Chapter 10

FOUR DAYS LATER
"Pack your fucking bags! We're leaving" Pete said as he barge into the apartment. It was grey outside and night was steadily falling. The TV was left on and the volume was almost too loud. Pete hissed at their inattentiveness and muted the TV. He passed a discarded shirt on the floor and cursed.
"Nick! Why you gotta be so filthy? Don't you ever take care of your stuff? Leaving your shit everywhere on the floor" Pete swore as he moved to the bedrooms located east of the house. Inside Valeria's room, the baby was wailing mindlessly, tossing and turning with a used diaper on the floor, leaking unto the clean rug carpet.
"Fuck!" He swore and grabbed a blanket, throwing it over the mess on the floor, he grabbed the baby by the left foot and frowned at the foul smell, crinkling his nose in disgust, with another curse, he grabbed the sheets and wiped him, cleaning his butt the best he could before giving up and dumping the messed up sheet on the floor, he frowned at the mess and decided to find Valeria.
"Vee!" He yelled as he ventured into the kitchen to find it empty. "Nick?... Vee?" He called out as he moved about the house, no one replied and his guts began to tense, could they have been taken? Did they police find them already? Did they escape and leave the baby?. Pete pulled out his Colt, moved the baby to his hip and moved about more softly.
Pete moved stealthily to the bedroom by the right, Nick's bedroom where he could hear sounds and pulled open the door, cocking his gun and ready, he moved to the dressers and opened them each, finding nothing and no one, he moved to the bathroom and slowly opened the door. He stepped noiselessly, aimed his gun and jerked apart the shower curtains in one smooth move.
"What the fuck!" He swore in shock and awe, gawking at the two as they startled and let go each other. Nick lowered Valeria's legs and slowly let her down. The water was still running over their naked bodies, covered in suds and other fluids as Valeria turned away and reached for a towel, her hair messed up and soap everywhere.
The sight alone aroused Pete beyond ordinary and he swallowed.
"Hey Pete, put the gun away will you? It's pointed right at my balls dude" Nick said and with arms raised in mock surrender, slowly left the shower stall, grabbed a towel and left Pete standing with his mouth agape.
"Really Vee? You pick him? You pick him over me?" He asked lowly, a vicious snare on his face.
"We just got carried away, that's all" she mumbled and levelled him with her own fearless stare.
He nodded wordlessly, still glaring at her and then shoved her the baby who was already reaching for her and wailing. As Moses landed on her arms, he stopped crying instantly and reached for her wet towel clad breasts. Valeria wouldn't help but smile at his innocence and hummed to him.
"Fix him" Pete ordered and with one long glare at her, left the bathroom and banged the bedroom door afterwards.
Valeria exhaled, looked at Moses and began cooing to him gently as she filled the tub with warm water and slowly cleaned him of poop and wash the suds off her body too.
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As she toweled the baby and laid him on a soft plush blue blanket, she sighed heavily and slouched on the chair beside it, praying he didn't wake up and begin to cry again, it was exhausting her both physically and emotionally and frankly she didn't like the feel of being exhausted. Well, at least not emotionally exhausted anyways, the physical part she could very well deal with on her own. Her early years hadn't been all rosy like she hoped, at least not as soon as she hit puberty. She knew how it felt to stay hungry from one day to another and from one week to another, how to live off hand-overs and how to work pretty hard up until her muscles ached and her bones were too stiff and her back felt like an old woman suffering from rheumatism.
She could still very much remember when she worked at a certain warehouse, they lifted tiles daily and her work initially had been a cleaner. She'd come in very early and clean up the place, dusting the whole space and making sure the workers arrived to a dust free space at the beginning of the day and then left the place as dusty as they could when they were done. It was a monotonous task for Valeria and at her age it was quite dull, not physically - physically it demanded a lot of work and strength - mentally however if was like milking a cow and doing it every morning, at some point, it was more habitual and not much mental effort was put in the whole task, this often left her feeling drained mentally and like she was merely sleep-walking through the day.
