Page 35 of Graced
Reaching an intersection, while he waited for the light to change—from glorious red to green!—he inserted an earbud into his ear and called Nash.He had to talk to someone, and the only person who’d listen to his tirade was the other guy he lived with.
“Yeah, Welsh.What’s up?”
“I need to vent.”
He heard a loud sigh.“Welsh, I only got nineteen minutes left, and you’re gonna use them all up?”
“I’ll buy you another freaking phone card on the way home tonight,” Welsh almost growled.“Listen.Cargill and the others will be there this evening.”
“Yeah?So?”
“I’ve been thinking.”
“About what?Are you still planning on kidnapping that girl?”
“Not just that.I’m talking about swapping.”
“Swapping?”
“Rhyne for someone in his nest.”
Silence answered him.At the same time, the light changed.Welsh walked his bike across the intersection before mounting the seat to continue down the road.
“Welsh, tell me you’re not serious.”
“As a heart attack,” Welsh confirmed.“Him and me, we don’t see eye-to-eye.Never have.Never will.And I know you don’t like having to play referee every time we get into it.You don’t, do you?”
Another sigh.“It’s gotten pretty tiresome,” Nash admitted.“You two seem to be at odds more frequently these past few years.”
“So you wouldn’t be averse to me talking to Cargill about swapping one of his guys from his nest over to our nest in exchange for…” His words died in his throat before he could utter them.
Coming to an abrupt halt, Welsh stared in confusion and growing despair as the world around him slowly faded back to blacks, grays, and white.The color leeched out of everything in sight as though someone was gradually turning a dial.
“No!No, no, no!”
“Welsh?Welsh, what’s wrong?”Nash’s worried voice broke through the man’s trancelike state.“Welsh!”
“It’s gone,” Welsh softly replied, too numb to move.
“What’s gone?”
“The color.The friggin’ color’s gone!”
“Welsh—”
“I gotta get it back.I gotta get the color back!”Turning the bike around, he began pedaling toward the hospital.“I gotta get more of her blood so I can see in color again!”
“Welsh!No!Listen?—”
“Later.”Welsh abruptly ended the call and stuffed the cell phone into his pants pocket.He knew Nash would try to call him back, but it didn’t matter.At that moment, his concern was focused on getting more blood to revive his color sight.Not to mention the others who were due to arrive who’d be introduced to this great miracle.
All right.So the effects of the blood were temporary, not permanent as he’d originally thought.Because of this new revelation, he had to come up with a whole new plan of action.Clearly he couldn’t charge the price he originally wanted to for the others to gain the privilege.Now that he knew it was a temporary measure, he had to lower his price.Much lower.
“But that’s okay,” he told himself and found a smile crawling onto his face.“Once they get a taste of its potential, when it fades, they’re gonna want to experience it again, and they’ll pay for it.And they’ll keep paying for it.”
That revelation gave him hope.“I don’t need to charge them out the wazoo.I’ll keep the cost reasonable because I’ll make what I originally intended to ask for and a shitload more from returning customers.”His smile widened.“Oh, yeah.That’s the trick.Offer a product that’ll hook ‘em, charge a reasonable price, and watch the money roll in.It’ll be like a vampire drug.All I need is the product.”
He checked around him.The next time he had to stop for traffic, he’d call into work and plead sick.That would give him the whole day to set everything up.
