The first day back had been hard. Antwan was used to being the center of attention at school but it was a different kind of attention than he’d become used to. Friends filed up to him one by one to pay their condolences to him and even kids he’d not spoken a word to or he knew hated his guts stopped to stay a word. It was unnerving, unnecessary even, but by recess things had gone back to normal. It was strange without Jayson there to eat his food with. Antwan didn’t know who to sit with or where to go so opted to remain in his homeroom to try to get some work done. Heck, if Jayson could see Antwan right now doing his work before the last second for once he’d have sworn the world was coming to an end. It was painful, lonely too, but Antwan was glad he’d gone to school instead of sitting in Roland’s house on his own. The second day was more manageable. The condolences still came, teachers still took him to the side where he could to tell him they’d be there if they needed him, and the principal was still determined to shove counselor after counselor in Antwan’s direction to get him to talk about what had happened. They didn’t understand. There was nothing for Antwan to talk about. The only person he wanted to talk to at the moment was Jayson and Jayson was gone. When he found out that it was DeSean Hamilton that had killed Jayson he’d wanted to tear the whole school down. They said he’d done it because Antwan humiliated him, because he felt helpless, and had been aiming for Antwan that night. Jayson had saved his life. It hurt him to think back to that night and how he’d not even taken the time to read the name on the back of DeSean’s jersey whilst he’d taunted him all night. DeSean hadn’t even existed to him and yet he’d taken Antwan’s best friend away from him over some trash talk. It was his mouth that had killed Jayson, not DeSean Hamilton, and that would be true to him for as long as he lived. He’d have to live with that. So he endured the lonely days at schools and took what solace he could from Roland’s company at night. He’d toyed with the idea of going back to his mom’s house but the way she’d blown up at Roland at the hospital still ate away at him. A thousand things, including his mother, raced through Antwan’s mind in chemistry before the appearance of Vice-Principal Jamieson added another thing for Antwan to worry about. No doubt he was there to take him to another counselor or to suggest that he take some time to mourn. Instead he took him to his office where Gus Harris and the sheriff’s deputy that had interrogated Antwan after he’d been pulled over were sat waiting for him. He took a seat and eyed them suspiciously. “What’s going on? Am I in trouble or something?” Vice-Principal Jamieson shook his head, his big brown double chins flapping as he did so, and spoke in a deep velvety voice that Antwan had become well acquainted with over the past two days. “It’s nothing to be worried about, Antwan, Deputy Calhoun here wants to ask you a couple of questions. That’s all.” Calhoun, that had been her name, she was related to Coach Calhoun. Antwan pointed in Gus’ direction. “What’s he doing here then?” Gus smiled at him. “Call it moral support.” Antwan narrowed his eyes a little, confused and skeptical in equal measure. He’d told the police everything he had to tell them about Jayson’s shooting the day Roland had picked him up from the hospital. Deputy Calhoun leant forward from her seat and smiled at Antwan. “When was the last time you spoke to Roland, Antwan?” He frowned at her suspiciously, feigning anger to cover his nervousness. Roland was the nearest thing to a friend that Antwan had left now that Jayson was gone. That whole business with the cars and the weed was behind them and Roland had been there for him over the past couple of days. His mother had been so obsessed with turning Antwan against him that even as Antwan’s best friend laid dead she was still using it to attack him. Roland was all he had. If something had happened to him Antwan wasn’t sure how he’d cope. “What’s happened?” For a second Gus, sat slightly behind Deputy Calhoun, made eye contact with Antwan. “Just answer the question, son.” From his voice Antwan could tell something was wrong. “Yesterday afternoon? Something like that.” Deputy Calhoun flicked open her notepad and began to scribble something down. “You haven’t heard from him since? Has he been in contact? Phone calls, text messages, anything?” “Nothing,” Antwan muttered. “Not that I can remember.” Again Gus piped up, though this time his voice was more forceful from the last time and there was a sense of urgency to it. “Think, Antwan.” Something was definitely wrong. That day at the court Gus had seemed calm, serene, but there was something different to him this afternoon. The urgency in his voice made Antwan worried for Roland’s wellbeing. A deputy showing up in the middle of a school day asking questions couldn’t be a good thing and Gus being there only reinforced that to Antwan. His eyes darted around the room, from Calhoun, to Gus, to Jamieson, the ground, and back as Antwan tried to track his movements over the past few hours. Had he spoken to Roland? He couldn’t remember. