Chapter 2 A Deal

(Natsu)

I could care about a lot of things. I could choose to become a farmer and provide food for people around the world. I could have been a simple teacher helping disabled brats.

But I didn't f**ing care for any of that. For example, the bastard tied to a chair in front of me was trying to beg for clemency. I wouldn't give him a shred of mercy even if he could shit gold.

"I can get you money, lots of it, or women? Guns? Anything you want." Rat said, half crazy with fear. I could guess a few reasons why he was called Rat. Like a rodent, he'll squeak out info if you just squeezed tight enough.

I loved that look on my victims before I bury their body in a ditch. Fear.

I could laugh. I know damn straight this ass don't have a dime to his name. Least of all connections.

"Ok Rat here's the deal," I say, pulling out my silver .44 pistol. "I know your crappy life better than you do, so give up this shit, or I'll put a hole your heart," The man snapped his mouth shut, and I smiled. "Good, you catch on fast. So here's why I haven't killed you yet. Your good friend, Jiemma, stole a precious object from me. I know your boss had a safe house somewhere in this city and I know he's got what I want in it," I grabbed his shoulder and jerked my gun to his temple. "Tell me where it is, and I'll spare my brothers the task of cleaning up your f**ing brains when I pull this trigger."

Rat was shaking; sweat trickled down his face. "I-I don't have that information-" I moved my finger to the trigger and was a hair's length away from pulling it, when he quickly spoke up, "But I do know who."

I pulled the gun away and smiled. "Please do tell."

"There's a new guy here. Phantom. He's almost like Jiemma's shadow; he knows almost as much as the boss does. You want information. You get Phantom. But the man's not called that for any reason. He can steal almost anything without so much as a camera spotting it."

I tapped my chin with the barrel of my gun, my brothers (A name we call our fellow gang members) all chattered behind me.

This whole thing seems like more trouble than we initially thought.

"Anything else?" I asked.

"You can't miss him. The guy wears a mask to hide half his face. He'll stick out like a sore thumb."

I looked over to my second in command, Black Iron, and nodded my head. "You know what to do."

"On it END." He took his men and were off.

Rat was relaxed now. He thought he was safe. What a joke. "So are you gonna untie me dude or what?"

"Why would we do that?" I chuckled. In one swift move, I aimed my gun and fired.

I put my gun back in its holster and looked at the men still in the room. "Have one of the sluts clean this up," I say and walk outside of the club. Black Iron and some of his men sat on motorcycles with one extra for me. Their engines roared and hummed like a sweet melody. I got on my bike, and together we all took off towards the city.

Like I always say. The only way to get what you want is to start up some shit.

And right now I wanted Phantom to spill out all his secret about Jiemma, so I can put a bullet through his head and get back my treasure.

I smirked thinking about it. This was going to be fun.

(Sting)

I hated to leave Lucy by herself. I knew she hated to be alone. But I had to work, or we'd starve.

It's not like I wanted to be this way. Kill for money, rob for money, I had no choice. After our parents died Lucy and I needed protection. Child services wanted to separate us, well they don't know shit. I would rather bloody my hands then lose my sister. And so I joined a gang, but the judgment of a fourteen-year-old boy wasn't worth a damn, and I ended up putting us in deeper shit.

I'm glad she doesn't know all the details. But then again Lucy never asks. My sister's like that. She's smart, making up physically weakness. I was proud of her either way. She listened to me; she didn't spit on me for my mistakes. I'm relieved to know my face doesn't scare her.

I drove up to an old abandoned motel on the outside of the city. I quickly put on my mask and my leather jacket with the gang's crest on it, a black skull surrounded by a red and white flag, and stepped out of the car and joined up with the rest of the members.

None of them I knew personally, but one guy I knew from my old home, Nike. He was leading the operation.

He was the biggest ass hat I'd ever known.

"Nice to see you Phantom, didn't bring your brother I see." His sense of humor was worse than listening to a car burn rubber. He knew I never brought my sister, but I'm glad he hadn't figured out she was a girl. He'd have tried to kidnapped her years ago.

"Shut the hell up and tell me what up, or I'll leave." My threats were never taken lightly because I meant every word. I hardly ever lied, one of my few remaining traits that were honorable.

"Ok you damn fun sucker," He pointed down the road. "Rat's been taken as a hostage, and just a while ago our spies in the city over have spotted the Dragons on the move. They'll be coming down this road, and we've been ordered to ambush them. Is that good enough?" He asked me, clearly pissed.

