Garrett:
It was mid-afternoon in East LA, and Kara sat behind the front desk at her brother’s shop in a seedy, rundown part of the city, wanting nothing more than to be back in her small hometown of Wimberley, Texas. She missed the quiet evenings, untainted by city lights and strange sounds in the night. She missed the awkward creaks of the side porch swinging in the evening breeze, of the crickets and the stirrings of woodland creatures that serenaded her to sleep from outside her bedroom window. It was odd to think how she hated the stillness of her old country life then, and of how, living life in the city now, all she wanted was the security of her quaint Texas home. She hated how loud the people were here, how she couldn’t trust neighbors as she’d done so easily as a child back home, of the horrid traffic she faced as she rushed to work in the morning each and every day. College life made it all bearable; it gave her a goal, something to look forward to, but it didn’t make this shitty place any more livable. Of all the money and wealth she may have had now, she’d give it all back for the friends she used to know. For all that had been taken from her eleven long years ago.
She tapped her fingernails, painted a deep, shimmery shade of the deepest of blue, against the edge of her desk and watched through the shop window as people strolled by. It wasn’t really a shop by any means; it was a front. Her brother did business here, but it wasn’t the bike and auto repair that the shoddy sign in its door’s overhang promised. It was where his clients came to deal whatever shit they dealt under the table. The garage out back was a ghost town. It held an old crotch rocket that hadn’t seen the light of day in at least five years, and her brother’s prized ’67 Camaro, among them boxes of tools that had been long covered by inches of dust and ceiling debris. The real business went down behind the very door adjacent to her – her brother’s office. Garrett, a man seven years her senior, was nothing if not ambitious. They’d started from nothing, and from nothing had raised an empire of sorts. They ruled these parts, and anyone smart enough knew to steer clear of their territory. Everyone but the clients themselves. Kara, herself, was just a decoration at the desk. She was part of the front, the masquerade, and from this simple task she earned more money than she had the desire to spend. But it was what she knew, and Garrett was the only family she had left. Misguided as he was, his heart was in the right place.
Finding a magazine at the table’s edge, she leafed through it. Revolver, an issue from three years ago depicting the Hottest Chicks in Metal, served as her entertainment. She read through an interview with Rob Zombie, skimming past the black metal bands that quite truthfully freaked her the hell out, and glanced up at the clock. No clients yet. Naturally.
When she heard footsteps, she glanced behind her to find JohnBoy, one of her brother’s right hand men, striding past, a duffel bag slung carelessly over his shoulder. He came from Texas as did she, and he and her brother had been inseparable since their early teens. They’d played basketball together in the backyard of her Wimberley home, they'd skipped school together, they'd gotten arrested together. She couldn’t truly remember ever hearing his real first name, or just how he had earned his new one, and it hardly mattered. Everyone here went by nicknames. No one really knew jack shit about anyone else, and that was what suited them best. It wasn’t to say that they weren’t close buds; it just meant that when one went down in this dangerous line of work, you wouldn’t have a name to mourn. But they each knew the others’ quirks and mannerisms, and as proof, the door slammed behind her and almost instantly JohnBoy’s quirk was made evident: the undeniable strains of the bass and the pounding beat of dubstep blared in her ears.
Groaning, Kara stood from her seat and knocked the magazine to the floor. Raising her a voice to a near scream, she pounded her fist on the door. “JohnBoy, cut it the fuck out!”
The music lowered. Infinitesimally. His gravelly, down-home drawl greeted her through the closed door. “Nice to see you too, Boss.”
That was Kara’s nickname. It was hardly fair. She wasn’t disagreeable, nor was she controlling; she was just a bitch. There was a difference, and she wanted to make it known. “You want to bust my goddamn eardrums, man, you can at least pick some good tunes,” she hollered back.
“It’s Skrillex,” was JohnBoy’s retort.
“It’s shit,” Kara corrected, and before she could barge in to dismantle his precious surround sound speakers herself, she heard a loud, booming laugh from behind her. It was that lively, spirited chuckle she knew could only belong to one person: Garrett O’Byrne. He placed one large hand on her shoulder, and with the other, he knocked the door once, hard enough to make the walls tremble around it, and called out to her annoying housemate. “You heard the boss,” he ordered, his baritone voice echoing loud and clear and commanding through the barren building. “Music down.”
