Chapter 2 - J

The front door slammed, inspiring my eyes to open from sleep. I listened for a moment, Lori was in the kitchen - making bacon by the sizzling sound - and either Trix or Roxy had just come in the door. Coming up the stairs I could hear that her footfalls were too light to be Roxy’s.

“¡Julio, conseguir la cama!” Trix called as she reached the main floor, and proceeded up the second flight of stairs to my room.

What the hell did she just say? “¿Qué dijiste?” I asked, rolling onto my side to look at the clock. 09:26 glared back at me. Not bad for a Saturday, though I had been aiming for 10.

“Ugh. Get up!” She pushed open my door letting in a sharp stream of sunlight and walked in to stand at the foot of my bed.

“¡Oye! ¡Vete!” I snapped, half burying my head into the pillow to shield my eyes, “And close the door.”

The blinding light dimmed, and I cautiously opened my eyes to see only a slit of sunlight coming through. Trix was standing in front of it with her arms crossed and a scowl on her face, “You’re such a Pendejo.”

I laughed, “Si desea hablar en español, tienes que aprender algo más que palabras maldición.”

“What? That’s not fair. You’re supposed to help me with my Spanish, not lord it over me.”

I laughed again, pushing myself up to lean back against the headboard, “I said you need to learn more than how to call me an a*****e in Spanish before you can talk like a Latina.”

            “Well I’m not a Latina. And you aren’t helping! I need this course for my Pharm Degree. I only took Spanish because you said you’d help.”

“Okay, okay. First of all, my name is not Julio, so do not ever refer to me as a summer month again. Second, you essentially told July to ‘get the bed’. Which is why I asked you what the hell you said. If you’d said conseguir de la cama, you would have been considered correct. As that would translate to ‘get out of bed’. Though I probably would have just said ‘levántate’ which is ‘get up’,” I explained as I looked her over.

She was dressed in dark jeans and a knee length black coat that looked like felt. She wore a dark green and purple toque that covered some of her extravagantly coloured hair. Currently the base was bleached almost white and there were streaks of bright pink, green, blue, and quite a few colours in between.

            “Fine. Levántate.”

             I grinned, “So chica, ¿Cómo estas hoy? ¿Qué estás haciendo aquí?”

            She smirked, “No estoy bien. Y ya Te dije, I’m here for help. Which you have yet to give me, by the way, one more time, just so you REALLY know.”

            “No ser un listillo. Or, to break it down for you, don’t be a culo inteligente,” I countered, still smiling.

            “Julius!” She whined before straightening, “Hey, wait a minute! Culo. I know that word.” She frowned, “You just called me an a*s.”

            “No. Culo inteligente. I called you a smart a*s. Now, vete. I’ll come down when I’m dressed.”

            She rolled her eyes, “Whatever you say, Julio,” she drew out the word, enunciating each syllable before slipping out and closing my door.

             Well this is gonna be an eventful day.

I slipped out of bed and grabbed my shades from beside the alarm clock as I headed for the attached master bathroom to take a shower.

About 20 minutes later I came downstairs to find Trix and Lori at the kitchen table with their heads bent together over Trix’s Spanish textbook. I moved up behind Lori and set a hand on her chair, just brushing her shoulder.

She half spun around in surprise, “My God Julius, you have to stop doing that.”

“¿Por qué?” I held Lori’s gaze but grinned at Trix’s sigh of frustration.

“Cállate, Julius. Speak English or I’ll adopt Trix’s new name for you.”

I raised an eyebrow, “I think you’ve been spending too much time with me. Since when do you speak my language?”

“Since you talk in your sleep and I got tired of not understanding half of it.” She looked up again to meet my eyes, “You’ve even explained some of it.” Then she added quietly, “But I spoke some before I ever met you, ¿Recuerdas Carlos?”

“Si, lo siento,” I whispered to her before looking back to Trix as her curiosity started to peak at our quieted conversation.

Both eyebrows raised as I turned my attention to Trix. I was about to speak again in español to address Trix's initial dislike of me 'lording it over her' when I changed my mind at the last second. “Togda ya dumayu, mne pridetsya yego menyat'. Vy lyubyat russkikh?”

“What the hell was that?” Lori snapped the same moment Trix shouted, “Was that Russian!?”

“Da,” I nodded. “Voulez-vous écouter en français ainsi?”

