Rv park in big spring tx

Sevendaysin - The Sesh ( Episode 1 ) - 05.29.2023
https://soundcloud.com/djsevendc/the-sesh-001 <- stream & download all you want; it's yours now.
Introducing "The Sesh," a new project from myself, aka Sevendaysin.
As I sheepishly admit in my intro, I'm not sure. what this will ultimately become, but I do aim to use this as a means to putting out more music and mixes this year...
Anyways, this next hour is full of recent bangers in the drum n' bass scene and I think this is some of my best work yet - I hope you enjoy!
SESH001 Tracklist 05.29.2023
01 Ed:it ● Springs ● CIA Records 02 Break Feat. MC Fats ● Natural Way ● Symmetry Recordings 03 Joy Orbison ● Hyph Mngo (Friction Rmx) ● Bootleg 04 Hugh Hardie x Stay-C ● Impala ● Hospital Records 05 Cesco & En:vy ● Esoteric ● 1985 Music 06 Flava D ● Red Pill ● Hospital Records 07 Gyrofield ● 24rd ● Critical Music 08 London Elektricity ● Billion Dollar Gravy feat. Liane Carroll (Watch The Ride Rmx) ● Hospital Records 09 Particle ● That Hz ● Critical Music 10 London Elektricity ● To Be Me (Conrad Subs Rmx) ● Hospital Records 11 R4NS0M ● At Odds With Everything ● Four Corners Music 12 Hyroglifics ● Albany Road ● Critical Music 13 DLR ● Roll With It ● Sofa Sound 14 IYRE feat. T-Man ● Want No Drama ● Hospital Records 15 Alibi ● Flawless ● Innerground Records 16 Break & Fox ● Code Red ● Symmetry Recordings 17 DSP ● Sunset ● CIA Records 18 En:vy ● You ● Critical Music 19 Koffee ● Toast (Clipz Rmx) ● Bootleg 20 Ed:it ● Lock Blues ● CIA Records 21 Waeys ● Cast A Path ● Critical Music 22 Fluidity ● Feelings ● Innerground Records 23 Noisia ● Leopard Slug (Halogenix Rmx) ● Vision Recordings 24 Paige Julia ● Ease Your Mind ● 1985 Music 25 Fade Black ● Barbed ● Critical Music 26 T>I feat. Madrush MC ● Sketchy ● CIA Records 27 Stray ● Ginseng Smash ● Critical Music 28 Submotive & DLR ● Accidental Funker ● Sofa Sound 29 Enei ● Woodrunner ● Critical Music 30 Marcus Intalex & ST Files ● Moonwalk ● Renegade Hardware 31 Monty ● Stylz ● 1985 Music 32 John Rolodex ● Tentacle ● Metalheadz 33 Q Project ● Everytime ● CIA Records 34 DLR ● Staying Up Late Making Music ● Sofa Sound
For Promo Use Only. Support the music you love and big up to all of the artists that absolutely made this mix and the vibes within.
All tracks are © their respective holders and publishers. Mix is CC-licensed for your non-profit-oriented listening pleasure.

Previous Part: https://www.reddit.com/redditserials/comments/13trg6g/i_accidentally_joined_the_mafia_in_south_brooklyn/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android_app&utm_name=androidcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button
Becca invited me to her apartment when we made it back, sent me through the alley behind the building to keep the prying eyes at the minimum. That was fine with me as I was a lot more noticeable than I liked to be, at the moment. I had already lit a cigarette by the time she opened the back door of the stairwell to let me in. It was the last in the pack, and I'd only opened it this morning. The temperature on my phone screen had finally hit zero.
"You're gonna have to give me a second, B, I don't wanna smoke around you in your condition but I really need one."
She gave me another watery grin.
"Little too much blood in the nicotine system, huh?"
"Exactly, my young friend, exactly that."
She propped the door open and sat herself down on the ground. I could tell the high heels were starting to hurt her because she kicked them off and set them neatly to the side, though I knew the concrete had to be freezing her feet off. She tucked her skirt between her legs and sat with her back against the wall, her elbow propped on her bent knee, the other leg stretched out straight before her. It was exactly how what was left of Antoni had been sitting beside me less than two hours ago.
I was getting a little tired of all the patterns appearing in my life these days.
I flipped to my news app, as was my habit. There was an article at the top of page about the preparations the SDNY were making to get ready for the coming storm, but frankly I didn't really give a fuck so I just kept scrolling.
"Your old neighborhood is in the news, B."
"You ain't had enough bad news?" Beccs asked with a rueful laugh.
"Eh, I like to stay abreast of current events. I mean, you got me pegged, B. I'm a nosy fuck. But, uh, fifteen years on the inside, you learn that it pays to pay attention to the shit other people don't notice, cause you never know when the information you pick up is going to end up being the information you need."