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone to check his texts and he nodded as one jogged his memory. “Well, I text him last night and he didn’t respond,” Antwan said, lifting the phone up to them. “I thought it was pretty weird because usually he hits me back pretty quick. Used to clown him about how I’d never seen an old guy use a touch screen keyboard that fast before.” Gus and Deputy Calhoun looked at one another for a second before Calhoun scribbled some more in her little notepad. Antwan looked at them, awaiting a response. “That it? Can I go back to class?” From behind his desk Vice-Principal Jamieson cleared his throat, pushed his chair back, and stood up from his seat. “Given the circumstances, we think it might be best if Deacon Harris and Deputy Calhoun escort you home. They want to ask your mother a few questions about Roland.” “My moms? What? Why? What the hell is going on?” Deputy Calhoun went to speak then looked at Gus for a few moments, he nodded reassuringly, and she turned back to Antwan. “There’s been a shooting, Antwan, the secretary at Roland’s tire business was found dead this morning and Roland’s missing.” Antwan sat in silence for a second or two, completely unmoved by the information, before springing into life. He lifted the small coffee table in front of him off the ground with one arm and kicked over another small table by his side with all the force his lanky, six foot five frame could accomplish. Deputy Calhoun sprung to her feet and extended a hand in Antwan’s direction to calm him. Beside her Gus had stood and had his hands out, palms facing downwards, trying to maintain eye contact with Antwan as he huffed and puffed in the centre of the room. Antwan kicked out at the overturned coffee table again. “Fuck this town, man.” From behind him a pair of hands rested themselves on his broad shoulders and Vice-Principal Jamieson directed Antwan back to his seat. “Calm down, son.” Antwan sat, breathing heavily, as tears began to appear in his eyes and his caramel skin became red and flustered. They weren’t tears of sadness or mourning but tears of rage. He balled his fists and slammed them against the top of his legs before burying his head in his hands. “First Jayson and now this? I hate this fucking place.” “It’s okay,” Gus muttered sympathetically, rubbing Antwan’s back. “It’s going to be okay.” Convinced he had calmed down, Deputy Calhoun breathed a sigh of relief and bent over to place the upturned coffee table back in its rightful position. From her knees she placed a hand on Antwan’s leg and smiled at him. “We’re going to take you home, okay? It’s the best place for you to be at the moment.” [center][b]*****[/b][/center] Michelle Lewis watched as her son slinked towards his room without so much as a look in her direction. Disheartened, she gestured to Deputy Calhoun and Gus to take a seat at the small table in the kitchen. They did so, all three struggling to fit around the table, and Michelle looked at Calhoun and smiled at her nervously. Not long after she’d got back from Dante’s apartment block word had reached her of a shooting taking place at Roland’s place. It wasn’t hard to work out who was responsible but given that she’d still been completely incapable of contacting her brother she wasn’t sure what to say or do. For the time being she reconciled herself to staying quiet. That meant playing dumb until she’d heard from Chew or Dante. “Is something wrong with Antwan?” “Antwan’s fine, Miss Lewis,” Deputy Calhoun said with a smile. “We stopped by the school to ask him a couple of questions and his Vice-Principal thought we ought to bring him home for the day given everything.” Michelle feigned surprise. “Questions? Questions about what?” Calhoun reached into the pocket of her khaki trousers and produced a small notepad that looked well used, setting it down on the table with a sigh, before looking back up at Michelle. There was something to the woman that Michelle couldn’t quite put her finger on. An earnestness that she’d not encountered in a warm body associated with the PCSD for a long time. “You may or may not have seen the news by now but there was a fatal shooting at Spencer’s Tire and Rims last night. A Yolanda Thomas, Roland Spencer’s secretary, was shot dead in the early hours and we’re trying to find the perpetrators and find out Mr. Spencer’s whereabouts. We thought