I growled back a, "No, I think we should have had a slideshow while eating popcorn, of course, it's good enough you bastard." It's a miracle I never shot this guy in the two years I've known him.

"I want snipers in every direction," I said.

Nike gulped loud enough to catch my attention. "We don't have anything besides two guns and a couple of knives."

What. The. Hell?

"Are you f**ing serious?" I roared. "Why would you come without guns?!"

"The Dragons stole our shipments last month; Jiemma won't send any more." He snapped. "And we haven't had enough time to rob a gun store."

I half screamed out every vulgar word in the dictionary. I didn't care if these bastards heard me say it.

"Then we'll do this the old fashion way," I went to my truck and drove it into the middle of the street, then ordered the men to hid behind it.

"I want someone to draw them close enough for us to stab a few, then get your asses back behind this truck before they can get their guns and start shooting."

I swear I could be blowing steam out of my ears with how pissed I was. I just wanted to get this over with, but seems like I might die tonight.

"Here that?" One of them asked.

Sure enough, I could hear the thunder of a couple of Harley engines, speeding down the road. I didn't see headlights so I couldn't tell how many were coming.

"Get into position. Now!"

This was going to be one hell of a night.

(Lucy)

With nothing to do, I ended up reading the newspaper. It was a way to kill time, but even I cringed at the thought of just reading some boring articles.

I could hear Sting saying, "Reading is reading. Be glad we can read at all."

I held back tears thinking of him. My brother wouldn't die like a pig raised for slaughter. He'd kill a dozen men before he dropped dead.

"Stop it!" I smacked myself. "He's not going to die, damn it all!"

I dropped my head on the table and started tugging my hair. The newspaper underneath me had a picture that caught my eye, even if my arm half covered it. Ignoring a dead body was hard, mainly when it was on the front page.

City's Museum Robbed

At 2:00 pm a man was found dead in the street. Identify as 46-year-old Gab Hudson, who worked as a night guard for the Bristol City Museum. Police investigated to discover the Phoenix's eye Ruby stolen. There is a 20,000$ reward for any information that leads to the finding of the gem valued at 500,000$

Lucky bastard who stole the damn jewel. Twenty gram isn't worth shit compared to the ruby itself.

My phone started to ring, and like a madwoman, I dropped the paper without a second thought and scrambled halfway across the kitchen to get my phone off the charger.

I flipped it open, and a message flashed at me. It just gave a few, direction to an area around the city border and a single note. Come quick, and come alone. Need help.

Sting needs help! I grabbed my beanie hat and shoved my hair underneath it. I slipped on my worn out tennis shoes, and then a couple of bucks for a taxi.

I tracked down a cab and jumped in giving the driver the directions from the message. When we stopped a few yards away from an old abandoned hotel surrounded by cars, I noticed one of them was Sting's truck parked in the middle of the road. I gave the Taxi driver the money, and he took off when I got out of the car.

This was the right place, but there wasn't anyone here. Was the heck was going on?

"Sting?" I called out, my hand going to my pocket knife. It wasn't like my brother to call me on the job, but he's called for my help more than once, and this isn't like him. He'd be waiting for me, or he'd let me know what was going on.

Something suddenly slammed into my back, and I bit down on my tongue to keep from screaming, they'd know I was a girl if I did. But I don't even know if I could have cried. The attack nearly caused my spin to break.

Next thing I knew; I was on the ground with a hand pressing my face in the dirt.

"Looks like that bastard wasn't kidding, you came for your brother." The man smelled like old tobacco and unwashed armpits.

"Get off me!" I tried to wrestle myself free, but the guy was twice my size. Damn my lithe build.

The man tied my hands together with some rope and forced me to stand; he placed a gun on my back and l had no choice but to walk when he pushed me to the rundown building.

The closer we got I noticed other cars with the gang's black skull crest. They all had their tires slashed, and seven motorcycles all lined up beside them. I gulped when I saw a gang crest on each of them. A red dragon with the words MOB underneath.

Sting, please be alright.

The man forced me into the motel, down a hall that looked like someone had set off a bomb in it, and down a stairway that led to a dingy basement. Dingy might have been too sweet of a word. It was shit. The floor was covered in moss and smelled like piss. The lighting was awful, and I almost went blind when someone turned on a bright lamp.

Six men, all clad in black leather and worn out jeans surrounded me They all shared patches on their coats, the same red dragon like the ones on the bikes.