She gave me a look that said she had to yield to my point.
"So what's the news from Koreatown?".
"Somebody shot a wedding up, apparently. Says seven were killed, including the bride and groom and the bride's father, as they was leaving the reception. You know, most of these names are Rhees. Ain't nobody you know, is it? Kinda feel like you've had enough death for the day, kid."
There was another look on her face, one I couldn't quite read even with all my people-watching prowess.
"Lemme take a wild stab at it. Two of those names are Rhee Seong-Min and Rhee Bong-Cha."
"Yeah," I nodded. "You do know 'em. I'm sorry, B."
She gave a low, almost rumbling, chuckle. It gave me a little shiver, not from the cold, and not one of enjoyment, either. She flashed a sign, one I'd seen her flash before, but it wasn't from any gang I knew personally, and lacking any official affiliation of my own, I'd dealt with my fair share of different gang members in the Upstate Correctional Facility. Double E's, one backwards, one forwards, three quick shakes of each hand.
"God bless old K-town. But you ain't got to worry about it. I'll not shed a tear over any of them. They's family, but they ain't exactly family, you know. I might tell you about it one day."
The last sentence had a note of finality to it, so I didn't ask any further questions in that regard, but I was still as curious as always.
"If all your family has Korean names, how the hell did you end up as Rebecca and your Dad as Sam?"
"My Dad's name is Park Kyung-Sam. Just Sam was easier to tell people and he, uh, he wanted me to have the same benefit of blending in in American society, and he liked the name Rebecca. So, Rhee Rebecca Hyo-Jin. My Mom's name was Rhee Chung-Cha, but everybody just called her ChaCha, like from Grease."
"So your Mom was the Rhee?"
She made an affirmative noise and nodded.
"She didn't exactly wanna give up her family name, and… my Dad didn't exactly give a fuck cause he was in love with her crazy ass. You know, that's where I get this from. Except my Moms, if she was still around she'd make me look like I grew up to be a calm, quiet girl."
I'd hate to see what was worse than Beccs.
"You done?" Becca asked. I nodded, tossed my cigarette into the sand-filled bucket we kept here for just that purpose. I followed B inside and we climbed the stairs to the third floor. I leaned against the wall as she pulled a ring of keys from her coat pocket and waited while she unlocked the knob and the three deadbolts on her door.
"Pretty serious about your home security, B?"
She shot me a look but didn't say anything as she opened the door. A steady beeping greeted us, and Becca stopped just inside and punched in a code on a security panel. As I stepped around her and entered the apartment, I understood why.
Do you know that part in Coming To America where Akeem comes home to his dilapidated Queens apartment and realizes Semmi has filled it with expensive furniture? Well, it was exactly like that. Becca locked the door back behind her, threw her stilettos onto the shoe rack, and hung her coat on the brass tree beside it. I did the same, removed my boots to place them on the rack as well.
"Jesus Christ, B, this place looks amazing."
There was a gray suede sectional in the center of the living room, a 152 inch Panasonic plasma bolted to the wall. The coffee table, the wool Oriental rug beneath it, and the end tables looked antique, as well as the green velvet chaise set near one window. There were three ornately-carved bookcases set against the far wall between the two windows facing the street, one filled with DVDs, and on the other two almost all the books were old and leather bound. The kitchen was open to the room, separated by a butcher block bar from the living room, all matching stainless steel appliances and black marble countertops. All along the walls were family pictures dotted between massive paintings held in golden Baroque style frames.
They were… stunning was the only word I could think to describe them. Most of them were portraits done in a slightly impressionist style, impasto if my memory served me, seemingly random strokes of thick paint that somehow managed to form the perfect images of faces and a few nudes.
"Jesus Christ, these paintings must have cost a fortune alone."
Becca stepped beside me, her arms crossed over her chest as she surveyed the painting I was looking at. It was done in mostly black and red, the image of a sleeping nude man, one arm tucked behind his head, his other draped across his stomach, his hips and legs covered with a sheet. If I touched it, I could have felt the wrinkles in the bunched fabric. There was something oddly familiar about it.
"They didn't cost shit," she answered.
That made me look away from the painting and back to Beccs.
"What the hell? Did you rob a gallery?"
"No, you mook, I painted them. They didn't cost anything but the price of the canvas and the paint, which, you know, I stole most of that from school."
"You painted them," I repeated, looking back.