“JULIUS! STOP IT!” Trix had her hands over her ears and had let her forehead smack down on to her textbook.

I win, I thought smugly.

I could have kept going. I spoke both English and Spanish fluently, and could carry a pretty good conversation in Russian, French, or Hungarian. I even knew a few phrases of Italian and German. I ensured that I knew every language that any other member of The Saints did, and then some. Surprising as it was, it didn’t take much effort. If I saw it written, all I needed was the meaning to write it again. It was the same if I heard it.

And I heard a lot. I’d always been like that, and on top of it all I remembered almost everything. It wasn’t as glamourous, liberating, or empowering as people made it sound. Alright, it was kind of empowering, but mostly it just exhausted the hell out of me.

Lori was giving me a look of disapproval, but I just grinned as I reached for a slice of bacon that was now piled on plate in the center of the table. I leaned over Trix after I’d grabbed a piece to speak near her ear, “Consider this a last warning. Don’t call me Julio again. ¿Entiendes?”

            Not many people knew about the real reason behind my name. Julius wasn’t my given name, but it was on my driver’s license, so it wasn’t arguable otherwise. I was Julius Diano now. No one called me Julio. Not if they wanted to live.

“Understood,” Trix let out miserably.

“Bien. Now let’s get to your homework.”

 

I had Trix rehearse phrases with Lori as I listened, providing corrections when needed. Leave it to Trix to go last minute. She had a verbal and a written final exam on Monday that apparently each counted for a third of her grade.

Before I’d sat down I’d let in Consuela, my 7 month old king shepherd. After I gave her some canned food, she’d decided to curl up on the chair beside me and rest her head in my lap. 

It took about an hour for Trix and Lori to recite their conversations without me having to regularly correct them. I looked down at Consuela. I’d named her deliberately, it meant ‘she consoles’ or ‘solace’. I knew she wasn’t a replacement for what I’d had before her, but it seemed fitting. She always looked at me with such sympathetic and expectant eyes. It triggered memories I didn’t feel like dealing with.

I gently slid my hand under her head as I stood up to grab a bottle of tequila out of my liquor cabinet. There was still a shot glass slung over the top of the bottle. As I poured myself the shot I heard the front door open.

 “Zhdat'.” I murmured quietly as Consuela started to jump down off the chair. Her front paws rested on the floor with her hind legs still folded on the chair as she studiously watched the dining room entrance from under the table.

“Sukin syn!” Nikolai cursed as he tripped up the stairs.

I took my shot and poured another as Niko came into view. He peered around the room through the mop of black hair that fell across his face before looking back to me as I raised the shot glass. “Where’s Cujo?”

My lips quirked up as I drained the glass. I rinsed it out and tipped it back over the bottle before answering, “Her name is not Cujo. It’s Consuela. And she’s right-” At her name she’d flown off the chair and scrambled towards Niko. “Vniz! Idi syuda!”

I saw Niko flinch as Suela came skittering to a halt before cautiously trotting over as she stared up at me.

S**t. I might have to backtrack and retrain her in Hungarian instead of Russian.

“Prosti, Niko. I’m sorry,” I said softly.

He shrugged. “Nichego,” he mumbled.

I refrained from shaking my head. He might have been long gone from the house that had abused more than raised him, but it wasn’t gone from him. And it definitely wasn’t nothing. I let it go though, for his sake.

“Well,” Kyle spoke with a softness in his voice as he came up behind Niko, “If she’s anything like Tamari was, she’ll be Cujo on command in no time.”

“What are you two doing here?” I asked as I gave Kyle a look that I intended as a glare but probably came across as more of a thankful understanding. I missed Tamari and he knew it, but I was grateful that he was decent enough to not outright call me on it.

 “Oh, my housekeeper kicked us out again. She says I get in the way, can you believe that? The nerve of some people!” Kyle huffed.

“Well, you were being kinda difficult…” Niko muttered, half shrugging one shoulder, serving as both an expression of indifference and a subtle way for him to shy away. He’d been away from his parents for years, but I still saw the fear in nearly every move he made.

“I was not!” Kyle exclaimed, waving his arms wildly. “Besides, it’s my house, I’m paying her; shouldn’t I get to decide what I do while she works? Honestly, how do I make it through the day with all of you constantly ragging me down?”  

