I woke up to a phone that wouldn't stop.
Notifications on top of notifications. Instagram, YouTube, SoundCloud, all of it moving at the same time. I sat up and went through it slow.
The guy recording at the party had sixty thousand followers. He posted the freestyle, tagged me, and people clicked through to my bio, found the other songs, subscribed. Even the car video jumped to fifteen thousand views overnight.
Felt lovely. I'm not going to lie, it felt lovely.
But honest? It didn't feel like my audience yet. They came because somebody else pushed them. I'd take it, I wasn't turning down numbers, but I knew what borrowed attention felt like. I'd have to earn the ones that stayed.
I got up and went to school.
* * *
Nate Jacobs was doing the walk of shame.
Head down, jaw tight, moving through the hall like if he kept moving fast enough nobody would see him. Half the school was seeing him.
I laughed. Out loud. I don't think he noticed. Didn't matter. Some shit is just funny.
* * *
Zen called after school. Delivery. Two hours out, client hands me three thousand, I keep one. Standard.
I gassed up on the way out. Pulled into the station and saw Cassie and Kat at the next pump.
I waved them over.
Cassie came up with that small smile. "Hey Jordan. I'm still thinking about that freestyle."
"Good. I'm thinking about doing one every Friday and posting it."
"That sounds actually cool."
I looked at Kat for a second, then back at Cassie. "So you've been hanging with that weirdo Daniel but ducking me. That's cold, Cas."
She looked at me straight. "I'm not ducking you. I have a boyfriend. McKay. Remember?"
She walked back to the pump. I got in the car and started it.
I pulled out.
* * *
Two hours to Oakland is a good drive when the car is right and the freeway opens up.
I kept a comfortable pace, not stupid about it, just moving. Playlist on. Nothing to think about. Just the road and the boost sitting ready whenever I wanted it.
Five minutes out I pulled off and parked.
Mask. Glasses. Hoodie up. Package checked. I patted the pocket where the piece sat under the fabric, made sure the zipper was flat.
Then I drove to the address.
* * *
Quiet residential street. Small house. Grass that needed cutting.
I parked half a block down, walked up, knocked.
The door opened.
Old white man. Nothing but his underwear, standing there like it was the most normal thing. He looked at me, held out his hand. I passed the package. He put money in my palm and closed the door.
I walked back to the car. Sat down. Counted it.
Twenty-five hundred.
Counted it again. Still twenty-five.
I sat there. Then I pulled the gloves out of the center console, put them on, got out, and walked back.
I knocked hard. The kind of knock that doesn't ask. On a quiet street at night, in a neighborhood like this, the last thing he wanted was more of that.
He cracked the door.
I pushed it open, stepped in, closed it.
"You're short."
I punched him. Not a conversation opener, just a fact made physical.
"And don't say it was an accident."
He got his hands up. "I'm sorry, I just couldn't afford it, my medicine costs and—"
I slapped him before he finished the sentence.
I know how that reads. Didn't care then, don't care now. The people who buy from Zen are all liars, degenerates, and addicts. Every single one. Maybe the medicine thing was even true, probably was, but he knew the price when he ordered. He opened the door in his underwear at nine o'clock at night thinking I'd just eat the difference and drive two hours home. That was a choice he made.
I walked past him to the bedroom.
Nightstand drawer. Envelope. Five thousand in it, rubber-banded neat like he'd been saving it.
I took fifteen hundred. The math was three thousand owed plus the extra work of coming back to the door, so fifteen hundred on top of what he'd already handed me put me right. Maybe a little under right, honestly. He was lucky I was keeping track and not just cleaning him out.
I left three thousand five hundred in the envelope and put it back.
He was sitting on the couch when I came back through. Hand on his face. Not looking at me.
I walked out and closed the door.
Counted everything in the car. Three thousand even on my end.
Mask off. Glasses off. I sat there for a second.
Then I got on the freeway and drove home. The Z sounded good at night with nothing around it. I turned the music up and didn't think about the old man at all.
He had thirty-five hundred left and a lesson he probably needed.
END OF CHAPTER ELEVEN