Chapter 1: TGA THE PLACE TO STAY

"I think my boss has been killed," I spoke in a daze.

"What do you mean?" Maverick asked me, inspecting the sincerity plastered across my face.

"She choked him and fucked him. I don't really know." I

mustered together as my world began to eclipse in darkness.

"Bullshit…" he insisted, an awkward smile across his face. As a few seconds slid by he added; "If that's true, we're fucked. If we take the cars; the cops will get us on an abstraction of justice." 

"Yeah, and if we don't, those gangsters are gonna carve us up," I replied, feeling my stomach churn.

"I say just take the cars, bro. If it comes to a lag, just do it." Maverick replied.

"Are you sure you can trust them to not kill us afterwards?" I asked, folding my arms tightly.

"Oh, no, not at all. I'm driving as far south as I can, flipping the Supra for some farmland in Grey Mouth and living out my days in solitude," replied Maverick, not a lick of satire on his face.

"Fuck that man, Greymouth? How do you even expect to get across the inter-lander? Or get gas? We're broke bro. We can't go that far." I argued.

Maverick scratched at his stubble, "Fuck it then, I'll drive to Tauranga flip the car to a mate of mine down there and catch a bus to Wellington and take a seated trip over. She'll be right." 

"That's fucked as well, we can't do that," I replied.

"What's this We? You're all good, you can buy a ticket to Aus and leave all of this behind." Maverick stated.

"Why don't you come with me?" I asked.

"I've got 16 pages of criminal convictions. There's no way I'm getting let in," replied Maverick.

"Okay, well come over after a clean slate." I urged.

"Nah mate, not happening, not for 16 pages." He insisted.

I paused, felt my palms, and then tossed him his keys. "You get the Supra. I'll meet you at the Docks in Tauranga, let's just get outta here." I finished.

Maverick passed me a knife, "Cut it off as soon as you get to the highway. It'll be hard but doable. Toss it out the window, you'll be alright." 

"Yeah, alright." I started, stuffing the knife into my waistband.

"Alright, bro." Maverick Concluded, embracing me In a slap of hands. "I'll see you in a bit. Stay safe." 

I have no idea what those two idiots were thinking. Rocky and Tua, I mean. Letting us Into this house with no supervision, surely they knew something like this could've happened. I clicked the garage door gizmo button, and the garage door began to slowly roll up.

But then I remembered that Maverick and I would have our fingerprints throughout the vehicles of my recently deceased employer; so maybe we were the real idiots.

Before it was up all the way I heard the thumping of the hallway door being tested. Followed by a chaotic series of curses and screams from behind it. My boss's wife. The newly found killer. 

We turned our engines on and set out of there at breakneck speed, down the drive, in diverting paths. Rocky and Tua had no luck in chasing down either of us. I knew they may've called for backup so I decided to shimmy my craft knife against the anklet as I drove through the streaming highway.

I had no idea where Tauranga was, no phone, no money for gas. Was a real shit show overall. Then I remembered that this vehicle had a solid modern GPS, and I punched in Tauranga. A solid 4-hour drive awaiting me.

As I climbed over the harbour bridge and carried on further through Manukau, and later Drury, I could feel myself wearing thin.

I checked for some coins in the centre console and was lucky to find myself some change. But then I thought to myself, If I pull up to this camera'd gas station they'll get my face…but then they have my prints…shit…

For some strange reason, I still felt like Maverick had chosen Tauranga for a different reason. Not just to sell the car.

 Perhaps he had a friend down there that could sort all this out, I don't know. My prints on the goddamned car, and I only got them done a couple of days ago.

I got to Hamilton, parked the truck down the road from the gas station, and walked towards a night pay Mobil gas station. Ordered myself a double shot mocha with two sugars and walked back to the truck.

I took sips from it periodically throughout my drive to Taupō. For a moment I parked by the lake, and admired the stars that cloaked the night sky. An all but absent pleasure in the city life to which I had become accustomed.

For the first time in a couple of days, I felt like some nicotine. My mind was dancing around from one possibility to the next.

I had grave visions of my brother and I getting our throats slit at sea and dumped overboard. But I quickly shut those out, or at least tried to.

As I drove across the quiet highway, I opened the glovebox and found a pack of cigarettes in it. I plucked one from the pack and slipped it into my mouth. 

Then I considered if that's what I really want to be doing. I knew I wanted to. But at the same time, I'd made this much of an effort to stop and I bartered within myself whether it was worth going back to an old habit.

I quickly tossed it aside and decided to withhold myself from my newly given-up habit and continued my drive in a stressful state. I forget who told me, maybe I heard it somewhere, but the general gist was to become friendly with stress, relish in it, or maybe it wasn't stress, it might've been about being uncomfortable.

Truth be told, being off my meds for so many days made my symptoms begin to creep back into my forefront. As I navigated this dark treacherous road, I pulled off down a gravel backroad and parked up.

I threw my belt off and kept the truck's lights on, I moved over to the side of the road and took a piss. I'd been holding it since Drury.

I heard a sudden rustle in the farmland bushes, I quickly jolted and eased myself back into my pants. As I looked across to the bushes, and then the grass and paddock. I felt the presence of something sinister.

A strange silhouette, some would call them shadow people, lurked in my peripherals. It was enough to scare the living daylights out of me. I quickly jumped back in the truck, skidded off on the gravel and continued along the main road.

By the time I got to Tauranga, it was the early morning, I had no idea why it'd taken so long, but I decided to park up by the beach, leave the keys in the ignition, and hope that someone would take that problem off my hands.

In the meantime, I decided to take a nap under a pohutukawa tree. And listen to the soothing crash of the incoming waves.