And the Drama Queen has officially arrived. Two shots might not have been enough for this day, I thought with a mix of amusement and exasperation as I looked at Consuela. She cocked her head at me and I reached down to ruffle her ears.

“No offence Kyle, but could you not b***h about your rough and tumble country problems? I’m trying to cram a semester into a day here,” Trix snapped to Kyle. She and Lori had gone silent to watch the scene unfold when Suela came flying out from under the table.

My phone started to ring before Kyle could open his mouth in response.

“Idti. Go see Kyle,” I commanded to Suela.

I rolled my eyes as I swiped my phone up off the table to look at the caller ID. Private number, figured.

“Julius. Go.”

“Yo man, watchu up to?”

I blinked, “Stan?”

“Yah, man!”

“What’re you callin’ me for?”

“Well I try callin’ Ty but he ain’t p’ck up th’ phone. An’ Dee o’ly answer t’ tell me t’ f**k off.” He made a few ‘tsk’ sounds. “So list’n, I got th’ Condors Ty wan’ed for ‘is bro, but this th’ thir’ time he bail on me. Eith’a s’meb’ny picks ‘em up for ‘im, or Imma sell ‘em t’ s’meb’ny else.”

I cringed. Listening to Stan talk was like being tuned to a radio station that you weren’t quite in range for. You could usually understand what was being said, but it was annoying as f**k.

“Yeah, alright. I’ll pick ‘em up. Where you at?”

“No’th side a th’ res. I’m in ma H’mvee Alpha.”

“Alright. Gimme 15.”

“A’ight.”

I hung up. Nik was now occupying the spot I’d been in at my kitchen table across from Lori with his head resting on his arms slouched over the table. Kyle was leaning against the wall near the stairs at the entrance to the kitchen.

“You’re off?” Lori asked, looking at me a bit skeptically.

“I’ll be back later.” I grabbed my keys off the counter and headed for the stairs. “¡Continúe practicando su español!” I called back to Trix, getting only a groan in response.

I walked past Kyle and down the stairs, very aware that he’d followed me as I slipped on my faded black leather combat boots. “What?” I asked, not bothering to turn around as I finished tying up my boots. I had a feeling I knew what his answer would be, and it had nothing to do with the day’s events.

Kyle had fractioned personalities. Sometimes he was the fun loving, s**t disturbing, Drama Queen Kyle; sometimes he was the hot tempered, strongly militant, dead serious Kyle. And then there was neutral Kyle, unfazable, calm, and determined. There were in-betweens, but primarily he was one of the three; and it took seconds for him to flip from one to another.

“I know you’re still pissed about Dom, but being mad isn’t going to help you out on this. Give the guy a little credit; you weren’t that different when you were eleven years old. I think you should give him a chance-“

I whipped around and shoved Kyle against the wall. “Don’t talk to me about that piece of s**t who calls himself my brother. I don’t want to hear it. He left a four year old kid on the street and didn’t look back. He can do whatever the f**k he wants but if he comes near me again, I’ll put a f****n’ clip through his chest. ¿Entiendes?”

“Yeah Jules, I get it. But shut your mouth and listen to me for a minute. He fucked up, and maybe he did leave; but comin’ lookin’ for you shows that he still gives a s**t. Because I know what that’s like. I think about my little brother every morning when I wake up; I still watch the news, and search bulletins, and check obituaries for his name. It’s been 14 years, and if I had any idea where to look I’d be there like white on rice.” He looked at me hard in a smudge between neutral and serious, “Don’t rule out that s**t happened and he couldn’t find you.”

I am not doing this today.

“I’m done.” I released Kyle, but was still fuming as I threw the front door open. “Throw Suela out if she howls,” I snapped over my shoulder as I slammed the door behind me. Kyle would lock it. I stormed down the sidewalk towards my truck, but as soon as I rounded the corner of my garage I saw that I wouldn’t be taking it anywhere. Kyle had blocked in my ’83 Chevy with his Tahoe.

Doesn’t this day just keep getting better and better, I snapped sarcastically inside my head as I yanked the door of my car open instead. It was a ’68 Firebird that I’d had help rebuilding from the ground up since I was nine. Normally I parked it in the garage, and did NOT tend to drive it in winter; but Lori’s car was in the garage and Kyle either hadn’t cared or didn’t think when he’d parked. Lori had to be invisible at my place, considering that her older brother was the leader of the Kings, dominant west-side gang in Grande Prairie.