As I looked closer at the canvas, I realized why it was familiar. The sleeping man was our dear friend Antoni Zabrowska. I had mistaken his tattoos for shadows, though I had to admit I had never seen him look quite so relaxed. As I glanced around the room, I realized I recognized many of the paintings. I was able to pick out her father's face, Rossi's, and I realized the model for the two female nudes was none other than Nia Bianchi. There was one of a woman in white with bloody skeletal wings that bore a strong resemblance to Becca and I imagined that was the infamous ChaCha.
"That's what I go to Columbia for. Visual Arts."
"You're a goddamn genius, B."
She scoffed.
"No, I'm fucking serious, kid. My sister collects art, and she refuses to go for the big names. Shit like this, she pays 10 to 20 grand for a painting half this size, more if it's one of the artists she likes."
Now she snorted.
"What? Your sister got a money tree?"
"No, my older sister Aurie's a writer. She wrote her first book when she was ten. She's published 20 so far, but she's got 30 or 40 more in backlog that she's still tweaking. She's kind of a perfectionist when it comes to writing, but I guess it pays off. Her books sell like fucking hotcakes everytime she puts one out, two of her series got picked up by Netflix, and Lion's Gate turned her seventh book into a movie. She even got to be involved in the productions.
"She's got a penthouse on the Upper East Side that she bought about six years ago. That's where I lived when I got out of the Upstate. Aurora, she's a fucking Saint, you know. I mean, I had a shitty PO that was up my ass every five minutes but Aurie never said a word about it. She just… always told me she was glad I was home, which, you know, was nice to hear considering that according to my grandparents I died 19 years ago. She was the one that helped me get this place down here, paid in full for a two year lease."
Becca raised an eyebrow at me.
"No offense, Tony, I can tell you're crazy about her, but she couldn't have picked a better place for you than this hell hole?"
I laughed as softly as I could, to save the muscles in my stomach.
"I picked this place myself, B. Cheapest apartment I could find in any of the boroughs, and it even had three bedrooms. I was thinking about having space for a library and a home gym."
Becca snorted.
"Yeah, it's cheap cause the fucking place is about 90 years old. Nobody's been able to get a hold of the slumlord who owns it for repairs in 8 months, but I bet you the motherfucker still collects the rent checks we deposit in his fucking bank account every month."
"Yeah, I figured that out just about as soon as I moved in, but beggars can't be choosers. Besides, Antoni always used to help me out whenever something broke."
Becca gave a small smile.
"They did that for everybody. I used to call them the apartment elves, cause instead of making shoes they were skittering around fixing fucking toilets and sinks, and rewiring burned up outlets and bringing in new refrigerators and stoves when shit broke in everybody else's places. And they bought it all with their own money. Everybody tried to pay them, but they never took a dime for any of it. Ironically enough, Pops used to talk about Antoni all the time because of all the money he'd spend over there every week. Said he had a good heart, just no good sense when it came to what was his responsibility and wasn't. You know, I had my own opinions about Antoni's heart, but I kept them to myself."
"I really wish I had paid more attention when Antoni was working on the boiler, though. Instead of just passing him tools and running my mouth."
"Yeah, you're good at that," she replied with a smirk.
"And fuck you, too, Miss Rebecca. You might be the strong type, but you're not exactly silent yourself."
She laughed.
"Make yourself comfortable. I'll be right back."
I nodded and obeyed as she exited into what I saw was the bathroom as she opened the door and closed it behind her.
The sectional was goddamned heaven, and she'd said make myself comfortable so I kicked out the recliner and leaned back. I closed my eyes for a moment and sighed, and when I opened them I nearly jumped out of my skin. I barely managed to stop myself from letting out a yell as I jerked back up to sitting.
Antoni's corpse was standing by the picture wall, looking intently at a photo of a child Becca wearing a ruffled, cream colored dress with a ribbon in her long black hair. It was the picture of her first Communion.
"Goddamn, you can't give somebody a warning before you do that?"
He neither answered me nor turned to look at me because he was using the stumps of his wrists to adjust several of the frames back straight again.
"Fucking neat freak," I laughed. "She wasn't lying."
He finally turned toward me.
You ever seen a corpse try to look annoyed when he's missing about a quarter of his face? I mean, what am I saying, you probably haven't, but suffice to say, it's pretty fucking funny. He raised his left wrist, and if he had hands, he'dve been shooting the bird.
Almost hysterical laughter burst out of me as Becca exited the bathroom.
"Least the pipes ain't frozen yet," she muttered.
She gave me a strange look.
"Who are you talking to out here? And what's so funny?"
I glanced back to Antoni, but he was gone again.
"Don't mind me, B, I'm pretty sure I got a concussion. I'm pretty much seeing pink elephants at this point." Or, you know, the mutilated corpse of my best friend, but it's probably best I leave it at elephants.
"Yeah," she answered, and crossed the room to hand me something. "Speaking of."
