Surviving the Mercers

Chapter 10 of RoS in Justice's POV

Chapter ten RoS in J POV:

I was starting to get really pissed off at the sound of my phone ringing.  It always seemed to happen when I least wanted it to, which was basically every ten minutes of the day.  And if it wasn’t someone asking a stupid question or tattling on a guy they were supposed to be working with, it was Callahan chewing my ass out for things I hadn’t even done.

Breathing out a weary sigh, I picked the noisy thing up from the centre console of my car and glanced at the display.

Raymond.

Just great.  Given his latest task, chances were he was reporting something insane like, Ioney had set the school on fire, or she’d declared an all out war on the TLF in front of a hundred witnesses.  My body was already reacting with dread as I hit the receive call button.

“Que?”

“Hey, man, what’s up?” Ray responded.

I frowned as a took a left at the intersection.  “What’s up?”  I repeated, wondering if I’d gone temporarily deaf and misheard.

“Yeah, you know, like how’s it going,” Ray said, obviously having mistaken the disbelief in my tone for misunderstanding.

“I know what it means, Raymond,” I said, exasperated.

“It’s Ray, not Raymond,” Ray said on a groan, and I couldn’t help but grin.  The boy was adamant about being called Ray.  Apparently Raymond was too old fashioned and so uncool for an up and coming gangster.

“It’s whatever I want it to be,’ I said.

“Oh, come on, you know it drives me crazy!” he protested.

“Raymond, why are you calling?” I asked.  He was always the only person who ever called and started with small talk.  Usually I indulged him and gave at least five minutes before I made him get to the point.  Today, I didn’t have the time or the patience.

“Huh?”  He seemed distracted.

“Is someone dying?”

That got his attention.  “Wha - no!”

“Is someone dead?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Has a certain someone reduced anyone to violence yet?”

Ray chuckled in amusement.  “No, no, she’s actually been behaving today.  Well, if you don’t count skipping class, harassing her brother to do his homework, and scaring a bunch of junior girls who kept gawking at her face.”

“If nobody’s screaming ‘Kill that bitch!’ in her direction, I’m pretty happy,” I said, though that was only partially true.  True happiness wouldn’t hit me until Ioney Mercer stopped blaming me for her brother’s death and stopped spitting venom at me long enough for me to get a word in edgewise.

“So am I,” Ray agreed.  “Because it means I won’t have to get my hands dirty.”

I grunted, distracted by the fact I’d pulled up outside an extravagant two storey house, the mere sight of it never failing to put me in a bad mood.

“As fun as this conversation’s been, if Ioney’s fine, and you’re fine, I don’t see a reason to continue it.  I’ve got some stuff to take care of, so if it’s not life and death, don’t call me for a couple of hours.”

“Actually,” Ray said as I was about to end the call.   “I got someone here who wants to talk to you.”

I turned the car off and got out to stand on the sidewalk.  “Who is it and why do they want to speak to me?”