Project Sirius

A rumor

"I still can't believe you let them take my bounty."

"What else was I supposed to do? It was either they take the Crouger or your life. So how about a thank you, as a little gratitude for saving your ass instead of complaints."

Ezra took the frozen ice pak she had gotten out of the bar freezer and practically smacked me alongside the face with it.

"Ouch! Think you could do it any harder?" I held the pak in position over my scarred upper brow while sipping on a weepy drought, a green beverage that burns like acid, but taste like strawberries and one hell of a suppressant with a 40 proof alcohol percentage.

"Serves you right for starting trouble Jonas, You're lucky I didn't tell them about the Black-Market bounty Roanoke has on your head, then they'd have kicked your ass for s**t's and giggles AND credits. "

"You know what Ezra, you should have been a nurse, you're beside manners is practically flawless."

She rolled her eyes and started wiping down the counter top "What the hell are you even doing on this side of town, Ro meant what he said. If he catches you over here before you've paid him back, he will kill you. "

"Do you think I was hunting down a Crouger because it get's me off Ezra? I really needed those credits."

As I took a sip of my drink, I could see her hazel eyes drilling a hole right through me, and knew what she was about to ask.

"Are you using again, Jonas?"

"What? No."

"Don't lie to me. "

"I'm not." I gave her a look as stern as I could muster with my face in an unbelievable amount of pain. I know the problems I cost people in the past with my habits and she most of all.

There was a sigh of relief that barely escaped her lips, but the way her whole body seemed to have melted gave me a sense she was more worried than her face would allow her to show.

I lowered my head and ran my fingers through my wet hair. "But I do owe Satire 340k in exco."

"YOU OWE WHAT!?" Ezra voice echoed through the mostly empty pub at Ros Place. Catching the ears of the small crowd that occupied the space. Luckily it was quite early so the drunks here preferred to stay busy at the bottom of their glass than ease drop on a sensitive subject.

"Yeah Ezra a little louder. NOT SURE IF THE PEOPLE ON THE MOON HEARD YOU." I hollered back.

"How do you owe Satire that much? When you still owe Ro 115k?"

"It's called collateral and by the way it's only 80 now." I attempted to take a another sip of my beverage before she swiped it out of my hands spilling some of it along the surface of the bar top.

"What did you use as collateral Jonas?"

I attempted to reach out for my drink, she pulled it back further. Her eyes widening as they rested upon my lips awaiting my answer. "What?"

"My apartment, okay?"

"Your apartment isn't worth 340k, it isn't worth 40k".

"Why do you think I'm in debt Ezra?" I opened my hand, palm up. She hesitantly placed my drink gently in the center of it. " Thank you."

"So what did you spend the credits on?" she re-wiped down the spot she had just cleaned.

"Oh you know a little of this and that."

"Seriously Jonas!"

"I paid some of Ro's debt off and the rest I gave to someone in need."

"Who?"

"Sister Conny" I mumbled under my breath taking a soft gulp of my drink.

Ezra folded her arms and leaned forward on the black marble " You gave it to the orphanage that literally allowed you to be tortured as a kid" she whispered angrily. " That's borderline masochist. They beat the s**t out of you and you throw money at them?"

"Sister Conny wasn't involved in any of it. She's practically the reason the whole damn operation got shut down in the first place." Talking about the orphanage raised nightmares of the worse kind. Times I wish I could forget and brought back the worse sort of pain imaginable. One of the reasons I turned to the military and drugs in the first place was to escape the torment that endlessly seemed to stay imprinted on my psyche and haunted my dreams. The number of kids allowed to be sliced, carved, peeled and basically skinned alive was unimaginable and all in the so called name of science. Many didn't survive the ordeal. Then they just wrote it off as another orphan who perished from "unknown" complications and sold the body for research or throw it in the dump.

"They were threatening to shut down the place due to back taxes. If it that happened we'd have more kids dying in our streets than we do now. Or worse they'd be forced to decide between joining Satire or Roanokes turf war simply for food and shelter. " I looked in the bottom of my glass seemingly for an answer that wasn't there." She's managed to turn that place around from what it was when I was there. I couldn't let her good work go in vain."