However, that changed one fine morning when two men skipped work and the load for the day was twice the usual ton. The head of the labourers whose name she couldn't quite remember but was sure was an old sounding Irish name, he'd made several calls to bring in extra hands on time to get the job done quickly enough for when the delivery van came in and was ready to load up and leave for the nearest city for supplies. Well, Valeria had heard the amount being offered for just a few hours work, something she wasn't paid for the full month she worked as a cleaners. Well, hers wasn't an hourly pay, the manager had told her that they couldn't afford that, she'd either be a full time salary worker and take her skills - or lack of skills - elsewhere. She'd accepted the meager pay and worked diligently.
With the mouthwatering offer, Valeria had opted for the job, the men had taunted her and turned her down. She'd insisted until a certain man with a wandering eyes and a very large tongue that couldn't seem to stay in his mouth for long, always sneaking out to wet his lips that was partly covered in his sand brown and busy mustache. He'd offered her the job and despite what the other men said, he insisted she should be given a chance to work, saying she had strong looking bones and a good flesh. Now that Valeria really thought about it, he must have had no idea what he was saying at the time, or maybe it was his wild sexual imagination, she as scrawny for all she knew and although she was taller than most girls her age, she couldn't say she had any flesh that was remotely promising for a hard days work. As it turned out, she broke just four cartons of tiles that day, it was enough to make her almost cry and give up considering that each carton was directly deducted from her pay.
At the end of the day's work, the head worker paid her the complete money and didn't make any deductions, he said he was impressed with her carefulness, stating that most of the men broke up to a dozen during the first few days. Valeria was pleased and that was how she began hurling the tiles and then still cleaning up after, it spiked her income rate and she built some muscles at it too.
The manager wasn't pleased to find out that she was working with the men. He decided since she was already earning a living from the loading and she wasn't paying taxes or commissions, she might as well dust the warehouse for no salary, "Consider it a thank you from you to me" he'd said. Valeria hadn't considered it so, no, not at all. She knew exactly what it meant to be used and when someone was trying to use her. At that point, she knew without a doubt that the manager was trying to use her. She quitted work the following week, the men still called her up to work when there was a job outside the warehouse but that didn't last long, out of sight is most times out of mind too. And that was the end of her dusting days in that town.
Valeria stifled a yawn and stretched he crammed legs before raising from the chair to see what she could whip up for breakfast. The house was not the best when it came to stocking up, asides the days old apple in the fridge and a few leftover boxes, she did a mental check and couldn't think of another thing remotely edible and easy-to-make inside the fridge.
Her mind went to the bland spinach pizza they'd ate two nights ago, and before that it had been an equally tasteless ramen in a pack twice the actual size of the meal. Food was bad in the neighborhood and she was sure she wouldn't miss anything about the place when they left. The water was beginning to give her rashes in terrible places and she had to apply a cold cloth almost after every shower she had. If there was one thing she disliked about the nomadic life, it was the bad food that came with certain places and the hard water that didn't fail to mess with her rather sensitive skin.
It was past midnight when Pete could finally quit sulking and emerge from his bedroom. Thankfully, no one was asleep, Nick was still slouched on the single seater, legs tucked under him, a bottle of energy drink in hand. Valeria laid across the triple seater, her head on a cushion, the baby on her lap awake too, as if knowing that whatever would be discussed that night was crucial to his very wellbeing and survival. The television was playing mutely, all three deep in thought, what the baby was thinking though was left for God-knows-who to explain. But Moses did look sober, very deep in thought too, his eyes trained somewhere on the wall unblinking. Beside them on a low stool was a half eaten bag of chips, a empty glass of milk and a new feeding bottle.
