Chapter 14: Junkie Justice
The apartment reeked of cat urine, stale smoke, and a sadness that had turned into mildew. The junkie couple watched the door the way prey watches weather. Jesse stood in the middle of the living room, fists tight, jaw tighter, the version of himself that wanted to be cruel standing inches away from the version that wanted to be kind.
"You stole from me," he said, voice too loud in a space this small. "You stole my—" He broke off, swallowed. "That's not okay."
The woman's eyes flickered from his face to the door to a corner where a toddler's toy lay overturned, as if a child had once been here and learned to stop leaving evidence. The man lifted his chin in a parody of defiance. "We were gonna pay you back," he said, words slurred by more than dishonesty.
"No," Jesse said, stepping forward. He looked like he wanted to break something that would make a noise he would regret.
Adam stepped into the doorway and filled it with presence rather than size. 8x strength radiated as calm; he could have ripped the door off its hinges with one wrist, and because he could, he didn't need to. He measured the room, the people, the exits, the hazards. He placed himself so the couple saw no path past him that didn't include asking permission.
"Look at me," he said to the man, voice quiet. The man did, because humans do when the tone is right. "You're done here. You're going to leave, and you're not going to come back. If you do, you won't be able to use your hands for a month."
The man's bravado shriveled. He nodded, too fast, then stopped and nodded again in a repentant rhythm.
Adam turned to Jesse without softening. "We can take the loss. Or we can take what they have and convert it."
"Convert it," Jesse said, the word somewhere between punishment and practicality. "I—yeah. Convert."
Adam moved with efficient contempt. He found the stash in the obvious places junkies consider subtle—inside cereal boxes, under couch cushions that had seen better days in other lives, in a shoebox labeled "WINTER" like irony. He gathered it all into a grocery bag. He kept his face blank while he did the arithmetic of tragedy. He did not touch the toy in the corner. Some things didn't belong to the ledger.
"Cook this," he said, deadpan, as he slipped a bag of flour into the shoebox where the stash had been. "Losers."
Jesse barked a laughter that almost killed the moment's venom. He clapped a hand over his mouth, ashamed of the joy he felt at that joke landing, and then let his hand fall. He was who he was with Adam: not noble, not pure, but steered.
Outside, he leaned against the hallway's grimy wall and breathed. "Thanks," he said to the ceiling, then corrected: "Thanks, man."
Adam looked at him, saw the boy and the bruised man occupying the same set of bones, and said, "You're welcome." He didn't add, Don't make me do that again. He trusted Jesse to hear it echo anyway.
They moved the stolen product the same day, because leaving it sitting would be an invitation to the kind of thoughts that end in calls you can't take back. The System blinked its neutral approval.
Sell 5kg meth.
[Asset recognized: drugs (methamphetamine), 5 kg.]
[Confirm sale for $250,000?] Y/N
Y.
[Sale confirmed. Double-profit applied.]
[Proceeds: $500,000 credited.]
Balance: -$1,600,000
Strength: 8x
Adam felt the numbers edge less red. He also felt the cost of the day in places the ledger didn't track: the slight shake in Jesse's left hand when he reached for his keys, the thousand-yard stare softened by a text from Jane that said simply, "You okay?" with no punctuation. He watched Jesse type "yeah" and backspace it and replace it with "I will be," and he thought, Good.
He cleaned up the apartment's traces with a speed that looked like kindness and was. He wiped prints from doorknobs and countertops, not because anyone would come, but because rituals keep men from circling the drain. He left the flour behind like a comic correction to a sad equation.
On the drive back, Jesse stared out the window for a long time. "You ever wonder," he said finally, "if we're, like, the bad guys?"
Adam watched the road. "Every day," he said. "And then I decide what I can live with."
"That easy?" Jesse asked, without sarcasm.
"No," Adam said. "But simple."
They rode in a silence that didn't hurt. They stopped at a red light that took its time. When it turned green, they didn't jump the gun; they eased through like men who had learned to look both ways even when they had the right of way.
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