Rain. It was always raining. These days rain was all there was and raining was all that happened. At least on the surface. But under it, it was burning hot. Like a fever that just wouldn't come down.
"Hurry up Cricket," said Tuck "we don't want to be late, again. You know how Quarry is."
"I know, I know." Cricket replied while hefting a heavy duffel bag onto her shoulder.
The three of them, that is Tuck, Skwydd and Cricket carried out the rest of their in silence and with as much speed as possible. It was a hard thing to please Quarry, the "mob boss" of the Hong Kong underground system. He might have been the boss but the three of them, they had a leader. A boy their age. A boy similar to them and dissimilar. His name was Rex, and that was about all he knew about himself. Amnesiac from as long as any of the three had known him, Rex was also an EVO like them but he could hide his abilities and mutations, unlike them.
Currently, Rex was tying up loose ends and cleaning up a job the four of them had done last week. It was a messy one, and Quarry like to keep his hands clean. So he sent his best lieutenant to clean up the spills and cover kills. Figuratively speaking that is.
Tuck, Skwydd and Cricket had just finished loading their bags with money from the safe of the store when they heard a noise from upstairs. Upstairs because they were in the basement of the store. Cricket heard footsteps. She had sharp ears.
"Come to think of it, they're more like footfalls than just ordinary footsteps. Too heavy to be a human's. Too loud to be anything bigger than what we are used to," thought Cricket. All of a sudden the lights of the basement went out. In a few seconds though they came back on. The sight of who stood before them made them drop their loot. It was Quarry.
"Well hello children. My my, what a surprise to see me eh? " Quarry joked. His henchmen were behind him awaiting orders.
"Q..q..q..Quarry?" was all that Cricket could stammer out. The other two were frozen still. Quarry had this smirk on his face that was just pissing off Skwydd and Tuck.
"Your friend Rex sends his regards. He's probably in a way better place than we all are, now ain't he Mitch?" The henchman on Quarry's right hand side grunted an affirmative.
"My boys told me that he put up quite a fight. But it seemed that the fight wasn't cut out for him."
"Rex...?" The three said in unison. They had a bad feeling about this. A feeling that made them sick to the core. Quarry was known for crushing rebellious minds, and for punishing the owners of those minds. Even being the top lieutenant didn't cut some slack for Rex. "Everyone has a boundary" was one of Quarry's favorite quotes. Rex was a known troublemaker. But he rarely stepped out of the line. The three were frantically wondering what their friend and leader had done and what had happened to him.
"What did you do to Rex?" Cricket was bold enough to stand up and ask the question from Quarry. But her courage was rewarded by a sickening sound. A crack so loud that the other two could feel it more than they could actually hear it.
Cricket fell to the floor clutching her face trying her best not to cry. She had never been slapped. But Quarry's henchmen had tried to do so. Every time one of them wanted to punish her for "stepping out of line" Rex had stood up for her. But not today. Not this time. She stifled her sobs as the other two slowly started to unfreeze from their fear.
"My my girlie, you dare to ask me a question with such a boldness in your eyes," Quarry said, "Ha. That is not just boldness. That's defiance. And you children know that I hate defiance. As for your friend, you won't be seeing him anymore. No one will see him. Ever. Again."
Cricket shuddered as Tuck and Skwydd looked at each other's faces.
"What. Did. You. Do. To Him? " Tuck made sure that each word was punctuated and emphasized. Earning a dead-eye stare from Quarry, the replied just chilled him to the core.
"Rex was... a problem to me, right boys? The bys say that he was nimble fingered."
"Stealing from Quarry? And what? He thought he could get away with it?" Quarry remarked. "I had him in less than an hour. Have to admit it, he was a smart kid though. Too bad he was."
The three looked defeated as they understood why Quarry was referring to Rex in the past tense. All was lost. Their leader, their friend, Rex was beyond hope. Cricket broke down in sobs, Skwydd just stared into some far away point while Tuck just sat down and started taking deep breaths. They knew what was in for them now. They were Quarry's now. They had always been so, but with Rex they were more like Rex's instead of Quarry's. Now, they were Quarry's. Quarry owned them. And there was nothing that they could do.
Tuck's breathing, Cricket's sobs and the rain was the only sounds audible in the room. The rain just drowned every sound in a while. It drowned everything, as always. The rain was always like that. Drowning. Dissolving. Dissipating. The rain, was just like that.