But that was another long and complicated story.

Just like the rest of my life.

I restrained from pinning it out of the driveway, but didn’t hold back on a 180 at the three-way intersection my house was on the corner of. Grande Prairie had the worst snow removal program I’d ever seen, constantly creating ruts, ice rink roads, and 2-4 foot snow medians. The roads were awful, no surprise from fresh snowfall on already dicey streets. I passed 5 cars that had been in fender-benders and the usual 10 minute drive took me nearly 20.

Stan was leaning against his Hummer with a brown parcel under his arm. He had dark skin and was wearing a familiar alligator skin coat with a thick gold chain and Oakley platinum sunglasses. Though he’d upgraded from doo-rags to a snapback since I last saw him. He wore it backwards but crooked, so the brim rested more over his ear.

I shook my head a little as I walked up. “How much does he owe?”

“Fi’ty.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“A’ight, a’ight. Fo’ty.”

“Thank you.” I handed him two twenties and he gave up the knives.

“I shou’ charge fi’ty for all da bullshit tho.”

“What bullshit?”

“I call Ty t’ree hours ‘go, he sai’ ‘e’d be here. Af’er a’ready reschedulin’ two time! Den poof! Nada.”

“What do you mean, nada?”

“Ain’tchu speak Spanish? I mean, nothin’! I ain’t ‘eard s**t. Pho’ di’n’ even ring.”

That was weird. Ty didn’t usually make plans and then bail without a heads up. Especially with only a couple hours in between.

“Al’ight. Thanks Stan. I’ll give him s**t for you when I see him.” I said turning back to my car.

“Good! Lat’a Jules.”

“Yeah, see ya.”

I drove back through the chaos of the small city, but rather than heading home I detoured to AJ’s place. Between him and Ty at least one of them if not both would probably be home.

I parked in front of the shabby looking house and walked up the driveway. There was a single tread that wove down and when I scanned the car port I confirmed why. Ty’s bike was gone.

            Idiota. Ty, you damn fool. You’re gonna get yourself killed being reckless on that thing.

            I tried the door, and walked in when I found it unlocked. I silently wiped the snow from my boots on the rug as I listened for AJ in the house. I heard deep breathing and the drumming of fingers against glass coming from the kitchen. I walked past the railing for the stairs, following the hall straight to the end, and found AJ sitting at his kitchen table staring dully at a half empty water glass.

            “You look pretty down and out.”

            He glanced up at my voice, probably not having heard me come in.

            “No. Just hanging out, all by myself. My little brother decided work was more important than a new bike jacket,” He leaned back in his chair and grinned. Ty probably had no idea, but he’d told me about a week ago.

            I grinned, taking the chair opposite him at the table. My expression faded though as I sat down, “I thought Ty had two weeks off for Christmas?”

            “So did he. Errin called him earlier this morning and asked him to come in. Apparently no one else wanted to work today,” AJ glanced over to the clock on the stove before turning back to me, carefully avoiding eye contact. He looked uneasy.

            “What’s up?” I asked as I leaned in, trying to get a fix on his eyes.

            He sighed and gave in, “Just paranoid I guess, probably because I haven’t left the house the last couple days.” He tried to say it convincingly, but his eyes gave away that not even he believed it.

            “I saw he rode his bike.” I commented, unmoving.

            He rolled his eyes up with a nod before glancing back at me. The muscles throughout his arms and neck were tense and he had a sickly look on his face that hadn’t been there when I walked in. I leaned back and neutralized my expression so he wouldn’t be able to read what I was thinking.

            “He’s probably fine,” he said sounding distant, not even remotely believing it.

            “What time did he leave?”

            “Nine or so.”

            I glanced at the stove, it read 11:24. “So two and a half hours ago?”

            He nodded.

            “You hear from him at all since?”

            He shook his head, “Not since he walked out the door.”

            “You try callin’ him?”

            He nodded, “Voicemail.”

            “Hmm,” I said as I mulled the information over in my mind. It was possible Ty was at work and had just got swamped. To be called in on days off Errin must have been pretty desperate for a mechanic. Usually Ty was pretty good about letting people know his whereabouts though, and when he fell off the face of the earth it was good cause to go looking for him. That in mind I stood up, turning towards the door. There was only one way to know whether we had a crisis on our hands or not, “let’s go for a tour.”