As she’d known it would, the music stopped as quickly as it had started. Shoulders slumped in relief, Kara sank back into her chair and sulked over the counter. She afforded her brother a glance, her eyes scanning all six-feet-five-inches of him, mentally taking in his physical state. No wounds, no blood, just the leather jacket that barely fit his hulking frame, the tank shirt underneath, and the black designer jeans and combat boots that topped off the ensemble. Though his eyes, a creamy and inviting brown much like her own, emitted a bubbly warmth above the dimples that hinted at his boyish charm, he exuded danger. He treated Kara as nothing less than the fair princess he seemed to view her to be, but anyone else was fair game. He could switch moods in the drop of a hat, and oftentimes that happened and people ended up dead. Even his closest friends watched what they said around him, no matter how much they respected the man. And the rule they abided by most, the absolute golden rule in Garrett’s eyes, was to stay the hell away from his little sister. She was all things good and pure and sweet, and they were simply not.
It happened to bug the shit out of Kara, because she happened to like bad boys. And Garrett’s boys were the baddest of the bad, and some of them were downright delicously doable. JohnBoy, however, wasn’t among them. He was as vicious as the best of them, but he was also the lankiest and most unassuming. He looked more like a skater nerd than anything else, his arms mere decorations from the many tattoos that covered them, his neck so filled with ink she could barely tell what race he was from the neck down. He had gauges the size of her fist in both ears, and enough body piercings to make her cringe. Tattoos were hot, as were the occasional studs, but he overdid it in every regard. As if sensing her disgust at his presence, JohnBoy flung open the door and stepped outside. “Heading out,” he grumbled, and appearing as deflated as a young boy who’d had his hand slapped from the cookie jar, he brushed between them both and out the door. Good riddance.
Sitting up straighter in her stool, Kara turned back to Garrett. “Another secret outing?” she guessed.
Garrett’s grin was hard to miss. “The worst part is you already know the answer, Sissy,” he jabbed, bending over the bar at the far right of the room to grab himself a beer. He paused for a moment, glanced back at her, and thoughtfully grabbed another. He tossed her the extra can, and she caught it in mid-air. “Made some fucking good cash today, babe. Good fucking cash.”
He reached into his jeans pocket, providing the proof, a wad of hundreds that he slapped down on the desk in front of her. “Check that shit out.”
Kara didn’t even glance down. “Maybe you could invest in a more believable sign, Garrett. Maybe fancy up the place a bit. How you have an open bar in an auto repair shop and go without notice is beyond me.”
Her brother snorted and took a swig of his beer. “Mechanics are the biggest drunks, Kara.” He slid into the stool across from her and shrugged his jacket off his shoulders. Even sitting down, he dwarfed her. She could think of so many jobs that were more suitable for her brother. Football, for one. Modeling, for another, judging by the steady flow of girls he had coming in and out of his place and how physically fit he prided himself on being. Or maybe even parading around as one of those poor bastards she’d seen standing outside the Chick-Fil-A wearing an oversized cow costume, persuading people to ‘eat mor chikin’. “Why so low, baby girl? Not like classes are an issue.”
He knew she got stellar grades. He’d been the only one left to pressure her to do well and succeed after the sudden death of her parents at the too-young age of eleven. She’d always found it ironic that the man who’d killed and pillaged and bargained his soul with the Devil was also the man who wouldn’t accept anything but her absolute best. But he’d been as strict as her father had been in applying her studies, and she’d excelled in return, earning herself a scholarship to UCLA. Having a ball buster for a brother had its advantages. Kara sipped from her beer and sighed. “You know damned well why I’m so low.”
As smart as Garrett was, he wasn’t taking the hint this time. Either that, or he was really enjoying pushing her buttons. Knowing Garrett, it was the latter. “Listen, Sis, I do a lot of shit for you but there are certain things a man just won’t buy. If it’s absorbent and comes on a string, you can forget-“
Kara scowled, flashing him a glare that had him rearing back, impressed. “Ah. This is lecture time.” He folded his arms on top of the desk and leaned in. “Let me have it, sweetheart. I’m feeling generous today.”