"Hay, phantom guess who's here," One man teased.

I gasped when I saw Sting on the ground, clutching a knife wound on his side. His good eye was swollen black and blue, but luckily they kept his mask on. Sting never took it off when he wasn't at home.

My brother slowly opened his eyes and nearly collapsed from trying to stand up to get to me. "Get your f**ing hands off my brother!" He yelled or attempted to. Sting sounded like he was having trouble breathing.

"What did you do to him?" I tried to keep my voice from breaking, but I was too afraid to do anything right.

"Easy there lad, we did nothing except drag him down here and barry his men in shallow graves." Someone new stepped out from the shadows. Had he been there the whole time?

When I turned to glare at him, my breath hitched.

This man looked like some exotic prince turned erotic villain. He had a punk rock style to him. His salmon colored hair was spiked up, with eyes so black you could hardly see the pupils. Finishing it all off was the single ear piercing, a silver ring.

Oh, heaven help me if I was blushing.

I mentally kicked myself for thinking that.

"He's right," Sting said bitterly, "The other's turned on me so they could run away like cowards." My eye fell to the growing spot of red on his shirt. Sting was desperately trying to stop the blood flow.

"Please help my brother; he's going to die if you don't do something-"

"We won't let him die," The salmon-haired punk said. "He's valuable to us," He gave me a smile that could rival the devil himself, "You, on the other hand, aren't so lucky." He pulled out a pistol and grabbed me from his accomplice's hold. I felt the cold metal of his gun on my temple as he leaned in and whispered. "We may have saved your brother, but don't get the wrong idea. I will kill you if he doesn't give me the information I want."

Sting started to shake as he glared daggers at the punk. "Leave him out of this. I'll give you anything you want, just don't f**ing put a scratch on him."

The punk shrugged. "I'm no fool, I'll keep your brother till I know you're telling me the truth, and when I get what I want I don't give a damn what you do, I might kill you both if I feel like it,"

I don't know what came over me, but I spat in the man's face. "Bastards, I hope you rot in hell." I snapped.

He laughed. Fricken laughed at me.

"Well Phantom your brother here just gave me a perfectly good reason to kill him, but I'll be merciful, tell me were Jiemma's safe house is, and I'll let your brother live."

I stopped struggling and gawked at my brother. He shared my same surprised look, and then he started to laugh like a lunatic. Seriously was everyone going to laugh while being threatened with guns?

"What so funny?" One of the men growled, holding out his knife.

Sting sighed and looked straight into their faces. His blonde hair damp with sweat, his skin pale, and his eye swollen, yet he seemed dead serious.

I knew that face met he was ready to fight.

"Jiemma's told me about his safe house," He chuckled. "Has about twenty of them in this city alone. I only know where they're at, not how heavily guarded they are, not the security, I don't even know any damn codes. I can lead you to one, but you see there's a system set up to warn all Black Skull members if a safe house has is attacked, so you'd all be f**ed before you could ever get what you're looking for."

I felt the barrel of the gun push harder into my head. I yelped and tried to struggle against the punk but to no avail.

"But," My brother said, his voice desperate when he saw me struggle, "I can offer you more information about the Black Skulls. I know where their safe houses are, and I'm one of them. I can easily get you inside and out, and the damn boss wouldn't know."

"Why should we trust you," The man with the knife said. Looking at the salmon-haired man who still held me captive, he shook his head. "This man's talking shit, END. Get rid of him."

"Shut the hell up Black Iron," The punk, or END, snapped. "He has a point, as much as I hate to admit it, we might have to change our plan," He glanced at my brother and sighed. "Ok, I'll take you up on your offer, but I won't let your brother go till I have what I want, or I'm dead."

When Sting didn't say anything, END smiled. "It's either that or bleed to death and watch as we kill your brother in front of you."

Sting didn't even take a single breath before he answered. "I'll do anything."

"He's agreed, now help him!" I snapped at END. "He's lost too much blood."

The bastard looked like he didn't give a shit what pain my brother was going through, but had two of his men lift my brother up and took him outside.

Maverick dragged me with him as he followed his brothers to their bikes, and shoved me into Sting's beat up old truck. My brother laid in the back, and the man named Black Iron sat in the driver's seat.

"If my brother dies then the deals off and I don't care if you kill me," I said.

END scoffed, driving his bike up by my side window. "Please, if your brother did die, then killing you would be boring,"

I gaped at him.

What kind of shit was I in now?