Nick was still fidgety despite the long hours that passed. He had tried breaching the topic about the bathroom stall event but Valeria had simply smiled and waved it off, saying no more about the issue. Nick was beyond comfortable and that was one reason he was awake at past midnight - an odd hour for him considering he slept like a log once the opportunity presented itself. His discomfort stemmed from many sources, first, he had the worst case of blue balls ever recorded in man (and animal) kind, second, he was uncertain how Pete would take the whole it all and third, he wondered if him having just fucked Valeria had broken some unspoken "team code". He hadn't done beyond a harmless feel-up for the past seven years he'd joined the gang despite Valeria's attractiveness, she always had a way of buffering his attempts - and Pete's. And yes, Nick was quite aware that Pete had eyes on Valeria all the time, it was apparent in the girls he picked. They all looked like Valeria in some way - or tried anyways.
Tall, long legs, black hair and ripe. He was that into Valeria that he wanted her even if it really wasn't her. Nick didn't know exactly when he'd started withdrawing from what he smelled would be competition or at least a feud of some kind but he'd tactically stopped the harmless flirting and simply stated in admiration whenever he could. The moment that afternoon had just been that, a moment and he had fell for the long years of cravings, seated now, seeing her act so nonchalant about it, he regretted it all together. Worse, he didn't get to finish what he started.
Valeria pretended not to see Nick's eyes that had been on her all evening, from her peripheral vision she could clearly see his sneaked gazes and the long stares when he thought she wasn't paying attention. That had always been her problem with men, they wanted too much. The longing in his eyes told her all she had to know, he was probably smitten or curious to explore more about her body.
Valeria snorted out loud and noticed as Nick turned his attention to his drink and the mute TV again.
Men, she thought with a smile.
The fridge door slammed and Valeria exhaled, Pete was in a mood. Speaking of the devil, he sauntered in, wearing just a pair of loose fitted jeans and no top, his chest hairs sprinkling darkly in stark contrast to his slightly tanned skin. He stared at the pair for a little too long before sitting on the couch across Nick.
"We will be moving away at first light" he said, his voice gruff.
Nick nodded and so did Valeria.
Pete chuckled, rubbing his goatee and smiling mockingly at the pair.
"No questions? You're all behaving like chickens now?" He teased with a frown.
"I'm sure you've got a reason Mr. Genuis" Nick replied with a show of his teeth in a fake smile.
"You're right, I do. You'd probably know that reason too if you watched the evening news" Pete replied and looked at them pointedly. "Oh, I forgot, you were busy screwing your brains out like fucking pigs" he retorted with a shrug and opened his can of soda, gulping it loudly.
"We saw the news, that infact is why we were fucking our brains out, figured we could utilise the time and space since we'd be moving soon. Who knows when next we'd get to chance to" Valeria took the bait and replied swiftly to the insult.
Pete nodded with a grin that was more fierce than friendly, his accusing glare unmistakable.
"You do know your have a job in this operation right Vee?" He asked with a blank look, "It's to take care of the boy" Pete stated plainly.
"The one on your legs Vee, the one with diapers" he explained meaningfully.
She nodded, her chin high.
"At all times, that's your priority, you do well to remember that" he said and gave her a long hard stare which she responded in kind.
"We can't just up and leave, where are we going how long will we stay? What is the plan when we run away? Remember we are carrying about a child and that's extra eyes and extra work" Nick cut in as he felt the tension rise in the room.
"Any ideas pretty boy?" Pete asked with a mocking smile.
"We did say we'll be staying for a few weeks, it's barely been two. If we leave, who knows who saw the news, that way it's easy to know it was us, people could have suspicions and talk, plus, we'd be running like chicks without a head since Tommy has said nothing to us yet" Nick replied.
"I think Nick's right" Valeria agreed, sitting up and laying Moses gently on the couch.
"We need to low lay low for a bit. Washington DC is till a good distance from here, they'll need a lot of luck and intel to find us and I'm guessing they don't have much of either. We can still buy a few days and think before we move" Valeria said.
"I agree" Pete conceded after a long pause.
"My guess is they'll begin to check train stations, airports and bus stops. We've used a train and that is likely to lead them to California. But from there I don't think we left any trail. If we do travel now that the chase is still rather hot, we risk slipping and giving them more lead. We could give them pointers though, buy plane tickets and not use them, something to lead them away for a while until we regroup" Nick suggested.

The Gang
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