#i wholeheartedly believe that carrying around a piece of bark you found on the side of the road is a thousand times more likely to

[wizardnuke]

apropos of absolutely nothing. i am not a witchy person i am never really going to be. but. but. if crystals are "magic" or give "good vibes" or whatever it's because they're Of The Earth. you know what's better than getting some cheap quartz at a boho store. finding a really fucking cool rock. or a stick. i think if physical items have the sort of power people believe they do then it would come from literally anything that nature makes and you have to love that thing at least a little bit. anyway don't steal from parks and don't put rocks up your vagina.

[the-unfinished-world-of-hay-blog]

Roman

I was, now, thumbing through the long version of everything I'd read back to safe house. We sat in a small bar with few occupants. Matthew sat across from me with a beer in his hand sipping slowly to make our time last. It had been years since I'd willingly come into a bar, but it would be the last place anyone would look for a sober man.

"Can I ask how you've been?" Matt asked clearing his throat.

"I suppose you can," I sighed turning a page, "But I'm not required to answer."

"Then let me tell you how I've been." Matt started.

"Why would I care, mate?" I snapped back.

"Did you forget all those years we spent wreaking havoc together?" Matt scoffed.

"Yeah," I stared him hard in his black eyes, "After you strangled Creadance to death, my memory got a little fuzzy."

"Creadance was selling our information to other organizations," Matt informed me, "I didn't really have a choice."

"You had a choice the whole time, Matthew," I barked at him, then realized where I was and hushed myself. "You just didn't want to lose that money and that honor."

"There was no honor in it." He admitted. "I did what I was told so they wouldn't do anything to my mom. The first chance I had to get out, I was gone."

"Why did you go in the first place?" I wondered.

"You didn't have to stay, Roman," Matt's voice shook at the memories, "After you left, they started to treat us like dogs. It turned into a prison and the only way to survive was to disconnect. I was the only one who made it out of that basement alive. I was the only one who didn't crack after weeks of torture. They shot everyone else in the head. Percy, Sal, Domingo, everyone. They brought me to their corpses and asked what my life meant to me."

"What did you say?" I murmured enthralled with the story.

"Nothing," He replied darkly.

"Wait, you literally didn't say a word or said the word nothing?" I backtracked drawing my hand to my mouth in thought.

"I said the word nothing," He deadpanned.

"Carry on," I said turning my hand with the roll of the wrist.

"It changed me and I started to lose time," He stopped to sip his beer. "I stopped remembering the names, the faces... I realized that before every mission I always had some kind of beverage before bed. Someone always asked. I got an idea not to drink it and stayed awake for most of the night. In the early morning hours, they turned  this weird recording and as I started to listen, it started to make me doze off. I covered put the pillow over my head," He drew his hand up by his head and simulated mushing a pillow into his face, "The next morning, I was beat. They took me out to some ranch where they had a guy strapped to a chair. He looked like he'd been beaten,for days. He kept saying that he told them everything they wanted to know and begged for his life. Apparently, there was a trigger word that I missed and when they realized the hypnosis didn't take, they turned a gun on me. When I escaped with my life, they let me go and erased me from all databases across the world. I didn’t exist to them, so I didn't exist at all."

"Jesus, gov," I whispered clasping a hand over my mouth.

"Awhile back I started my own organization of people just like me. Orphans that got wiped away from the face of the earth. We met Cate's little brother Jameson not long after we started and he had requested that we not only find his sister, but prove her innocence." He scoffed.

"Then you married her and knocked her up, yeah?" I grinned at him taking the small, black straw from my water and placing it in my mouth.

"Not exactly," Matt chuckled, "We use to argue all the time and now, I miss her even when she's in the next room."

I nodded thinking about the last time I looked at my wife's face.

"How long you been together?" I asked drawing myself out of the fear in Betty's eyes.

"About three and a half years," He replied sipping his beer.

"Where's her ring, mate?" I dug.

"In my pocket." He smirked.

"Be serious," I laughed out loud, "You've got a baby in there, but you ain't got a ring."

"I've got a ring," Matt set his beer down, held up a finger, and opened his jacket. He felt around the inside pocket before pulling out a lovely ruby colored box. "Ta-da!" He exclaimed opening the box. A big beautiful diamond set in a gold band shimmered back at me.

"She say no?" I cocked my hand and drew my hand to my chest.

Matt nodded turning the ring back at himself to have a look.

"Even I wouldn't say no that," I balked chewing on the straw.

"What about you, man?" Matt sat back and stuff the ring back into his pocket. "You said you were gonna marry her."

"I did say that, yeah," I nodded, "She's a perfect angel." I smiled at him. "I'd do anything for her."

"How long has she been using?" Matt questioned solemnly.

"Too long," I observed. "She tried sobriety once and... It just didn't work out."

Matt nodded as though he understood but I hadn't told him to full story and wasn't sure that I ever would.

"How did she get involved in all of this?" He asked louder this time, "That's where I'm confused."

"She says the Devil is her brother," I replied wishing I could sip that beer now.

"El Diablo?" Matt corrected.

"Whatever, man!" I snapped. "Sorry, I just don't believe it. She said they did a DNA test, but where are the papers. This guy," I watched Matt lower his hand, asking me nicely to quiet down, "This guy," I spoke at a lower register, "Has her initials tattooed on his face." I pointed at my own.

"That makes sense, actually," Matt piped as if he were calculating shit in his head. "Do you know Bennett Boupree?"

Ah, bullocks, it was true. "Yeah..." I answered cautiously.

