Trouble

I shrugged the worn black leather jacket I’d stolen from Alejo closer to my body, zipping up the front and sticking my hand in my pocket to pull out the pack of cigarettes.

Once it lit up and I took a puff, I leaned back against the brick wall on one side of the alley and exhaled slowly, keeping my mouth in a small o-shape. The smoke swirled and danced around me, spreading out until the gray color disappeared completely.

The light cut out on the open end of the alley, so I pushed off the wall and threw my cigarette to the ground, extinguishing it under the sole of my tennis shoe. “¿Qué quieres?” I called out, figuring that my customer would speak Spanish. Most people who were regulars at the concert venue didn’t even speak English.

But as the figure came closer, I saw that my customer was Maya, an ex-member of the gang who didn’t speak a lick of Spanish. Just my luck.

“What?” she asked, laughing lightly.

“Hey, Maya,” I greeted, smiling. “How are you?”

“Fine, thanks,” she responded. She was just as beautiful as I remembered, blue eyes popping against dark Mexicana skin, her dark hair curling loosely in a way movie stars would covet. “Why are you posted here tonight? Did something happen to Hector?”

I shrugged nonchalantly. “Dunno. Cristobal told me to cover here tonight, so I did. No questions asked.”

She nodded understandingly.

Although I’d never tell her, I was actually really excited to see her that night. I hadn’t seen her face anywhere since she had to fill her requirements to leave the gang. While guys mostly got jumped out, which meant getting beaten within an inch of their lives to see how tough they really were, girls were more likely to get a ridiculously demeaning challenge to prove how much they were willing to turn their back on Los Monstruos.

I’d never heard what Maya’s challenge had been, but I guessed I wasn’t too hard to figure out, considering she had been a prostitute for the gang. Until one of her customers got her pregnant after her birth control pills proved to be shit.

But apparently, even giving birth to a kid didn’t mean that she was going to give up her crack. Lucky for her, it wasn’t my job to judge or preach proper morals. I was supposed to keep my mouth shut, sell the drugs, and make the customer happy.

“Crack, right?” I asked, reaching into the inner pocket of my jacket and pulling out the little baggie, reading off the standard price.

She nodded and handed over the money, which I promptly shoved into the front pocket of my jeans. “Thanks, Sol. Take care of yourself, okay?” From the way her eyes bored into mine, I could tell what she really meant: don’t end up like I did.

Which I never would. I was perfectly fine with my job as a dealer, and there was no way I’d ever accept becoming a prostitute. Even if it meant getting jumped out of the gang. I just wouldn’t be able to do that job.

“Thanks,” I responded, nodding in a friendly way. “You, too. Take care of that kid of yours, too.”

She grinned a short, killer smile before turning her back to me and leaving the alley.

Sighing, I looked back down at the ground, where I’d smashed my cigarette under my foot. I kind of wanted to light up another one, but I had to conserve my smokes wisely. After all, the money to get cigarettes whenever I wanted wasn’t really flowing out of a fountain in our foyer.

I leaned back against the wall, fighting the urge to sit down. Standing on my feet for so long, waiting for junkies, could get kind of irritating. I could only switch off between which foot I put the most weight on for so long before both my legs begged for relief.

Just as I was about to do a kind of squatted seating position, another junkie stumbled into the alley, looking for a baggie of heroin.

After him, the people started pouring in, asking for drug after drug after drug. Some tried to haggle down the price, which I did not put up with. One of the hardest parts about being a female dealer is that a lot of guys, especially cocky ones, thought they could barter down the price with a pretty smile.

There have been more than one occasion where those kinds of guys have gotten a nice knee to the balls from me, along with a warning that if they ever tried to do that with me again, their future children would regret it.

That method always made them pay the proper price to get the drugs they craved before they stalked away with their tails between their legs.

After the rush, the alley went dead again. From the front of the venue, the sounds of excited venues carried to where I stood. The teenage girls giggled and squealed.

“No, I swear!” one particularly annoying and nasally voice rose above the rest. “He really winked at me. Winked. I was shocked that one of the security guys didn’t come ask me to go backstage, if you know what I mean.”

I rolled my eyes and let out a long sigh. I was positive no one had winked at her. The guy probably had a piece of dust in his eye. Or possibly just a twitch.

But even if he had winked, he was just playing the crowd. There was no way anyone with a voice that annoying was going to get snuck backstage for a little fooling around.

My inactivity made me want another cigarette, but I had to think about the money situation. I couldn’t be like Esperanza. There was no reason for me to be indulgent, just because it felt good at the time.

After trying to convince myself otherwise, I finally gave in and took out another cigarette.

I felt my lungs fill with smoke before breathing it out and checking the time on my watch. Only a half hour left before I could go home and care for my sisters.

I rubbed my hand together, trying to warm them up a bit, before inhaling the cancer stick fumes again.

“Hey,” I heard a voice call over my shoulder.

Ugh. Fucking rookie mistake. How could I ever turn my back to the opening of the alley? It was like asking to get jumped, to get mugged, to get robbed. Sure, I could hold my own in a fist fight, but I had to have awareness on my side. If I was off daydreaming in La La Land and a three-hundred pound guy came after me, I would have been a goner, no questions asked.

Putting my cigarette in my mouth again, I turned to look at the guy.

I appraised him quickly. Short brown hair, pale skin (at least, pale compared to mine), solid build, maybe six feet tall.

He must have been lost, though. Very few pale guys came to buy drugs from Los Monstruos, and if they did, it wasn’t near the concert hall. The white guys tended to buy from the higher-ups or people they were familiar with, and they didn’t know about where we were stationed.

So what the fuck was a gringo doing there?

Just to piss him off a bit, to make him squirm, I smirked and asked, “¿Puedo te ayudar?”

“Umm…” he trailed off as he walked forward a little bit. “I’m sorry? I didn’t catch that.”

Oh, lord. This boy was clearly British, not from anywhere around my area. He stepped into a bit of light about ten feet away from me, and everything clicked into place.

Holy shit. It was one of those kids from One Direction. There was no way anyone was going to come up the alley to buy anything if he was in the way. Lord knew how easily he could get me arrested. His face was everywhere, on every magazine, on every celebrity gossip show.

Carajo. I knew I was screwed.