stomped over to the door and pulled on the handle, but Barber had locked his bedroom door.
“Oh, so you can remember to lock a door. What’s your god damn problem?” Carter found himself talking to the door. “Walt would have whooped your ass for acting like this.”
“Walt never made me do homework!” Barber yelled from behind the door.
“Yeah, well the fun and games at the compound are over. It’s time to get back to real life. I’m a sponsor not a god damn mother,” Carter said.
“Then why don’t you quit acting like one!” Barber was acting like a total shit and it caught Carter seriously off guard.
Suddenly, Carter was beginning to realize that he had spent very little time with Barber back at the compound that did not involve training or fighting, and he may have bitten off more than he could chew by moving a moody teenager in under his roof.
Carter had had enough. The thing about addicts is if they don’t want help, you can’t give it to them. The kid was on his own. He burst into the room adjacent Barber’s and grabbed the black duffel bag he had stuffed in the closet, threw it over his shoulder, and practically ran from the apartment and the monster that now occupied it. He ran away from his problems, and ran for the one thing that could fill the emptiness he felt; the fight.
He hurried down the hall and over to the elevator. The elevator door couldn’t open fast enough. He pressed the down button repeatedly. He was heading toward a full on panic attack. He pulled out the bottle that resided permanently in his front pocket and twisted the cap, poured a couple of pills into his palm, and popped them into his mouth. He swallowed them whole without so much as a drop of water like a true pro. Finally, there was a ding as the arrow above the elevator pointing down lit up, and the doors slid open. Luckily there was no one waiting inside and Carter was able to enjoy the ride down as the anxiety pills kicked in.
He took a deep breath to steady himself before he stepped out into the apartment lobby, out the front door, and onto the streets of his city.
Chapter 3
From a fire escape two stories up, Carter had a clear view of a pair of thugs sauntering through the alleyway below. Their pace was leisurely, but their conversation was riddled with plans of ill intent.
“I’m telling you man she was a dime. A straight ten,” the long haired one said before taking another swill on the bottle of what looked like cheap bourbon they were passing back and forth. The alley was dark and empty. Only a few scattered dumpsters lined the building walls. Alleys like this one ran through the city like filthy veins built for the unwanted and downtrodden to traverse. They were places the underbelly of society could pass through unseen, away from the lights of the city streets.
“You ain’t never been with no dime. Just wait until we hit Mercer Street. I’ll show you a few dimes,” the other said.
Carter had been following them for blocks, jumping from roof top to roof top, with his duffel bag strapped to his back.
Carter didn’t have a superhero suit, no fucking tights, not even a mask. All that was in the bag was just a plain old pair of extra clothes, in case the pair he was wearing ended up in a pile of ash. Although, he did prefer a hooded sweatshirt to shadow his face, but that was only for dramatic effect. He took a special kind of pleasure in scaring the shit out of these types of assholes.
He waited until the pair turned the corner onto Mercer Street to hit the fire escape steps back up to the top of the roof. Steam billowed from rusty furnace stacks across the roofs of the city. Seattle was bitterly cold this time of year, but it didn’t bother Carter in the least. With the slightest alteration in blood flow, Carter could turn the Arctic down right tropical if he so needed. His super heated heart provided the molten lava like blood to his veins, and his veins transmitted the heat to his pores,