It was a mouth guard.
"What is this for?"
She didn't answer me, but headed to the kitchen and opened a cabinet, withdrawing a cut crystal scotch glass and then opening the refrigerator and withdrawing… two bags of blood. Nia's blood, to be exact. She unscrewed the cap at the bottom of one, punctured the seal with a fresh insulin needle, and to my supreme discomfort squeezed some into the glass. The mouth guard suddenly made sense. It was so I wouldn't break my teeth or bite my tongue off when the convulsions started and my jaw locked down from consuming demon blood.
"Oh no, B, I don't want that."
"Yeah. That's why I didn't tell you why I wanted you over here, cause I knew you was gonna be a pussy about it."
I tried one more last-ditch effort.
"You need that more than me, B."
"I can just take my next dose early, but you, you can't go down and see Ma looking like that. She's gonna ask too many questions."
That one stopped me.
"I've had enough of interrogations for one day, B."
"There ain't no interrogation when it comes to Ma. She just puts it in your head that you ain't got no choice but to tell her the truth, and you do. She's made state witnesses get up on the stand and confess their own crimes, pleading the fifth be damned."
She screwed the cap back onto the bag and carried them and the glass over to the coffee table and set them down. She walked over and opened a closet door, pulling out an IV pole with a little box attached to it, and grabbed a small cardboard box from off a shelf and what looked like a tackle box. She set it on the coffee table after she pulled the pole over to the sectional and plugged it into the wall, opened the cardboard box and removed a cassette from inside and inserted it into the box on the pole.
"What's that?"
"It's a blood warmer for rapid transfusions, so I don't go into hypothermia or hemolysis. Little bastard cost 137 thousand, but at least you can buy them online. You put a fresh cassette in every time, the blood runs through it, by the time it gets to my arm it's body temp."
She opened the tackle box and removed two fresh lines, attaching one to the bottom of the warmer and one to the top, hanging the bags of blood but not connecting the first of them yet. The top had a drip chamber with a filter, and the bottom held the flow regulator and the hypodermic needle with the cannula inside.
"You know, it's not fucking fair, B, you shouldn't have dealt with half the shit in your life that you have."
She snorted and her lips pursed with anger as she sat down beside me.
"You sound like Rossi with that shit. That's why he wouldn't let me die, said it wasn't fair. I was ready to go into hospice, fuck it, I was ready to see my Mom again. But I'll tell you the same thing I told his stupid old ass. Life ain't fair. Cause if it was I'd have my mother and my baby's father and Jimmy's ass would be the one laying in the morgue. You think it's fair you almost lost a finger because of what he ordered?"
I laughed.
"No, I actually think that's pretty fair. That's karma, B. I was usually the one doing the beating. How do you think I ended up in prison?"
She looked hard at me for a moment.
"I mean, you never told me. You were pretty open about having gone to prison, but you never said why."
"Well, I learned to be open about it. Some people get real upset when they find out they're dealing with someone who's been through the system, so I didn't really wanna go through that again. So now I just tell people up front, let them decide for themselves if they wanna deal with me or not. That way they can't throw it back in my face, say I lied to them."
Becca let out a bitter chuckle.
"So what's your story?"
"Well, we still ain't finished your story, yet, but we'll take a detour. The whole thing started my Senior year of high school. First game of the year, I blew my knee out, big as a bitch, tore everything there was to tear, shit was basically hanging on by the skin alone. Orthopedics said I had two choices, keep playing football or, retain the ability to walk on that leg, so… there went all my big dreams of college ball and making it onto the Giants."
"Linebacker?"
I nodded. "Middle linebacker. I was good at it. 6'7, 265 pounds but light on my feet, all muscle. Back then I was running 7 percent body fat, and wasn't even trying. Shit just… all came natural to me. It all blew up in my face. Shitloads of surgery and physical therapy, and then one day the pain pills stopped but the pain didn't. Everyday, every night, I was still hurting."
She nodded.
"I know about bone pain. I could always tell when I needed to up the dose when my bones started hurting. When I started out all it took was an insulin needle. Now I take so much, I'm not even sure I qualify as human. But I guess I won't be much longer. That's always been the plan. Just keep me alive till 30 and Ma's gonna make me like her. That's the preferred age for the Entrance, something to do with the Trinity."
I nodded.
"I started asking around school if anyone knew where to get some Percs but pain management keeps that shit so tight I could only get a few at a time. Not only was they expensive, it wasn't enough. I got hooked up with this kid named Alessandro, he told me if I really wanted to control the pain, he could get me something better and cheaper. He took me to meet his uncle, Colombian guy named Marco. First shot is free and it was… it was beautiful. Everybody always gets sick the first time, but I didn't. And then after that, all my free money from my after school job started going to horse, and uh, I got my last six months off school. I already had all the credits I needed from AP classes, started working full time. They didn't piss test. But, my tolerance was rising faster than my income was."
