Chapter 11

'…recognize the underworld since I was young…'

Roxas

St. Mariannu Memorial Hospital. The building is made of porcelain white stone and there are hundreds of windows. Everything looks high-tech and futuristic, completely the opposite of crooked-ass Calisota County General- the place where people without insurance-i.e. most of the people I stay around- go. I know that my eyes are playing tricks on me but, hand to God, it looks as if the damn building is… sparkling.

I park my Vespa in a parking lot and just sort of sit there; I still haven't come up with an actual plan. I tried to come up with something while I was driving over here, but all I had on my mind was Naminé and seeing Marluxia on TV; mostly Naminé though. Now that the beast is right in front of me though, I've become much more focused on the task at hand.

Sneaking into a hospital in Twilight Town is a pretty daunting task; the crushers keep a close eye on the place. I can only imagine the kind of headache doing the same thing would be here in the land of milk and honey. I'm not sure if I can do this by myself. Unfortunately for me I don't really have any friends besides Naminé and there's no way in hell she'd do something like what I'm thinking of doing. Not like I could ask her to do this for me, anyway.

I take a deep breath and repeat the same phrase in my head, over and over again. 'At least it's not Twilight Town'. If I was back at home, I wouldn't try this at all. But I'm not at home and I should remember not to give these lace-wig pricks too much credit. This is Destiny; Destiny cops can't count to twenty one without dropping their pants. I'm probably just over-thinking the whole situation.

Y'know what? Fuck it; time to just go for it and see what happens.

I hop off of my Vespa and start walking towards the entrance of the hospital, trying to think of something to say once I show up at the front desk. The automatic doors go swish as I pass through them and make my way towards the front desk.

There's a candy striper sitting behind it; a young one, kinda cute too. Suddenly I'm feeling a little better about my chances. I sidle up to the counter and lean slightly over the edge, doing my best to look cool. The candy striper and I lock eyes; I smile slightly and she smiles back politely revealing a mouthful of braces.

"Hello sir, how can I help you," she asks.

"I can think of a couple of ways," I reply.

She raises an eyebrow at my subliminal pickup line and kind of gives me that 'is he for real' look birds give you when they don't know whether they should be impressed or repelled. A neutral reaction; I was hoping for something stronger. Now that I've stepped in it, nothing to do except press on and see where things take me.

"Sir, do you have an ailment or are you here from some other reason. Visiting hours are almost over so…"

"C'mon, you don't have to be so formal with me, calling me sir makes me sound like an old man. You can call me Roxas."

"Sir…"

"Roxas," I cut her off and lean further over the countertop.

She kind of shies away from me; I'm making her nice and uncomfortable. I just hope that it's the good kind of uncomfortable. She starts avoiding eye contact with me and busies herself with some of the papers at her fingertips. I take the opportunity to look at the list of patients sitting next to her; it's a little hard reading names seeing as how they're upside down but I still manage to find one that I can decipher. Unfortunately she snatches my attention away before I can even get close to seeing any room numbers.

"Sir," the girl repeats, her tone indicating that she really has no idea about what to do with me and its making her uncomfortable. Not the good kind either.

"I'm sorry but I really need to…"

"Look I'm sorry to be bothering you like this," I say, quickly cutting her off before she gets a chance to dismiss me or call for help.

"But I'm very concerned about a family friend that was brought here earlier today. My cousin called me, but my phone was off and I really just received the message, so I just rushed over here! I just need to see her."

I do my very best to pack as much false sincerity as I can stuff into those statements and hope that she is soft-hearted enough to do something that she really shouldn't be doing. I make sure to stare into her face intently. I mean, really staring her down; not to intimidate her or anything, just to let her know that I'm very serious about what I said and that it's important to me that she let me up to see my poor, injured friend. The way her expression softens, I get the feeling that she might just be buying it.

The candystriper starts chewing her bottom lip and cutting her eyes from side to side, focusing a furtive gaze on me for a fraction of a second before flitting off to focus on something else. Judging by the look on her face, it's clear that she's having a little internal debate trying to figure out what to do with me. What is less clear is which side is winning; the one that's saying she should help me out or the one that's telling her that I'm suspicious and she'd be better off calling security. My gut is telling me that things aren't going to go my way.

