Correction from chapter one: I said it was a shack in the 1st chapter, since then I've realised that's a bit stupid and changed it to a house. Apologies!
Leo sat in his tattered arm chair of the room at the entrance to the house, cigarette in one hand, and head in the other. Thoughts flowed through his mind as he pondered what he was planning to do, the moonlight coming through the windows bathing him and the whole room in a silvery glow. While Roscoe hadn't given him a lot of details, this Jet deal was potentially worth mega bucks, enough to get him and the rest of what remained of his family out of Kimballville. Drugs weren't Leo's favoured form of underground trade, however. He was a big guy, easily 6'3 and this meant when he asked for your money, you gave it to him. Ok, it wasn't glamorous but Leo was bright enough to tell who would just had it over and who would rather die than hand over a handful of caps. Chems, on the other hand, where a different story. The amount of young kids that Leo knew who'd got involved in the Chem trade and turned up dead in this town didn't warrant thinking about right now, not with what was in the pipeline. He knew that this could get bad, real bad, and real quick. But the juice was worth the squeeze, Leo thought to himself.
'Leo you you've burned a hole in the chair you prick!'
Jed had just limped into the room and had seen that Leo's hand had slowly slipped down from its starting position and had drifted too close to the arm of the chair, burning a perfect, black circle in it. Leo startled into life, hitting the burn mark open palmed in a futile attempt to reduce the damage. After a few seconds of palming, Leo stood up, raised his hands and allowed them to flop back down in frustration.
'That can't be a good sign?' said Leo, pointing at the damage
'It's a sign you're a tool, that's for sure' replied Jed, smirking as he did so
'Why don't you come over here and say that?' Leo motioned that he should do so with his right arm, left clenched in a fist, a grin on his face.
Jed held is hands up in an 'I surrender' way, and then pointed to door.
'We better get our asses in gear, still gotta meet Roscoe at Mickey's so we know where to meet the contact'.
'Let's get a move on then'
Jed limped towards the front door as Leo lifted himself out of his chair. Jed put his hand on the door handle but glancing over his shoulder he saw Leo move towards a set of drawer s. Pulling one of them open, he pulled out a 10mm pistol, slipped out the magazine, slotted it back in and tucked it into the back of his trousers. He pulled the back of his top back down and looked to see Jed looking back at him.
'What?'
'Expecting trouble?'
'Better to have a gun and not need it, than need it, and not have one'
'Right...' started Jed, nodding slightly 'where'd you get that from anyway?'
Leo paused for a moment before answering
'It was Dad's'
Jed lowered his head a little, and then turned fully to face Leo.
'What do you think Dad would say about this?'
'Doesn't matter, he isn't here, never was, end of' Leo quickly responded.
His response didn't surprise Jed, their farther had always seemed to put the Army before his family and while Jed had been proud of what his Dad did, Leo resented it. He always said 'Dad would rather spend 6 months fighting the legion than 6 hours with his kids'. That always stung Jed. Their Dad wasn't always around but he had some of his best memories when he was and although Jed would do anything to get out of Kimballville, he always shuddered at the thought of Dad being disappointed in him. When he died at the second battle of Hoover Damn, they all took it hard, but Jed was devastated and never really got over it. Leo, however, had been at odds with their farther since their mother was killed in a robbery gone wrong in Freeside. Leo said that their farther should have been there to protect her and never forgave him for not. It created a divide that was never really repaired.
'Think he'd be disappointed?'
'Who the fuck cares?' said Leo, sounding more than a little exasperated throwing 'let's just get to Mickey's, we can talk about this some other God-damn time'.
Leo strode forward, opening the door and nearly pushing Jed through as he went. Leo didn't want to talk about his farther at the best of times, especially not now. As hard as Jed made himself out to be, when it came to Dad he just went soft. It annoyed Leo that Jed never saw their Dad for what he felt he was. He didn't hold it against Jed, although that didn't stop Leo from busting him down when he got misty-eyed over him.
A savage wind was whipping around Kimballville as the pair made their way to Mickey's bar. Although it was only a short journey, the twists and turns along the way, coupled with the reason for it, made it feel a lot longer to them than what it was. What was also strange was that for one reason or the other, the town was eerily silent. Although it was late into the night, the area was usually far more active than what they were seeing. From the run down houses of the old town to the hastily built sheet-metal constructs of the new, only a smattering of people lined the streets of Kimballville. It was like the two brothers were alone in a dead town. This sent more than a few shivers down the spines of the two young men.
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