Chapter 2

~The beast.~

"Hey you, beast!" It was Denny once again, as funny and hideous as always, playing basket ball with his crew of bullies. Daryl tried not to follow his game but it was almost against his natural laws not to punch that bastard in the face and stick his nosebone deep into his brains. He shut his eyes and sighed deep. If he got in troubles one more time, he risked himself to be expelled from the school.

"I got a present for you." Denny tossed a dry rose to Daryl's feet and grinned cynically. "A kiss from your true love will break the spell. Ha! here's your rose, beast. Now you can wait for your true love and die alone!"

"Nobody wants you!"

"Oh here comes the beast, please don't eat me! hahahahaha!"

His rough skin that covered his left eye sipped that bitter memory to every empty space inside him. His brain jumped almost twelve years in the future to another dark memory. He was taking a walk, alone and downheaded. Merle had dropped him in a bar and let him pay all his shots till he was uncapable to pronounce his name, even remember it. He had spent almost half his paycheck that night just to save his brother's ass, because the owner and his pals didn't take the loans as a real payment, but took the beatings behind a dark alley as a good way of payback.

He witnessed how a man was arguing with his girlfriend, and how he deliberately punched her in the face and kicked her when she touched the ground almost unconscious. His human part was eclipsed by a wild rush of wrath and miscontrol of his actions. He tackled that son of a bitch against the pavement and smashed his head against it, pulling from his dark straight hair up and down till the street ran small rivers of blood. He had killed for the first time in his life and he felt no regret at all. He turned his head to check on the poor girl that was still panting and shaking in the floor. She panicked when she saw his boyfriend's brains spread in the sidewalk, and when her eyes met Daryl's face she screamed from deep her lungs and stepped back . "You are a monster!" she said before putting herself on her feet and run away from the crime scene.

The reason why he replayed those moments in his memory was not a concrete thing to him. Maybe it was to remind himself about how atrocious and cruel human kind could be with a person that looks different from the rest, or just it was to keep the wound open and be one with the suffer and anger. It made him think that if his condition were something natural, like born with it, maybe it would have helped him to endure the issue of being watched and pointed, and take the "love yourself as you are" bullshit for granted and just don't give a damn. He tried not to give a single damn to his past, in fact he fougth every day to leave it behind, leave his fears of being abused and bullied, of being insulted and discriminated, being rejected by girls and feared by the kids in the street, leave all of that cruel reality way behind the road. Plenty of times he tried to wash his pain with alcohol, but only made it worse. Violence had led him to so many dead ends piled in the darkest room of his mind to never see the light of the day. He had no one to be himself with, no one to lean on, no one to trust in. He was all by his won in this merciless world. He was running out of solutions. His soul was already damned, and sure he had a front row seat in hell special for him for all the things he was dragged to do.

"Hey, you, lil' princess get your ass up here and help me with the candy!" Merle yelled from inside. The last badge of blue sky was ready and they needed to pack it and have it ready to transport it in a construction truck. Each monday Ben the driver arrived to the old shack and made the exchange at 5 in the morning ,and they were running late. Daryl threw his half smoked cigarrette blowing out the last pull of smoke in the air of the night and got inside. It wasn't a small house though, but the equipment installed all around the living room, tubes and chemistry supplies made the place look like a broom closet.

The weekly production equaled to almost two hundred pounds, same one that needed to be packed in small bags of one pound, so they could be easily hid inside the truck. One by one they ordered them and had them ready at 4:50 a.m., and both Dixon brothers decided it was a good time for a smoke.

"The Boss wants me in the city. I have to arrage some shit," Merle broke the silence. "and I won't be here in some time, so I hope you can handle this with just one eye, lil' brother."

Daryl turned his head towards his brother, pissed by the comment. "I can do it" His voice sounded husky by the smoke, almost in a growl. His frown creepily drawn together by his deformed face.

"Ok, ok, I trust you lil' princess." Merle's hands open in front of him as a sign of peace. "I tell you cause our boss may come one day to check the pureness of the product, and if its pure enough, we get more money, you understand? More pure, more money; less pure, less money." Daryl kept his look in front and nodded his head.

"Good boy" Merle pet his head and went back inside.

"Who is this guy wer're working for, by the way?" Asked Daryl, his deformed brow lift awkwardly.

" Dunno, Heimerschmith, Heisenshit...I'm not sure." Merle shrugged his shoulders, "He's from Texas, I think. He's the man, you know, they say they have the purest crystal you'll ever taste. But he's not coming. He sent Mr. Pinkman, and he's the one we should care about, cause he 's the one that comes and checks us anytime soon, and if we don't hurry up he won't doubt to kill us. I've heard is a tough bitch." There was a truck outside the house. It was Ben parking outside. Together they moved the product and put the two hundred single bags of meth inside a secret room below the truck. A quick and smart operation. Before sunrise they had finished the move, Merle climbed to the passenger seat inside the cabin of the truck, his head out of the window.

"Well I have to go, lil' brother, don't to any stupid like burning the business or play with the machines" Merle mocked "Or I have to punish you the way papa did, ok? and I don't wanna deal with a blind motherfucker on my back, understand?" He pulled a husky laugh and got lost in the woods.

The sound of the engine roared aloud and hid the swearings of Daryl. Once again, his lovely brother dumped him with all the heavy work. He hated doing this, but they needed the money, even when he saw the instruments placed in the corner of the room and felt his guts twisted, especially with that brown bottle placed in the shelf that contained the same acid that melted his skin and took his left eye sight.