I lean away from the countertop; I stand up straight and I try to hide the frustration that's building on my face.

"Look, I'm sorry about this," I tell the girl sitting behind the desk.

"It's not fair of me to be asking favors from you that could get you in trouble. I just… look, I sorry. Just forget about what I asked you. Thanks anyway."

Damn. Well… that didn't get me anywhere.

I turn around and start walking away; I really need to start planning things out. The whole reason I came here was to see if I could have a chat with the kid that had gotten stabbed up. Never mind that I don't know what the kid's name is, so I won't be able to know what room he would be in.

"Um… hey! Hold up a second," a timorous voice announces from behind me.

Startled, I turn around to see the girl behind the desk. She beckons for me to come back, but keeps her eyes down, making sure not to meet my gaze. As I get back over to the desk, she's still not looking up at me.

"Look, I'm sorry about what happened to your friend, but I can't really help you out. I can get into real trouble for letting some random person off of the street come in after visiting hours."

That apologetic tone of hers gets on my nerves; if it's that much of a pain for you, then why the hell did you call me back over here?

"But.."

She adds a pregnant pause at the end of that but.

"…if someone were to look over the countertop and spy some names from the patient list while I was unaware, then that would be a completely different deal."

I feel the edges of my mouth rising slightly of their own accord. Could I actually be catching a lucky break?

"Thank you very much for this…"

I lean over the counter while candystriper turns to her side and makes a display of shuffling some papers, making very sure to not see what I'm doing.

"Okay," I mutter to myself. "Just where are you."

Room 415.

It's taken me a good minute to find this sap's room, but I guess that I should be thankful that most of the people on that patient list were women. It's been pretty hard to avoid the hospital staff, but I've managed to stay off the radar somehow. Even more amazing was the fact that the rooms I have been in, I didn't end up freaking anybody out and having a bunch of monkey-men coming to carry me away. I'm already pushing my luck walking the hallways like this so long after visiting hours. Somebody catches me and I'm food for the crushers- I'd hate to have my mom get that late night call that begins 'Ms. Roxas, we have your son in custody'.

It's been a good long time since she got one of those, and I'm in no hurry to put her through that again.

I check the hallway; I look left, then I look right and left one more time. I'm all clear; I turn the handle and quickly slip inside, doing my absolute best to be as stealthy and silent as possible. The hinges on the door barely make a peep and once again I'm amazed at just how much money the people out here have got to splash around.

Seriously, who has ever heard of a door that doesn't squeak- not even a little bit?

The room is momentarily brightened by the light from the hallway before receding back into inky darkness. As the door shuts behind me, I stand still and listen.

Nothing.

I guess the brief illumination brought to the room by my opening of the door wasn't enough to wake up the guy in the bed. That or, he's smart enough to pretend like he's asleep and has already buzzed the orderlies to his room and in a few seconds I'll be caught in a very suspicious position.

Well, if I'm on a time limit, I'd better hurry it up then.

Silently stepping towards the bed, I look down to see that the kid is sound asleep. I feel around in the dark until I find the bedside lamp and flip the switch, bringing a little more light into the room.

Click…

As the light comes on, I get my first good look of the kid. He's pretty simple looking and is rocking that shoulder-length-metro-douchboy haircut that's seems to be so popular nowadays. He probably wears tiny fedoras and the skinny jeans with the rip in the knee.

Oh shit, he's starting to wake up!

As the kid's eyes slowly begin to creak open, I spring into action. My right hand strikes out and clamps down hard over his mouth. Me left snatches at his wrist and places the appendage in a death grip so that he can't click on the panic button to call for help. Obviously, my unexpected assault makes him freak the fuck out and he starts to struggle.

I throw my weight down on his body. He's shrieking beneath my hand and all the while I'm trying to tell him that I'm not here to hurt him; that I'm a friend and that I actually want to help him. Of course, nothing's getting through the blind panic. Damn! It!

I have no idea how much noise we're making, but it's definitely way more than what should be coming from a patient's room late at night. Trying to get a better handle on things, I put more of my weight onto his body; the kid starts shuddering underneath me, but his strength seems to be diminishing. I'm probably putting pressure on his wounds or something; that, or I'm smothering him.

