because of me.”

“He never stood a chance.” I smile, feeling the softness of her cheek beneath my palm.

She recoils from my touch, hugging herself as she steps back with an apology in her eyes.

I see red.

Digits’ eyes go wide as I swing away from Dagne and approach him at speed. They pop even wider when I send a fist curling under his ribs, leaving him gasping for air.

“See what you did to her?” I yell. Yeah, I’m letting him know that he won, that he did get to me. But I’m also showing this asshole that he gets no respite, that I’m fucking mad and ready to tear him apart for the pain her caused her.

Dagne’s gasp is the only thing that stops me from beating the life out of him in that instant. The asshole doesn’t deserve to share her air. He doesn’t deserve anything but the full weight of his consequences.