Xavier's Eyes

It was a busy Saturday night at the Darkwood club. I was sitting at the bar with my long-time friend, Joseph, serving drinks tonight. I was supposed to be meeting a supplier for insulin medication here but it looks like he would not be able to make it. He hasn't been answering my text messages or phone calls since the morning before the meeting. Either the cops found out and threw him in the slammer, chickened out, or an Assassin took him out. This supplier had friends who worked at pharmacies and would be willing to hand us a few boxes of the stuff.

There are people who need that medicine including a single mom of four kids who is trying to make ends meet at a crappy retail store and she can barely get through most of her shifts while low on insulin. I sigh in disappointment but it is to be expected when, technically, the act that me and the Black Bears are doing is illegal.

“That supplier is not coming tonight,” Joseph leaned on the bar.

“Doesn’t look like it, Joe.”

“Damn, isn’t that the second one so far?”

“Yeah, second one.”

“Need a drink, Xav?”

“Yeah, an IPA would be fine.”

“Comin’ right up,” Joseph says, pouring the amber liquid into a glass.

“Thanks, Joe.” I toast to him.

Joseph gives me a smile and nod and turns back to the other customers that are approaching the bar. I sip the pint while looking all around the club behind me, there are people dancing at the main floor and up on the second floor balcony. Lights flashed and danced with the people on the floor, the air seemed to linger of body odor and whatever perfumes the attendees were wearing. There were a couple fights that happened but the bouncers were quick to kick the instigators out; it seemed easy to manage a club but honestly trying to take care of your community is even harder.

Cops riding up your ass at every moment of the day; Assassins at every corner waiting to take you out when you are vulnerable. No one is safe in the neighborhood. Poverty, drug addiction, and mental illness runs rampant in our area but our representative seems too cowardly to even advocate for a community center. So, we have to fend for ourselves in this hell-hole and hope that a miracle comes crashing down at us.

I look over to my left and see a young lady with dark wavy hair carefully enter the club, like she was expecting a beast to jump out at her. What caught my attention was the fearful look on her face like she wasn’t supposed to be here but somebody dragged her here.

“Joe, who is that? Do you know her?” I shout over the club music.

Joe squints at the girl from a distance

“Can’t say I have seen her before,” He shrugs

“Oh shit, she’s an assassin” A man shouts behind me. I turn to see that it was Ethan, one of Black Bears’s informants.

“An Assassin? What is she doing here?”

“So, I overheard Lynea Castor talk to one of them the other day. They were gonna send this girl over to kill you because they think she is “ready for the job.”

“Really?” I quiz.

“Yea, but she ain’t the most graceful swan on the lake, if you catch my drift. She’s more like a rock in the middle of the lake.”

I look back over at the girl, and I see her bump her hip into a table. I chuckle to myself at this moment of clumsiness before I see her look in my direction.

“Oh shit, she is coming,” I say with gleeful amusement.

“Well, I better get going,” Ethan says with hurried casualness.

“Later, Ethan,” I absentmindedly waved in his direction.

The way she was walking had me convinced that she was close to having a panic attack, the way she looked over her shoulder and around her. She hurried over to the bar; leaning on the counter like she was going to have a heart attack. I felt a slight twinge of pity for her, this poor girl was in way over her head. I heard her order a Shirley Temple to Joseph and see her guzzle the drink down like water. I do a quick body scan of her and find that she seems to be a sizable opponent, close to my height of five-ten, with some noticeable muscles that are highlighted in the tight sleeves of her top.

She glances in my direction, and looks at me with a squint, like she is trying to decipher me in the darkness. I walk over to her to get a closer look and when I am standing above her, her eyes roll to the back of her head as she almost collapses on the ground before I catch her. She is trying to fight me off but her efforts are in vain as I carry her to the outdoors. I gently put her down on her feet, with her quickly scrambling to gain her balance. She turns back to me and gives me a disgusted look.

“Thanks,” She says with annoyance, “You didn’t need to pull me out of there. I wasn’t in distress.”

“It looked like you were in distress.” I counter.

She suddenly turns back at me with a look of surprise, she must’ve realized who she was suddenly talking to. That pity and annoyance was replaced with…respect? I never knew someone, especially an amateur assassin, would be so ballsy as to attempt to take me out. I frown in confusion at her sudden moment of weakness because it just confused the hell out me. I have the idea that I could maybe slowly gain her trust, since she seems the type to be easily taken in. At least, that is what it seems to me.

“Is there something wrong?,” I say apprehensively.

“No,” She quickly responds

“You just made a face like you just saw a ghost.”

“Well, I didn’t see a ghost. I was just surprised that I made it out of there without dying.” I reply indignantly while straightening her shirt, brushing dust off of it.

I thought it better to lower her defenses, “You wanna go somewhere else?”

“Sure,” She says and follows close behind me.

Thank you so much for reading this story based on a group prompt! Please also read the full series! I will be updating this as the series continues. :)

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3