"Look, for the last time. I'm not here to hurt you. If I were here to finish you off, I could have killed you while you were asleep," I say through gritted teeth.

"But if you keep on acting like a bitch, I am going to hurt you. Badly. You understand."

Beneath me, he nods, the fear evident in his eyes. Yeah, I know I'm being a jerk and no, it isn't any fun for me, but I'm not going to get anywhere by being nice. The terror tells me that he understands.

I let him go.

Immediately, the kid sits up. Rubs his wrist and looks at me with that scared puppy dog expression; next comes the inevitable question.

"Who the hell are you man?"

Fortunately, I've thought ahead and came up with an appropriate alias.

"Long-rod von Huge-n-dong," I say matter-of-factly. The look on his face is priceless.

"But that's not really important. What's important is that you tell me why the Nobodies decided that you were worth murdering."

The kid breaks eye contact with me and mumbles something that I can't quite make out. He suddenly finds something very interesting to look at in his lap.

"Hey," I snap. "You remember what I said about what I was going to do if you kept acting like a little bitch!"

"I said I didn't do anything man!"

"That's bull," I reply quickly. "I know the Nobodies; they don't do anything for no reason. You must have done something."

"No, seriously! I swear on my grandmother's grave, those bastards had no right to do what they did to me!"

I cringe back, surprised by just how adamant he sounds. I put a finger to my lips and try to shush him up.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa, just calm it down buddy," I say, trying to get him to calm down and, more importantly, get him to lower his voice.

The last thing that I need now is to get caught after going to all of the trouble of finding him.

"You say you didn't do anything, then, sure, you didn't do anything," I say, trying to sound reassuring.

"All I want is the straight."

The kid looks at me through his bangs, cagily aware that I was contradicting my earlier statement. Okay, time to start this over.

"How about you just tell me the story of how you ended up here?"

His face goes even paler than it already was and he buries his face into his hands. His shoulders droop and I notice he starts shaking a little bit. Oh no…

Nonononononononononono…

'Sob, sob.'

God damnit!

I have got absolutely no skill when it comes to dealing with crying people. Still, I can't help but feel some sympathy for the guy; coming a few centimeters from death isn't something a sane person can just shrug off like nothing. I don't say anything. I just stand there, throwing my eyes around the room and examining the surprisingly un-crappy hospital furniture they've got here; anything to avoid looking at the kid while he's in one of his nadir moments.

Eventually- thankfully- he doesn't have a complete breakdown and gets his sniffles under control. His eyes are still red and puffy, his nose is still runny. But his jaw isn't quivering; he's ready to talk.

"I'm, or, y'know I-I was a dealer," he begins.

"What were you pushing," I ask.

"I was strictly bush league. Weed mostly; I've also got- make that had- a thing with this pharmacist from Greenhaven and he slid some of the extra pills my way every now and then when somebody wants to special-order."

"How much were you holding?"

At this point the kid rattles out a hollow chuckle. Not the one of the humor filled ones; I'm talking about that hollow, mirthless, grizzled old gunfighter from the spaghetti westerns chuckle. It's creepy every time I hear somebody do that.

"Not weight," he says adamantly. "I had jack shit."

"Seriously," I ask, a bit incredulous. I wonder if the kid is selling himself short; after all, the Organization that I remember was into frying big fish. From what the kid with the douchey hair is saying, he was barely a guppy.

"I'm strictly small time," he insisted. "I wasn't moving bricks; I was barely moving pennies."

"Okay, so when did trouble come knocking at your door," I question.

The kid sort of shutters and I'm afraid that he's going to start crying again but he steadies himself pretty quickly.

"Not too long ago; a couple weeks ago is when I first heard about them- the Nobodies. I remember that I was going to re-up from my connection out in the Pride Lands and he told me about how word on the streets were that there was movement down in Twilight Town. Rumor was somebody was looking to expand out to Destiny."

"And how did that strike you?"

He looks at me grimly.

"I didn't like the sound of that. I don't- I didn't- do business with anybody from T-Town. Everybody knows the fellas out there play the game rough; they're nothing but animals!"