Ezra grew quiet for a moment. Staring at me like some f****d up side show attraction. "You're a good man Jonas Plaza. Too good to believe sometimes. "

"Nope, I'm just a man trying to correct some of the wrong I’ve done." I handed her back the empty glass. "But unfortunately that seems to have gone out the window along with my 150k e-creds." I rested my forehead on the bar and started to gently tap it over and over again letting the marble vibrate my skull.

Ezra took her hand and placed it under my head as it was coming down. "You know what I'm going to say right?" I looked at her caramel hand with the freshly painted nails. Blue with glitters of black and white painted to look like a spiral. I followed it up her fore arm and to her tiny shoulders. Where her tilted head rested. She didn't need to say the name she was thinking of. Because whenever I brought her up that's the look Ezra gave me.

"f**k no!" I lifted my body quickly upright.

"Jonas?"

"Ezra, no. Don't mention her, don't even think her name. That woman despises me."

She scuffed and looked away for a moment. " You and I both know that's not true."

"Maybe she doesn't, but she should. What kind of human doesn't hate the man that screwed her over?"

"The kind that was engaged to him for 8 months and were together for 2 years." Ezra poured me another glass of weepy drought and handed it to me. "Just cause you want Terry to hate you doesn't mean she will."

"I'm sorry maybe you missed the part where she gave me back the ring and told me have a good life. " I swallowed the glass in one gulp, It burned like hell." Plus are we forgetting the fact she's on Homet and engaged again, due to be married in 2 weeks. To some snotty Trust fund baby with his Doctorate degree in extra anatomy."

"Are you also forgetting this was the same woman that paid for your rehab the first time after the engagement was called off, rented you an apartment in HER name and took you in off the streets after you pickpocketed her on your first meeting. The woman is basically the closest thing to perfect next to Christ himself."

"Exactly! Too perfect, there ought to be a rule on how nice you're allowed to be to someone, do you know in our entire relationship she never spoke not one damn curse word."

"Why bother? You say enough of them for you, her, the whole damn Milky-way. And besides-"

"No, Ezra, okay. I'm not calling that woman. I wasted enough of her time. I won't ask her to waste her money on me too." I slid the glass back at her. " Next subject."

She put the glass in the sink and turned on the water watching as the cup filled up. " Maybe I can lend it to you." She never looked up at me when she talked ." I don't have a lot, but I should be able to pay off Ros portion and keep him off your back."

I knew Ezra well. Too well in fact, she was an only child raised by a sick woman. Mary Lark, a remarkable person and she did what she could to give Ezra a comfortable life. Did that mean the newest kicks or hydro board, Bebe phone, glasses or watches? Absolutely not, but it did mean she didn't know hunger, or have to sleep out in the rain under a box or beg for scraps just to get by. She even befriended a little boy that had recently lost his home and took him in like a wounded animal, and even after said boy robbed her, she still welcomed him back in with open arms and a hot plate of something hot eat. I knew Ezra well and because I did, I knew she couldn't afford to pay off my debt to Ro. She was already working in his bar making barely anything at all and in upper Jaspa as cook in a restaurant she couldn't even afford to eat at if she saved credits for a month. She was my first real and possibly only friend who would do anything for me and I her, and it's because of this I gave her the answer I did.

I reached over and grabbed her hand it was so small and boney. She had the fingers of a pianist for sure. Soft and delicate even with all the scrubbing, cutting and cleaning she seemed to do endlessly.

" No. Neither of us can afford to be indebt to anyone, least of all you. Besides if you lose your place for paying off Ro, whose couch am I going to crash on when Satire takes mine." I managed to get a gentle laugh and playful shut up out of her. As she smacked my hand away with the towel.

"Like he'd want it."

"I'll figure out something else, just need to buy some time."

Ezras face lit up like it was Christmas and she had gotten every thing on her list. " Time, " she chuckled "We just need to buy you more time!."

"Yeah, I know that's what I literally just said."

"No, we can start a rumor, have it circle in the district you're working on a huge bounty and you're closing in on it. I mean it's not a lot, but both Satire and Ro know you're good for your bounties. So maybe if they hear about it they'll-"

"Back off." I completed her sentence for her.

"Ezra you're a goddamn genius." I jumped up from my seat reached over the bar and grabbed her face to kiss her.

What should have been quick and innocent quickly turned into sweet and engaging. My tongue wrapping around hers and my hands behind her head. This moment lingered for a bit then I pulled away and smiled.

"What time you get off?"