I took a deep breath.
"I'd been buying enough that Marco was offering me fronts but I never took it. So next time I went, I asked him for my usual and I asked how much it would be for two O's on the front, cause I knew a lot of other users and I was thinking of starting to sell myself. So, he told me he'd give me a pound, and we could settle up at the end of the month."
"Jesus Christ, if you were selling a pound a month you must have been making bank."
I shook my head.
"I wasn't in it for the money. I was in it to keep myself supplied. If I kept my prices right, I could use for free, and I had enough left over to pay my portion of the rent and help pay for the groceries. I got good at it, I'd take a shot, and nod out for a few minutes, then get up and start walking the streets."
Becca snorted.
"You wasn't standing on a street corner?"
"Fuck no. Too visible. I did all my business by phone. I had a burner and gave everyone the number, and when they needed some they'd give me a call and I'd meet them or they'd meet me. I had ethics. I used to have people offering me fucking blowjobs for a bag, but I always said no, shit felt wrong. All they had to do was pay me by the end of the month but, sometimes…"
She gave a grin.
"But sometimes, 'Bitch, where's my money?'"
"Yeah, sometimes people would try to skip out, so I had to apply a little pressure to persuade them to pay. I never killed nobody, it's hard as hell to get money out of a dead man. But, black a few eyes and break a few bones and suddenly they had money they didn't before. Being my size, there wasn't many of them that could fight back. But, I fucked up the wrong lowlife.
"There was this prick, he'd been dodging me for weeks. He owed me like two grand, I'd given him that much because I knew he had money, so when I finally caught up to him, I was pretty mad and, the bitch, he told me he wasn't going to pay me. Thought he was better than me, thought he could fuck me and get away with it. So I beat the mortal hell out of him, took his wallet. He had five grand in there but I figured, 3K surcharge for wasting my time."
I shook my head.
"But I should have done some better research on who I was going after. Turned out the little prick had a socialite for a mother and his Daddy was a hedge fund manager and… I'd hurt him pretty bad. First three months, not only was I dealing with DTs, I was waiting to see if they were going to add Murder to my charges. He was in a coma for that long, and when he woke up, he had to learn to walk again, how to feed himself. I beat him so bad I gave him brain damage."
"Goddamn, Tony."
"Apparently his parents knew their son's habits and knew exactly who I was, cause they went straight to the police, and two days later SWAT showed up, turned the house upside down. I smashed my phone into pieces, flushed it so they couldn't get my contacts, but I didn't think about the fact I still had the wallet with his driver's license in it. My grandparents disowned me, right then and there. I had just reupped so they caught me with 14 ounces, all it takes is 8 for Class A felony possession. I spent 13 months in Rikers, but my sister got me a good lawyer, he knew the judge and the prosecutor personally, golfed with them, so he got me a plea deal. I was looking at life in prison, but he argued that I was a good student that had made a bad mistake because of a chronic pain issue, and they were both first offenses, so if I pled guilty, agreed to go through a substance abuse program and anger management, then they'd give me the minimum sentence.
"15 years, Class A Felony Drug Possession, 3 years, Class B felony First Degree Assault, intentionally causing grievous bodily harm while in the commission of another felony. But, at my sentencing, the judge said I was a big guy, with a big anger problem. I hadn't killed anyone, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Said I was a danger to society, so when I got to the UCF, they put me in dark red."
"Supermax?"
I nodded.
"23 hours a day in a box by myself, no visitors, barely saw the guards. But, I stayed quiet, made no problems. Prison was overcrowded so I ended up with a cellmate, and I was glad to see him. It could have been Hannibal Lecter and I would have gave him a hug. He might have been a murderer but he was actually a decent guy. Him and his crew had knocked over some jewelry stores in Manhattan, last job went bad. He'd killed three cops, so he wasn't never getting out. Neither was his wife. Life in Bedford Hills."
"That's where they was gonna send me if Ma hadn't got the jury to give me a Not Guilty verdict."
I knew Becca had a tendency to get in trouble because beside the cheerleading pictures in the bodega, there was also a mugshot.
"What did you do?"
She gave a bitter chuckle again.
"Unlike you, I killed someone. 2021, this fucking crackhead tried to rob the store. He shot the customer that was in there, old guy named Mickey, killed him. He used to live in your apartment. Tried to shoot me, too, but the gun jammed and I had the aluminum baseball bat under the counter. I just started swinging. He went down, but I jumped the counter, and hit him again. Blood lust is a real thing. Once I saw he was bleeding, I wanted to see more. I beat his brains out, literally, he was dead long before the cops ever got there. Bat looked like a toothpick when I was done.
