City of Fire and Ink

Kindergarten Moms and Iris's of Death

*cue phone vibration noises

I felt Inez stir next to me. "That's your phone." Her voice was still raspy from sleep. 

I rolled over, gently dislodging Inez's arms from around my waist. The bright sunlight made me wince and I just wanted to go back to bed.

I grabbed my phone, opening it up to a text and a photo. "Outside in one minute or your friend dies." The image was taken outside Inez's apartment and the gun was trained on the bed.

"Fuck fuck fuck SHIT!" I rolled out of bed and Inez sat up startled.

"Sojung, what's wrong?!?"

"It's the Lourdes Priori. They're here, and they have a gun trained on this bed. If I don't get outside in one minute, they're going to shoot. Get out of this room. Go somewhere there's no window access. And call the police!" 

Inez didn't ask questions. She grabbed a pair of pants hanging over the desk chair and got the hell out of the room. Before she left, she looked back at me. "Don't you dare die on me Sojung."

I nodded, then sprinted outside, as least as well as my leg would manage, but not before grabbing a knife from the kitchen. I had never used a knife for anything more than cooking, but I remembered what happened last time and I didn't feel like taking any chances.

There were five figures standing outside on the street in a triangle formation. Same as last time, their hands and faces were covered and they wore all black. Their arms were crossed and I saw that all of their shirts bore a white fleur de lis.

"Where's the money?" 

Straight to the chase it is then. "You know where it is. Why are you asking me?"

I saw one of the people on the side reach for something in their pocket.

"The Lourdes gave you a week. You failed to deliver. Now, you get punished." My heart was beating up into my throat. If they had guns, I was literally dead.

"Straight to the point then. Ok. But before you decided to murder me in broad daylight. . . " I raised my voice as loud as I could muster. "Perhaps I have something to change your mind?"

"You want to bargain with the Lourdes?" I could have sworn the person in the center sounded incredulous. "You think stalling is going to save you girl? You can't outrun us. There's five of us and we're armed. You have what? That knife?" They gestured to the kitchen knife I held in my hand. It looked pretty pitiful now, next to five armed Lourdes. 

"What would you say to fifty million ángel?"

Silence from the Lourdes. I probably sounded crazy to them. First I was refusing to give the money and now I was offering it up. I silently hoped that Harabeoji wouldn't rise to lecture me from the grave. But if this worked, it would still keep us safe, and I would be out of this Lourdes Priori mess.

I kept talking, trying to keep my voice relaxed. "If I give you the money, you give it to the higher ups, and then they give you what? A thousand, fifty thousand each? That's not very much. There's five of you here. You each get fifty million ángel, I'm still left with a ton of money, and I don't have to deal with the Lourdes anymore."

"Absolutely not. Clearly we can't trust you, since you didn't give us the money the first time we asked, so why don't we knock you out, take the money anyway, and shoot your lover?"

My blood boiled at the thought of them hurting Inez. "First of all, your version of asking is crap. And second of all, she's not my lover."

"It makes no difference to us who she is. She's a liability for you, that's all we care about." This time it was the person on the left who spoke.