 

            We pulled up in front of Shade All about 10 minutes later. I scanned the front parking lot but didn’t see Ty’s bike. Which was normal, he usually parked in the back or pulled it into the shop in winter if they weren’t busy. I killed the ignition as I got out of my car and walked up to the door. I held it wide open for AJ, who’d been a few steps behind me and followed him inside. He headed straight for the offices.

            “Ty? About bloody time you showed up! Where the hell-” Errin’s voice cut off when he emerged from his office door to see AJ and I standing there. “AJ? What are you doing here? Where’s Ty?”

            Ah, s**t.

            I glanced at AJ, he looked sick again when he spoke, “You haven’t seen him?”

            Errin’s face got grave. “No, I called him this morning to come to work, but he never showed up. I tried calling him again but it went straight to voicemail, I assumed he’d shut his phone off to avoid coming in,” Errin looked from AJ to me and back again. “Is he alright?”

            AJ glanced back at me uneasily; his face was white. “I don’t know. The last I saw of him, he was headed out the door to come to work.”

            “And it’s not in Ty’s nature to commit and then disappear,” I added seriously.

            And we have a crisis.

            AJ started to turn when a question came across his face, “Errin, why did you call Ty in?”

            He shifted, as if discomforted by the question, “I had to. No one else would work.”

            AJ’s eyebrows shot up, “no one would work? So, what, you talked to the other techs and everyone told you that they wouldn’t come in to work?” His voice was harsh, a sign his temper was starting to rise. I glanced around to double-check there was no one around who might call the cops if AJ decided to pummel the guy.

            “Well, no, I didn’t… It wasn’t…” Errin sputtered for a second. “No one else could work today. The two that were supposed to couldn’t last minute.”

            “That’s not what you told Ty,” AJ said darkly, taking a half step towards Errin.

            “Oh, for god sakes, it’s not my fault! I had to make Ty come in.”

            “Why.”

            “Two of the guys came in, and I didn’t think anything of it, I thought they were here for their shifts. But before I knew it they’d pinned me in my office and were very seriously negotiating that Ty ought to come in for work instead of them. I listened, refusing at first, but they just got more persistent and said they would quit if I didn’t call Ty in. I can’t afford to lose any employees right now, and after about twenty minutes I just wanted someone that would actually get in the shop and work. So I agreed and called Ty, I needed some excuse to make sure he would come in, so I just said no one would answer. As soon as I got off the phone with him the guys left. I didn’t really think a whole lot of it.” 

            I stared at him, dumbfounded at his stupidity for a second, before glancing at AJ. He had colour again, and looked ready to snap Errin’s neck. Time to step up, “Two employees came in and demanded the day off at the expense of another, and you didn’t think anything of it?” ¡Pinche estúpido! “What were their names?”

            “That’s not your business. Even if it was, I can’t give out information about my employees,” he replied with a hierarchal air in his voice.

            AJ lunged forward, grabbing the front of Errin’s shirt and throwing him up against the wall.  “My brother is missing, and you’re telling me that you can’t release information that could help us find him because of employee confidentiality? F**k you,” He snarled. “Julius, go find what we’re after.” He jerked his head towards the office, not breaking eye contact with Errin.

            I wasn’t one to be ordered around, considering that I was the one generally giving them. Not that I couldn’t take what I dished out; I just didn’t f****n’ like it.  I let it go though. AJ technically wasn’t a member and therefore I technically didn’t have authority over him. Besides, at that point making a show out of it would’ve ended in a fight, and we didn’t have time for one.

            I casually stepped around AJ and walked into Errin’s office, heading for the filing cabinet.

“Hey! You can’t do this!” Errin exclaimed as I tried the drawer. Locked. I scanned the desk for a key that would fit the lock and actually found one in a small heap of keys sitting in a mesh container near his computer. 

“You don’t think so? Just f****n’ watch,” AJ snarled again from the entrance as I clicked open the lock on the filling cabinet and yanked open the drawer. I thumbed across the tabs until I found ‘EMPLOYEE FILES’, and snatched up the whole folder.

I went through two shop techs and the receptionist before finding a file that sent up red flags. There was a small stack of calendar pages that were scribbled with ‘sick’ or ‘off’ from a few days to a few weeks in a row. There were also several doctors notes and prescription warnings. I scanned back up to the name, Eldon Copeland. It didn’t ring a bell, but the picture did. There was a mugshot among details of an arrest that had slipped out from the bottom of the papers.