"Yeah. We can be real pricks," I say emotionlessly and watch the sap go stiff. Then he starts to sputter out an apology I have to tell him to shut the hell up and get back to the story.

He looks apprehensive, but a little friendly coaxing from me loosens up his tongue.

"A-anyway; I was just minding my own business, selling my wares in my spot at Ansem-Wise when, one day, these guys just show up. It was some pink-haired guy and some big ginger gorilla…"

"Marluxia and Lex," I mutter under my breath.

"Yeah, yeah, that's them. They told me that I was 'no longer an independent contractor'. I was working for them now and I was going to sell what they gave me, and only what they gave me. And then they just left. I didn't get to say word one."

He pauses and absentmindedly touches the places where he got stabbed, before moving on.

"I didn't know of either of these guys by word or reputation, but I knew that they scared me. Something told me that if I got in with them, I'd be getting in way too deep."

"So, what'd you do," I asked.

"I quit," he replied quickly. "I left that meeting and I told everybody that I had ever done business with that I was going back to being a square from the burbs. I know I'm not cut out for any of that real gangster shit."

"And I'm guessing that they didn't take your retirement too well."

I think I'm starting to get the picture but, for the life of me, I can't quite grasp what it's supposed to be showing me.

"That's the thing; I'd quit weeks ago. I put the word out and I sold or gave up my entire stash to friends and started walking the straight and narrow. None of the T-Town boys came to bother me, so I thought I was cool."

"So what changed," I asked. "How did you and that other kid end up bleeding and dying at school on a weekend?"

"It was a kid named Zexion; he stopped me in the hallway that Friday. He told me that he had some business with me and that he expected to meet me at Ansem-Wise. Expected, man; when I showed up there, Zexion, some of his boys and the dead guy- Joby's his… was his name- were already there."

"Who's this Joby guy," I ask at the introduction of the new name.

I also wondered at the fact that he said that Zexion was the one who met him at the school. From what I remember, Zex loved to think of himself as a 'finesse man'- his words, not mine. In an event like this, I was expecting to hear that Marluxia or Lexaeus were the ones who led the stabbing.

"Joby was guy I knew from around," the kid replied. "We never hung out but I know that he dealt just like me. When I got out of the game, he stayed in and got put on the new crowd's payroll. I remember he seemed kind of nervous."

At this point, the kid took another pause. I could tell that he was steeling himself; gathering some fortitude as he was about to recount what happened to him.

"Zexion and his boys took us behind the groundskeepers shack. I was scared, but not too scared, y'know. It was tense, but I wasn't expecting anything like what was about to happen."

The kid is on the verge of tears, the cracks appearing in his voice, but he keeps it up.

"We got back there and then that little emo freak starts talking about how me and Joby have stolen from the Organization; how we broke protocol and how an example had to be set. What is that bullshit, man? I don't know if Joby shorted them or not, but I didn't do anything! Why did this have to happen to me?"

He looks at me imploringly, his eyes begging me for an answer. It's like he wants some kind of explanation for why this had to happen to him, but has given up on ever finding one.

But the really screwed up thing is I've got an answer for him. It's all too easy for me to figure out. When it comes to the Organization, you don't get to decide things on your own. This poor bastard thought that if he just gave up and got out of the game, then the Nobodies would leave him alone. Too bad he had decided to do that after they had come to see him that first time.

As far as the Organization was concerned, he was working for them. Those drugs that he gave away and sold didn't belong to him; they were the property of the Organization. To them, what he did was the same as if they had consigned him one hundred tops of HEARTLESS and he had decided to flip them and not deliver the Organization's cut.

He thought he was free, but he was already a slave. If you're a dealer on the Organization payroll and you want to stop slanging, you ask permission and if you don't receive the Superior's blessing, you're stuck where you are.

Murder, however, typically isn't the Nobodies first course of action when somebody shorts them. But, then again, Marluxia always was the violent type and with him running things- and I know he's at the head of all this- he probably thought an example needed to be set.

This whole analysis of the situation takes place inside of my head. All I'm able to do is give the kid a sympathetic pat on the shoulder because there's no way I can tell him any of what just occurred to me.

It's a small mercy but I figure that he doesn't need to know that he almost died just because some assholes wanted to prove a point.