Kara huffed, tired of this familiar game. “Know what, forget it. It’s the same song and dance, and you only get pissed whenever I bring it up.”
Garrett’s teasing smile remained, though it tensed an almost imperceptible amount at the threat of an impending argument. “This is my happy face, Kar. Most people are smart enough to keep it that way.”
The threat was obvious, but it was also empty. He’d never laid a hand on her, and he never would. Kara pushed away from her desk. “I’m bored,” she snapped. “Get some entertainment. A television or something. Maybe then, every time you walk out that door, I won’t find myself imagining every horrible thing possible happening to you before you get a chance to come back.”
Garrett’s only reaction was another laugh, but this one was without humor. She was pushing him, and it was working. “I’m here, aren’t I? How many times do I gotta say it?”
Kara decided to keep herself busy and less murderous by tidying up the papers littering the tables around the small room. “I guess until you become invincible, Garrett. This line of work can’t last forever. You’re almost thirty years old, yet here you are, waving around blood money like it’s going to make the situation any less fucked up.”
His posture had changed to something menacing. Were it anyone else, they’d have dropped the discussion with their tail tucked between their legs. But Kara was all he had left of his former life. She was safe. “I say the situation is pretty goddamned good, Kara. You want out? You got it.” He pointed one huge fist towards the door. “There’s the exit to fucking paradise.”
The idea was so tempting, just as it had been the other thousand times he’d mentioned it, that she found her feet edging towards that door and its promising freedom. The freedom to get herself a place, break herself off from the crime and the guilt and the darkness of it all and live a somewhat normal life. But life, no matter how flawed and unpredictable it was, would cease to exist without her brother. She had no close friends, just the pair of rowdy girls from college who reminded her all too well of the ones she'd ditched back in Texas. She was the outsider everywhere but here, and it was obvious. Kara didn’t budge. She didn’t turn to face him, either. Her response was a mere whisper. “You know I can’t.”
“You can,” her brother challenged, his tone softening at her words. “You just won’t.”
Kara still didn’t move from her spot at the room’s center. The magazine lay at her feet, and she nudged it with the toe of her boot.
“You think I like sleeping with one eye open?” Garrett continued, stepping towards her until they were only feet apart. “Yeah, I sought this out. It was easy money. It got us out of that shithole back home. I live with the things I’ve done; it doesn’t mean I like it, Kar. But you and me, we ain’t starving anymore. We got power, we got cash. I did this for us. I’m the one that can’t get out. You’re free. It’s why I don’t tell you where I’m off to every day, what I’m up to. How I support us is my burden to carry. Mine and mine alone.”
She felt his presence against her back, his hand on her shoulder, until she was forced to turn and meet his gaze. He reached out to grab a lock of her long, black hair and tucked it behind her ear. “You sit here thinking up the unimaginable, Sis. I go out every day and do it.”
She was powerless but to nod. She hadn’t the energy to dredge up an argument. He’d gone into this life for her, for the good of them both, and neither of them had willed it to get so bad, so demanding. It was simply the inevitable.
Garrett’s grip on her shoulder loosened, and he stepped back slowly, carefully, as if navigating his way out of a minefield. Kara let him.
“I, uh, got some shit to do,” he said, enforcing that steel bravado he always did after a particularly emotional heart-to-heart, his eyes searching everywhere but her face as he smoothed his beard. “You gonna be all right here?”
Again, Kara nodded. “I’ll summon you if a client shows up.”
He tried to smile, but it wasn’t all there. Not as it had been before. Kara almost hated herself for bringing down his mood. There’d been no use in making a bad thing worse. Instead of attempting to return the gesture, she picked up the abandoned magazine and strode back towards her desk. She barely noticed when the door to his office swung shut behind her, leaving her alone to her thoughts.
Last edited by PuppyWithATutu on Thu Nov 22, 2012 1:05 pm; edited 5 times in total