“Copeland, eh?” I sighed, shaking my head and tossed the file in a new pile beside the other two stacks and grabbed the next folder.

It wasn’t until the second last folder that I found the second guy. Less calendar pages, and less doctors notes, but just as many prescription warnings. Also some probation forms. I glanced at the name, Scott Pearson. That one I recognized. Not the top of the ladder, but definitely not the bottom either in the dominant south side gang of GP. He’d fucked with us a few times, but not this blatantly before.

            So Eldon’s the young blood and Scott’s the OG. Mierda fantástica, fan-f****n-tastic.

            “AJ,” I called, closing the folder and tossing it on top of Eldon’s.

            “What?” his voice was half calm but still soaked with venom.

            “Come here.” I said, picking up the last folder and skimming it just to make sure I didn’t overlook anyone.

            I heard Errin wheeze as AJ jabbed a bit harder into his chest before releasing him and stalking into the office. I dropped the folder I was holding on the ‘non-threat’ pile and scooped the files of my ‘threat’ category off the desk and held them out to AJ before he could say anything.

            “Guaranteed, those are the two guys. And a pretty good chance that Ty’s wherever they are.”

            He looked over the files, first Scott, and then Eldon.  

            “Yep,” He said, flipping through to find their contact information & addresses. “10202 74 Ave…. Is that South or West?”

            “Should be South,” I closed my eyes to see the map in my head, “Yep.”

            “Well, now we know who we’re dealing with,” He set the folders on Errin’s desk and grabbed a sticky note pad, writing down the phone numbers and addresses of both Scott and Eldon.

            “You plannin’ on callin’ the guy to make dinner plans or something?”

            He shot me a warning look. “It never hurts to have extra information.” He ripped the top note off and shoved it in his coat pocket before straightening and turning to me. He took a deep breath and let it out slow as he raised his eyebrows.

            “Yeah,” I said, answering the silent question. I shoved the files back in the folder, dropping it into the drawer as I slammed it shut. “Let’s get the f**k outta here.”

            Errin had pulled himself up and was now standing right where AJ’d had him pinned to the wall. He regarded us with a distasteful but frightened look as we walked out of the building. It made me wonder if he’d known he had rival gang members working for him.

And on that note… How the f**k did Ty not realize he was working under the same roof as not one, but two, Red Dragons members? Muchacho ciego estúpido...

            I tugged my keys out of my pocket by the lanyard and unlocked the doors. I felt bad about some of the modifications I’d done �" like power locks with keyless entry on an early model muscle car �" but my life called for extreme measures. Some enhanced the image of the car, and others made it look like a joke. But if I didn’t take them, mi culo would have been lyin’ in a morgue a long time ago.

            I reached for my door handle as I glanced up to find AJ stopped at the hood of my car, his eyes fixed near the gate to the shop yard. “Julius,” he called, unaware I’d already noticed him stop.

            “¿Qué?” I shook my head, “What?” I asked, my hand still resting on the door handle.

            “There’s tracks,” He replied as he started walking towards them. I immediately followed and came up behind AJ, who had stopped about a foot away from the imprinted snow. Close up I saw there were two sets, and they were definitely motorcycle tracks. As much as Ty was an idiot for riding his bike in f****n’ December, it sure did make retracing his steps a lot easier.

“He was here,” AJ murmured, seeming to not even realize he’d spoken.

            “Quite a while ago judging by the drift built up on the one side,” I commented as I stepped around him and followed the tracks through the yard and up to the steel door of the rear shop entrance. There were snow drifts all around the door, looking like at least two or three people’s footsteps that led off towards the back gate. I followed them and they met up with vehicle tracks.

            F**k.

            AJ had come up behind me and knelt down, not seeming to notice I was there. His elbows rested on his knees, which hovered just above the snow, and he was staring at the drifted snow. He’d finally hit the wall. He’d seen his brother beaten, broken, hospitalized, jumped, and crashed; but taken he hadn’t been ready for.

            “Well, if we didn’t know what happened before, we do now,” I said grimly, looking back towards the front gate. Something about this didn’t sit well. It was too well orchestrated to be random which meant that they’d wanted Ty specifically. Why though, I had no idea. And the longer it took for us to figure it out the faster our chances of getting him back went to s**t. “Come on,” I said, reaching down to pull AJ up, “we need to go.”