given your son’s association with Mr. Spencer it might be sensible to ask him a few questions.” Again Michelle feigned surprise. “A shooting?” From beside Calhoun she could feel the deacon’s gaze resting on her the entire time. She stole a glance in Gus’ direction for a section and his eyes, usually calm and soothing, looked suspicious. She smiled in his direction and he nodded at her politely without offering a smile back. “Yes, ma’am,” Calhoun said, thumbing her way through her notepad. “You know Mr. Spencer, don’t you?” Michelle nodded. “In passing.” Gus shuffled a little beside Calhoun and for a second Michelle worried that he might reveal the extent to which she really knew Roland. Instead he stayed silent, though the look on his face was stony, and chose to listen in to Michelle and Calhoun’s conversation instead. “When was the last time you spoke to him?” For a moment Michelle thought, though it was more to buy time than a need to traipse through memory lane to recall it, finally she nodded at Calhoun. “The night that Jayson Aaron was murdered.” The deputy scribbled a few words in her black notebook. “Do you have any idea why someone might want to harm Yolanda? Or Mr. Spencer for that matter?” Why? Because he tried to take her son away from her and got Jayson Aaron killed, Michelle thought, trying desperately to keep her contempt for Roland showing. For a second her thoughts drifted this Yolanda woman that had got caught up in things and a pang of guilt hit her but it passed as quickly as it came. “Not that I’m aware of,” Michelle said with a nonchalant shrug. “I never met this, Yolanda? And as much as Roland and I never got on, I’d certainly never want him shot or something. Is that what you think’s happened?” Calhoun scribbled a few more lines in her notepad before looking up at Michelle with an absent nod. “We aren’t sure what’s happened.” Michelle stared off into the distance for a few seconds in an attempt to feign trying to recall some detail that could be of use and then shook her head blankly at Calhoun. The deputy sighed, reached for notepad, and placed it into her pocket as she stood up from the little table. “Look, I have a lot to get through today, plenty of questions still need asking, and I’ll need to account for this time at that, so why don’t I leave you my card and you can call me if anything else comes to mind? That sound agreeable?” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a card that Michelle stared at for half a second and then slipped into one of her pockets. “Sure,” Michelle smiled. “That’s fine.” She stood up from her seat to escort Calhoun and Gus out but noticed that the deacon had remained in his seat. The deputy looked back at him with a smile, pointing towards the exit. “You need a lift home, Gus?” Gus smiled politely at her and shook his head. “It’s fine, I’ll stay a while.” Deputy Calhoun shrugged her shoulders. Michelle looked at the deacon and his face had grown gravely serious and suspicious, his eyes fixed on hers pointedly. “I think Michelle and I need to have a little chat.” Michelle walked the deputy to the door and wished her good luck in her search. She shut the door behind her slowly and began the walk back to the kitchen. Her palms were sweaty and her feet felt heavier with each step she took towards it. She wasn't sure [i]how[/i] Gus knew, but somehow he did, and the was nothing she wanted to do than turn that corner and face him. She swallowed loudly and clenched her fist to disguise her shakings hands from him and then paced into the kitchen and sat opposite Gus. He stared at her with an incisive look of his face and began to shake his head. [center][b]*****[/b][/center] Dante had always fucking hated the Bog. As far as he was concerned the place was a humid deathtrap. The only people that came down to the Bog out of choice were tweakers and hookers looking to take advantage of Johns from out of town. Well, them and people like Chew and Dante. Over the years they’d made more than their fair share of bodies disappear in the Bogs but Dante hadn’t been back since things had gone south in Georgia. He could barely remember his way around. Chew seemed to take to it like he’d never left the place. He always seemed to have an understanding of how the Bog worked which confused the fuck out of Dante given that Chew was as ghetto as they came. You could have given him a fire lighter and some gasoline and he’d still have struggled to light a fire in the wild. Yet here, amidst the tree frogs and the putrid looking waters, Chew seemed in his element. They had ditched the car well away from the beaten path, where even they’d struggle to find it, and carried Roland for what had seemed like hours through the Bog. Chew had done most of the heavy lifting. Dante had struggled to