"They arrested me, and the DA himself showed up at my arraignment. Said self defense didn't apply, sent me straight up to Murder 2, requested I be denied bail because I had a passport and plenty of money so I was a flight risk. But we all knew the truth. He was still pissed that he hadn't been able to send Rossi away for longer, and I was the next best thing. Ma had to pull a lot of strings to make sure I still got my transfusions when I was in lockup. I was in Rikers for four months, had my eighteenth birthday sitting in the Singer Unit."
"Goddamned patterns," I muttered, then raised my voice again. "You, me, and Antoni all got that in common, except he wasn't like us. He was already in prison. That's what the rose meant, turned eighteen in prison. Life sentence, triple murder."
"He told you that?" She looked betrayed, so I was quick to answer.
"No, the tattoos told me that. Google is my best friend, B. That's what the skull and crossbones, and the coffins on his arm meant."
She swallowed, and nodded again.
"But, I moved down," I continued. "Went to orange when they moved me to Gen Pop, and I had friends waiting for me. Marco was very appreciative of me keeping quiet about my source at trial, so outside Abuela Bogota's was where I hung out the most. But I had friends all over. My sister was smart. She always put way more in my account than I could spend, so whenever I heard that somebody needed something, I'd go to the canteen and buy it myself and pass it to 'em. Nobody had to owe me shit. All I wanted was to be left alone, so I had people watching my back from all sides. I ended up in blue, got moved to the dormitory, started working in the kitchen, ended up running it, cause I was a 'model prisoner.'"
"You ever fool around with any of your cellmates?" Becca asked with a grin. "Cause I did."
I gave an uncomfortable laugh.
"I mean, yeah. 15 years is a long time to be alone. I don't consider myself bisexual even, but if somebody offers, you know…" I shrugged.
"I think the word you're looking for is heteroflexible. That's how Antoni referred to himself. He had a thing for you, you know."
That stopped me dead.
"You're fucking with me, B."
"Nope. He asked me once if I'd mind if he ever got the chance to hook up with you, and I told him no, as long as he didn't mind I still hooked up with my old girlfriends from high school. But he never asked you, said he loved you too much, was afraid of ruining your friendship."
"Jesus Christ," I shook my head, finally decided I needed time to process that, and moved on. "But, my last year there, Covid hit, and, I volunteered to work in the infirmary, but pretty soon the infirmary was filled, they started keeping people in the hallway, and finally they just ended up leaving them in their beds, I was all over the place. People dropping like flies. Everytime someone coughed or sneezed, everbody'd get nervous. I been smoking since I was 16, so I cough my lungs out every morning.
"People was looking at me like I was Death Incarnate. But I never caught it, not even once. And I was all around the sick, I was taking the bodies out to the truck outside the gate. Could've run but I didn't. Only had a few years left. It worked in my favor. They cut the last three years off my sentence, put me on supervised release and now, here I am, 36 years old, and just starting my adult life."
"Rossi got let out of lockup right before lockdown, poor bastard. Me, him, and my Dad all quarantined at Ma's, but of course, you know, me and Dad was essential workers so at least I got to get out of the house everyday. I graduated early, at 16, been working seven days a week since."
I glanced at the glass on the table.
"So let's get back to your story."
She shook her head, lips pursed again.
"Uh-uh, you're not wasting anymore time. Take the blood, but first," she reached out, quicker than I could even register, and used her thumbs to set my broken nose back straight.
I let out a yell, momentarily unable to see as my eyes filled with tears.
"Jesus wept, Becca, fucking hell, goddamn."
"Sorry. It would've hurt more if you'd known it was coming. Besides, you're a good looking guy, Tony, you don't wanna ruin your face."
"Thanks, B," I muttered as I pressed the toilet paper back to my freshly bleeding nose, tears streaming down my cheeks. "Need a haircut though."
"Nah, you oughta keep it. It's very The Dark Knight Joker, just black, not blonde and green."
I laughed quietly.
"Not sure that's the best association, B. A little too psychotic and violent."
She raised an eyebrow at me.
"Alright, alright. It's probably an accurate association, just a little less arson and murder." I sighed and looked at the scotch glass. "So how do I do this, B?"
"Think about it like a tequila shot. Take the shot and then slip the guard in quick. Then sit back, try to relax."
I nodded and grabbed the glass before I lost my nerve. I raised it in her direction.
"Saluti."
"Geonbae." She responded.

3 beds 2 bath - Apartment
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Spacious and fully furnished apartment with a pool view balcony. Only a 5 minute walk from campus Washer and dryer in unit Parking Garage in complex
Ps: The original price was $859/ month but with a $75 discount included it is now $834/ month.

