Page 98 of Theta

"Dante, I'm sorry to have dragged you and your uncle into this," I say, grimacing as a wave of pain washes through me, now that I’ve finished ascending the ladder-like stairs.

"Is okay. My uncle, he no like most people. He wants nobody on his boat. He does not like anyone to know what we do."

"You're drug runners, I assume."

A shrug. "Eh. Some of this, some of that. We catch fish. Sometimes, the fish is not a fish."

"I don't want or need to know. What I came up to ask is if you have anything I can give to Story for the pain."

He rolls one shoulder. "I only sell erba."

"Erba?"

"Cannabis. Marijuana." Canna-BIS; mary-WAHN-ah. Despite the similarities of Spanish and Italian, the lilt of a Spanish word in an Italian accent just sounds funny to me. But I might be a little delirious, too.

“Oh."

The cockpit is small and cluttered with instruments and screens and controls, as well as flat stacks of paper charts and more rolled-up charts in scroll-like piles. There's a thick glass ashtray affixed permanently to a flat section of the dashboard running at the base of the cockpit windshield, bent and crushed cigarette butts piled high. Beside the ashtray is a wooden box with a hinged lid and a cheap brassy-gold flip clasp. It's about the size of the black velvet box rich dudes in movies use to give expensive diamond necklaces to their wives as an apology for being a cheating ass-clown—rectangular, maybe an inch or two thick, five or six inches wide, and six to eight inches long. Dante flips it open, revealing loose, pre-ground cannabis flower and a small glass pipe. He packs the pipe and hands it to me, and then digs his Zippo out of his hip pocket. "This may help, a little. Better than nothing, until we arrive."

"Thanks."

I bring it down to Story—she eyes it skeptically. "I don't like smoking. Tastes nasty. And I'm gonna cough, which—fuck. It's gonna hurt."

"It's all we've got, for now."

She shakes her head, groaning. “No, but thank you. I'm worried—ahhhh god. I'm worried the coughing would just make things worse." She's sweating from the pain. "I'll just have to deal."

I set the unused pipe aside and then lie beside her. “Then let's just try to rest."

"You have to get cared for too," she mumbles.

"I will. Promise."

"Don't leave me." It's a faint whisper. Scared, hurting.

I snuggle closer to her, as close as I can get without jostling her, and trace the curve of her cheek. "I won't. Not ever. I'm here."

"Mom."

"I know."

"Need Mom."

"I know."

"Killy?"

“Yeah."

"I love you."

"I know."

"Arrogant."

"I love you too."

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