keep up with him even with Roland on his shoulder due to the heat. It was bad enough in here normally but with a balaclava over his head Dante was dripping with sweat as they traipsed through the Bog in the darkness. Finally Chew came to a stop and pointed up at one of the abandoned houses that littered the place. Dante went ahead, readying his holster for action, and checked the place out to make sure it was empty before they went inside. Once in they tied Roland to a filthy chair and stuffed a dirty rag in his mouth to make sure he wouldn’t be making any noise when he came to. They took turns throughout the night to stand guard whilst they tried to figure out what their play was. It was well into the afternoon that Roland came to and within minutes of having woken up he managed to rile Dante. Sat there, bloodied and bruised, he stared at Dante in the eye and though Roland was unable to speak he did his best to smile obnoxiously in Dante’s direction. For a time Dante ignored him but after twenty minutes or so of Roland’s stifled laughter it began to wear on him. “Why the fuck are you smiling?” Chew’s voice came from the corner of the room. “Calm down.” He was sat on a dirty mattress, empty vials and bottles filled with piss scattered around the room, and his once pristine clean sneakers and track pants were caked with mud and God knows what. Ever since Dante had pulled that trigger on that Yolanda girl back at the showroom Chew had been acting funny with him. Dante figured that was on account of his not having been party to offing someone for a long while. Roland seemed to have all but ignored Chew in the corner sensing that Dante would be more receptive to his mind games. “Fuck that,” Dante said, cocking his Glock and placing it beneath Roland’s chin. “Why the fuck are you smiling at me? You want me to blow your brains out or something? That what you want?” Chew sighed heavily and pointed at Roland. “How is he meant to answer you with that rag in his mouth?” Dante uncocked his Glock and yanked the filthy rag from Roland’s mouth. “Speak.” “You’re dead men,” Roland said, his laughter broken up by intermittent coughs. “Both of you are dead men.” Undeterred Dante gestured towards the gun in his hand. “Oh? What makes you so sure of that? We’re the ones with the guns, motherfucker.” Again Roland burst into another fit of obnoxious laughter but this time his coughing stopped him dead in his tracks, the force of them causing him to wince as if reminded him of the deep cuts on the top of his head. “I tried to warn you back at the tire shop,” Spencer said with a shit-eating grin. “The place is a front for Billy Brown.” Dante’s blood ran cold and he looked at Chew who hadn’t budged an inch at the news. Had he known? No, not even Chew was stupid enough to think that crossing Brown was a good idea. Not unless that prison had turned his brain to mush, which Dante hadn’t completely ruled out. Dante grabbed a hold of one of Roland’s bloodied lapels. “What?” “You heard me,” Roland said with a wry smile. “You really think we wouldn’t have CCTV unless we were connected? Give me some credit.” How could they have been so stupid? All it would have taken was half an hour to make a couple of phone calls and Dante could have found all of this out on his own. Billy fucking Brown? There wasn’t a place in the whole county they could hide from that man. Dante shook his head and began to pace, taking care to avoid what he could only presume was human excrement on the ground, as he tried to get his head around what they’d done. “Fuck,” Dante mumbled nervously. “We’re fucked. Once Billy gets word of this he’ll track us to the end of the world and back, man. You don’t cross Billy and live, no-one does, that’s the only fucking law in Pickett.” There was a reason that Billy Brown had been able to run the Normans out of existence. The fucking Normans. They’d been in Pickett County for generations and Billy Brown damn near made them extinct. The sheriff’s office hadn’t been able to lay a glove on Billy in years and here Dante and Chew were, two men without an ounce of backup, shitting all over one of his employees. “Calm down,” Chew said with a shrug of his shoulders. “He doesn’t know our names.” Dante nodded, reassured slightly, for as long as that was the case there was a chance they’d get out of this caper without Billy murdering everyone they’d ever met. He looked at Roland, whose shit-eating grin had grown wider all of a sudden, and wondered what on Earth he could have done to warrant ending up here. It definitely didn’t warrant them losing their lives over it. No matter what it was. As Dante finally began to calm down and his breathing began to slow another laugh escaped from Roland’s lips. “You heard the man,” Roland smiled. “Calm down, [i]Dante[/i].”