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The Primeval Apocalypse by Alex Raizman and Robert Keene
Start here (Prologue) Previous
***
Author's note:
Some days I just sit here and stare at the Author's Note section, unsure of what to write. I've already been editing for the past few hours, and so my brain is shot. Caffeine, please work harder.
***
It had only been a handful of days since Noaich and I had hit the Mandrill town, but a surprising amount of the damage done had been repaired. Most of the buildings towards the edges of town had been fixed up or rebuilt.
There were still a few damaged or flattened buildings farther in, though many had been crudely patched with cloth curtains. My senses easily detected which ones had been abandoned during repairs, and which ones were still intact enough to house their occupants, even if the damage was still present from some monster blasting through the walls.
This late into the afternoon, many of the Mandrills were in their homes, but there was a group still working in the middle of town. Of all the damage I’d done, no building had been so obliterated as the stable. And with everyone’s living arrangements sorted, it was the most important building to get back up and secure. The pen outside of it would only contain what few drug-addled mounts and livestock they had left for so long. About eight or nine Mandrills were working feverishly to get the building back up before nightfall.
I tried not to freak out when I saw the alpha near at hand, ferrying cut lumber from the crafters to the work site. Despite the above-it-all behavior he’d shown last time, he wasn’t so proud as to neglect helping, even if the task that was needed was just a strong back to haul materials. It was almost respectable behavior for a leader, if it wasn’t terrifying to think that he was going to be at the center of this fight once it began.
I conveyed all that to Rachel from our final staging spot just outside the ring of farms around the town. She looked at the others and pointed at two members in particular.
“Peter, Yara,” she said, pointing to the mage and the woman with the iron-banded club, “get ready.”
The two split off, Peter moving with the scout Emma to the left side of the group—where her stealth aura could still cover the raid crew, but where the pair of them could duck away quickly when combat broke out. Yara moved to the back, giving Liz a protective pat on the back to try and calm the anxious archer.
At the same time, Rachel moved to the front. The rest of the group formed around her the same way they had when we were making our approach on the cerebtyrannus.
“In position,” Rachel said.
With a firm gesture, the group headed straight for the town.
The cover of Emma’s cloak couldn’t hold forever. But like my Hide In Plain Sight ability, it got us pretty far. We swarmed past the front line of guards stationed around the town by approaching in a blind spot, and got halfway to the stable before encountering a guard patrol. There were only three Mandrills, and so when one of them managed to check against someone’s stealth and win, they didn’t try and fight.
Instead, they howled in alarm, their voices shrill and panicked.
“Now!” Rachel snapped. “Move!”
Peter and Emma broke off from the group. The mage was a bit clumsy, but Emma caught his first stumble and turned it into a springing sprint, getting the pair of them clear of us before putting her cloak back up over the pair of them. Everyone else charged forward as one, though Yara and Liz fell back, trailing behind even Big Sam who still covered the rear.
We burst out into the clearing around the stable. The workers were already scrambling to get away. I could sense every guard in town converging on the stables now, moving in response to the increasingly noisy hoots of alarm. The only fighting force ready and waiting to oppose us were a half-dozen anxious guards, with the Alpha approaching from behind their shaky line.
“We can take him,” Rachel said quietly. I could tell that she was hungry for the win. She might never have another chance to engage with the alpha as cleanly as she could right now. And even now he wasn’t such an imposing figure. Clearly the oldest Mandrill in the camp, with a slight limp to his gait, and unarmed, too.
“It’s not part of the plan,” I said quickly. “We have to stick together.”
“If we get spread out, it’s all for nothing,” she said, pressing her lips together in a tight line, remembering my warning back in town. “And getting baited to run forward is spreading us out.”
“Until we see The Big One, the plan is everything,” I confirmed.
“Together, then,” Rachel ordered, and the group advanced at a more measured pace than the breakneck charge she no doubt wanted.
The Mandrill line seemed about to break before our numbers, but the alpha stepped up beside them. His presence visibly bolstered their resolve. And as the remaining guards grew closer, they seemed more willing to fight. I could even sense this town’s queen approaching from the west, leading a large enough group of guards to be a threat to us.
Rachel adjusted her position to meet the alpha head-on. Right before the fight began she let loose with her two shout buffs, and then added a third yipping war cry that instead applied a debuff to the Mandrills, slightly shaking their confidence. I wasn’t sure what the effect was, but there wasn’t time to stop and ask.
The frontline of Rachel’s fighters smashed into the Mandrills. As soon as they did, I instructed Noaich to Howl, spreading the buff to the whole party.