            I pulled him up and started to turn as soon as he steadied. 

“Julius,” he had a nervous waver in his voice as he grabbed my arm. I turned back and he let go, taking a short breath, “What are the odds of finding him alive?”

            I could tell he wished he could see past my shades to get a look at my eyes. I couldn’t lie to save my life, but if you didn’t catch it in my eyes I sometimes got away with it.

“Honestly, I don’t know. I think we’ve got pretty good odds. But they get worse the longer we stand here and talk about it.” I paused, running through possibilities of what they might want him for. They were almost endless, I couldn’t even begin to narrow them down. Dragons were always ones to take a knife and twist it for as long as you’d keep screaming.

“I don’t know where they took him, or why. But if they plan to kill him, they’re gonna wait a while to make it hurt,” I paused again to let AJ cringe, “So you have to be prepared to find him in bad f****n’ shape, but we are going to find him.”

            “Alright,” he nodded, “let’s go kick down a door or two.”

Author's Note

Okay... I re-wrote this to a different characters' perspective and this is the second draft. What do you think?

Reviews

[Cyndy Robinson]

I got a little lost at the beginning of the chapter, for some reason I thought Jules was learning Spanish and did not get the fact it was the other way around for awhile. Possibly because I don't speak Spanish. Maybe that isn't an effective remark. The story is very entertaining and realistic at the point.

I will add some typos going on that have not been mentioned yet for when you edit:

The paragraph starts with "I'm done." as Jules is leaving "as soon as I rounded the corner of my garage though I saw I wouldn't by..." should be be. I think I would delete the word though as well, it is doesn't need to be there.

The paragraph under that one you typed an "a" in the first line which should be I.

Further down "Two and a half hour ago" should be hours.

[747]

Yes, I know the beginning of this is still quite rough. I am working on that. I hope that issue cleared up for you as you read on and did not get more confusing?

Thank you for the typo corrections. I often end up dragging sections around within chapters and sometimes forget to go through and proof them afterwards...

I am so glad you are enjoying the story thus far, and really appreciate your feedback Cyndy :)

[Cyndy Robinson]

It did clear up. Or I would not have gotten into the story. In real life, like I like to call it, I personally have trouble with accents and a lot of things. It may be a me problem, take it for what it is worth. Someone else, especially someone that understands a modicum of Spanish, might not have this problem.

[Lalochezia]

Again, your descriptions of the reluctant rousing rituals are hilarious and also, kudos again on your superior phrasing in general. My favorite: "Listening to Stan talk was like being tuned to a radio station that you weren’t quite in range for." :)

In my opinion the multilingual exchange could do with some tightening. Perhaps that is what made you think that it is 'too much and yet not enough'.

I found the initial accumulation of new names (dog 1, dog 2, brother, friends...) a bit hard to follow. You might spread them a little.

Also, could you insert a few paragraphs? It would help keeping an overview.

There were a few typos: fender-bender's → without the apostrophe
There was I single tread → a single tread
"Nine or so," → "Nine or so."
He had colour back → his colour back

On the whole, however, great job; I truly admire your style and the details. Keep on writing!

[747]

Yeah. It's difficult for me with multiple languages to accurately show how well the character can speak them. I know that needs work, I just haven't figured out how to fix it.

Okay, I'll take that under revision as well.

Inserting a few paragraphs? To what avail? More description, length, transition... What does it need?

Thank you for those tips, I will definitely use the corrections.

By 'too much and not enough' I actually mean that I feel there's too much extra info and not enough pertinent info. I'm not sure if all the scenes are really ADDING to the readers understanding of the characters within the story.
For instance, I could go on and on and on for dozens of pages about the events that Julius has been through; but that is not the purpose of this book. However, I need to provide enough detail that the readers can empathize with him as a 3D character.

This chapter was kind of an experiment, because I've never written from this characters' perspective before. So it's pretty choppy yet.
Thank you very much for your input to try to smooth it out.

[Lalochezia]

I'm sorry for the misunderstanding, by "paragraphs" I meant blank lines for a better readability. What's the correct term here? I'm not a native speaker.

[747]

Ah. Line spaces/paragraph spaces. I don't like to leave a lot of excess space, but I will see what I can do to give this better readability :)