Page 27 of Echoes From Within
Venom
Dead end. Every search comes to a screeching halt.
Where the fuck is this guy?
“How’s the system doing?” Ghost asks me. “The guys okay?”
I look to my president, my brother, and raise a brow.
“They’re fine,” I say. “Miles spent all last night fronting. Which is why I’m so fucking tired.”
“I said I was sorry,”he tells me.“It’s not entirely my fault. I won’t have sex with a man out of respect for you, but you can’t stop me from spending all of my pent-up frustration on video games.”
“Your pent-up frustration?”I laugh.“You know you’re not interested in any type of sexual or non-sexual relationship. Why do you have pent-up frustration?”
“We’ve lost him,” I hear Pop laugh. “He’s talking to someone.”
“It’s not mine, you fucker,”Miles laughs.
“Miles is being difficult,” I chuckle. “He seems to think I have pent-up frustration and he spent the night trying to calm my raging emotions by playing video games until it was time for me to wake up.”
When no one responds I look around the room and all the blank stares.
“Fuck all of you,” I glare. “Not you, Ma.”
Everyone laughs and I get back to checking my contacts to see if Malachi has tried to breach the Mexican border. He has several homes listed in Mexico and I’m just waiting for him to try and reach them.
No such luck.
No suck luck finding her baby, either. I know that she had a girl and I know that she was sold to someone near Harborbrook. But the names were fake and no physical address was listed. Just the location and the amount. Five hundred thousand dollars a baby.
As everyone talks amongst themselves, I let my mind wander to Sophia. My sweet, beautiful Sophia. I didn’t get to see her much and yet I miss her like fucking crazy. I may have checked on her last week to see how she was coping and she seemed to be doing well.
On the outside, at least.
“You just need to go to her, son,”Doc says for the hundredth time.
But I can’t. Every time I think about making first contact, images of the fear on her face when I was near flood my mind. There’s no way in hell I’m going to let her suffer through those memories just because I want her in my life.
“I need to fight,” I tell Ghost.
“Brother, the last time you were in the cage you about killed someone,” he reminds me.
“He cheated,”Miles says. “He deserved everything he got.”
I nod.
“Gotta tell us what was said, son,” Pops chuckles.
I shake my head and smile. I do that a lot. The alters in my head are as real as the people around me and I sometimes forget I’m the only one who can hear them when they’re not fronting.
“Miles says he got what he deserved,” I tell them.
“Be that as it may, brother, you can go in the cage and start killing the fighters,” Ghost tells me. “Regardless of how much they deserve it.”
“I won’t kill anyone,” I grunt. “I just need to fight.”
“Alright,” he tells me. “I can pair you up with Bullet tonight. His opponent pulled out when he found out he would be fighting the bastard.”