I wanted to pop Enrage as well, but I held myself back. If this fight was going to drag on, we were going to need to stagger our buffs. One overwhelming blow wasn’t going to be what won this battle.
Not yet, anyway.
With the stacked buffs, our frontline put the Mandrill line on the back foot immediately. The two shield-bearing tanks at the front were near-indomitable, their boosted dodge, block, and parry skills keeping them ahead of the Mandrill’s attacks. The attacks from those behind them were fast and furious as well, defeating their defenses thanks to Rachel’s shout, and dishing out tremendous damage thanks to Noaich’s Howl. The Mandrill line almost crumbled.
But it held.
Because the alpha held.
Rachel’s giant cleaver swept in with tremendous speed, the increased skill making the weapon blur even to my heightened senses. For a brief instant, it looked like she was going to cleave the alpha in half at the waist before he even knew he was in a fight.
But his bare hands came up with speed that was outright blinding. One moment his hands were at his sides, and the next, one palm was planted on the side of Rachel’s blade, guiding it up and around his body. The other hand reached out and smashed into the center of her chest, the impact loudly rattling her armor and sending her staggering back.
As the alpha held his position, he snarled and I could see the wounds on the other Mandrills closing as fast as our fighters could open them. The pain of being struck again and again was a blow to their morale, but physically, they stayed upright. They held, stopping our advance.
I stepped up into the breach when Rachel fell back. I felt a magical force bolster me as one of the mages in our backline focused his efforts on me, giving me a buff to my DEX and AGI stats. Combined with Rachel’s buffs, it let me send my weapons flying in a fearsome web of blades.
The unarmed alpha’s hands moved just as fast as mine. He swatted away my blades as fast as I could swing them, but unlike Rachel, I had two blades, and it occupied both of his hands. He couldn’t just swat me away with a spare moment, not unless he wanted to take a deep cut in exchange. He had to hold the line.
“Come on,” I said, grinning in his face. “You’ve gotta be able to do better than this, can’t you?”
The alpha was shocked at my ability to communicate.
That momentary hesitation was all the opening I needed to cut across his forearm with the blade of my new axe, leaving a deep and bloody cut. My foe recovered quickly, slapping my next attack away, but that one strike was all I needed. My attack speed was increased by the blow, and so my next attack was much faster.
I left a smaller cut across his palm when he tried to block me again. And then another cut on his shoulder.
“You send a team to hit us when you’re not prepared for a team to hit you?” I admonished, grinning all the wider. “Seems irresponsible. A failure of leadership, I’d say.”
I gained a step of ground. The elder Mandrill took a step back under the fury of my assault and the insults I flung at his face, and when he fell back, the line beside him started to panic. Even as he was healing their wounds, his own were weakening him. If things didn’t change I was going to take him out with a thousand cuts.
The alpha took a desperate gamble to try and turn the fight, planting one foot firmly and rearing back to kick me away without dropping his guard.
He didn’t even realize the opening he was handing me.
Noaich surged forward, slipping under my wide stance to clamp his jaws down on the alpha’s planted back leg.
“Have a nice trip,” I remarked, offering a mock salute.
I jumped back to let Noaich hurl himself into a roll. Against every Mandrill we’d come against so far, the attack was a guaranteed kill. I assumed it would take my companion out of the fight for a while to be busy blending the alpha until liquefied, but I had no reason to expect what happened next.
The alpha did get slammed into the ground on his face with bone-crushing force. But as he flipped, rotating around Noaich’s center of gravity, his hands and free leg caught himself on the next spin. His muscles tensed, and in a brief show of force, he turned Noaich’s momentum against himself, kicking up and over himself.
My companion lost his grip on the alpha’s leg and was sent flying through the air, slamming noisily through the wooden wall of a nearby building.
As the alpha returned to his feet, his earlier limp was a little more pronounced. And along with all the damage I’d added to him, he was looking a little rough. Even though he’d shaken off Noaich’s attack, there was still an opening and I surged forward. As long as I had my attack speed boost from my new axe I could—
Rachel grabbed my shoulder and yanked, pulling me off-balance. I couldn’t catch myself and slammed into her. I was about to protest when the purpose of her interruption became crystal clear.
A huge lump of fur, muscle, and claw slammed into the ground between me and the alpha like a meteor. If not for Rachel’s interference, I would have been flattened.
There was a deep growl of rage at being denied its target.
The Big One.
The beast raised its head and glared at me with its strangely human-like eyes, baring its big square teeth at me in a mad rictus. It was an uncomfortable reminder of what had happened to me the last time I’d been unable to keep those teeth from chomping down on me.
I didn’t have time to think. I had to move.
The monster lunged, mouth open and slavering for another bite of me.