"It turns out this guy, Bennett, has been smuggling drugs for a couple decades from Mexico into the US." Matt informed me.

"Right, right," I nodded in agreement, "And laundering money in the England."

"Do you know what he took from England back to Mexico?" Matt said barely containing the juicy secret.

"Tell me, gov," I pressed leaning in to meet him at the center of the table.

"People." He whispered before simulating a tiny explosion with his hand.

"What you're telling me," I scrubbed my hand through my beard, "What you're saying is that Betty's father was also trafficking humans?"

"How did he get away with it for so long?" Matt asked rhetorically, "We don't know." He answered his own question as expected. "But what we do know is that recently, El Diablo Dr Honduras had a hit put him on him through, none other than the Void." He grabbed for the file I still had laid out in front of me. He scrambled through it and found a picture of the head on a stick. "See the men in black suits?" He pointed to the people behind the picture. "This isn't a traditional crime scene photo. This was taken by the Void as a warning, sent to law enforcement and then completely dismissed as a suicide."

"Two questions," I held up my hand trying to process each piece of information, "Why the Void?" I started.

"They're always there, but you never see them." Matt chuckled to himself, "A gang with a slogan. You ever heard of that?"

"And how do they dismiss a head on a stick as a suicide?" I knitted my eyebrows together to express absolute confusion.

"When you're getting paid your monthly salary to keep quiet or if you have morals, but they show you a picture of your daughter sleeping in her bed, you kind of have a decision to make." Matt spelled out a long winded explanation.

"Right," I rolled the straw from one side of mouth to the other. "What now?"

"We have to find Bennett," Matt answered simply, "Liz found that he'll typically be in one of two places right now. Southern California or Mexico."

"He's already taken the..uh...people from England then?" I wondered.

"Exactly." Matt replied in a whisper.

"So you and I go and find Bennett, say we're successful," I tapped my fingertips on the table, "What happens?"

"It's gonna be old school," He answered honestly, "We're going to get answers."

"If he's already dead?" I glanced at the tattoo on the back of my hand and then back at Matt.

"We have to go inside." Matt shrugged. "It's our only option at that point."

"We keep my wife entirely out of it, right?" I questioned looking back into those soulless black eyes of his.

"I swear," He crossed his heart.

"You swear on what, cuz?" I asked pointing a finger at him.

"My life," He promised.

"That's a bug risk you're taking," I smirked.

"You already told me you were gonna kill me," He smirked back. "Whats the difference?"

"Can I ask you a question?" I grinned wholeheartedly and leaned into him.

"Whats one more?" He asked meeting me in the middle.

"You ever have a three way?" I chortled.

"What?" Matt half laughed half barked. "I'm not that guy anymore."

"Come on," I teased, "You can't kiss her on the mouth, but I'd love to watch you do everything else, yeah?" I waggled my brows at him.

"With Diamond?" He exclaimed.

"Do me a favor, mate," I spoke pulling the straw from my mouth, "Call her Betty."

"Not if you're gonna ask me to sleep with her." He cocked his head.

"Okay, what about a little swinging?" I suggested popping the straw back in and catching it between my teeth. "You and Catie ever party?"

"How have you not changed?" Matt looked at me like the nitwit he was.

"We like to keep things interesting," I explained. "It's never boring," I smirked, "And I bet you three thousand pounds that my wife has already asked yours." I reached out and honked his nose.

"She's pregnant!" Matt balked.

"So what?" I scoffed. "We went from having sex once a week to having regular quickies in the car. It only got better. She was so hungry all the time."

"Cate and I don't have that kind of relationship, Roman." Matt chuckled halfheartedly and shook his head as he gazed away from me.

"Fair enough," I held up my hands and sat back, "You always have to ask."

"You don't is the thing, man." Matt seemed almost offended.

"Did I hurt your feelings or something?" I asked pulling the straw out of my mouth and flipping it from finger to finger.

"Will you quit it with the straw?" He spoke each word as harshly.

"I hurt your feelings," I eyed him as I stuck the straw back in my mouth. "You ain't having sex, is you?"

"Not since she got pregnant," He admitted looking down at his hands.

"Is it because she got pregnant or because you asked her to marry you?" I wondered.

"Enough, dude," Matt snapped holding up a hand.

"Alright," I scoffed, "Whenever you're ready, I'll teach you a thing or two."

"What could you possibly teach me?" He grunted.

"About sex, mate?" I smiled at him, "Everything. You're probably cramming it in like freshman. Do you know how many doctors have their fingers buried inside her vagina on a regular basis? It's not about the act of sticking your hog inside the garage, it's a matter of making her feel as sexy as you tell her. You can tell her all day, mate, but she ain't gonna believe you until you show her."

Matt made that idiot face again where it looked like all the pieces were falling in.

"You've been mistreating your lady," I pointed one finger at him, "And I ain't gonna stand for it."

"So you and...Betty," He stopped to recall her real name. "Have this type of relationship...where..."

"I'm losing you, gov," I stopped him, "It ain't about me and Betty. You ain't got to add to keep happy, but subtracting from the two option your laid with ain't a pretty picture either."

"Two options?" Matt cocked a brow.

"Your lady or your hand," I chuckled at him.

"Fair," He shrugged.

"Send her flowers, send her food, and then send her hot prenatal lingerie." I suggested.

"Do they make that?" Matt asked looking over at me.

"They make everything," I guffawed, "You ever heard of Google?"

"Shut up," He chuckled.

"So what are we doing here?" I asked looking around. "What are we doing now?"