alcohol making and Camila's reaction
20 – Alcohol and Camilla’s reaction
“Luckly for us the firefighters were able of finding the remains of the drug lab and the fire box and contacted the police. The drug dealers are now serving time and won’t be out for a while. Word has actually started to spread that this town is off limited to operate in without permission from the Plant Coven. We still have to deal a little with the feds pocking their noses around, but we have a few plans to do that.”
Luz scrunched her face up a little before continuing. “I think that’s all of them.”
She then noticed that her mom had gone deathly still and had a blank look on her face that could have been carved from marble.
“Mami?”
She didn’t respond.
“Are you ok?”
She then got up and then walked up and went to the mini-fridge next to the normal one and unlocked it. She then reached in and pulled out a bottle of mama juana and a shot glass. After sitting in front of Luz she then poured herself a shot and downed it in one go.
Luz was just looking at her in shock.
“You’re drinking in front of me? I thought you didn’t want to be a bad influence.”
She then shot Luz a look that stopped her dead in her tracks.
“Bad influence? Luz, you are a mob boss now! You blew up a building just to make a point! You put 9 people in the hospital this week! How can me drinking in front of you encourage you to do anything worse than that?”
She then downed another shot before taking a few deep breaths.
“Ok, lets set some new ground rules. The only bits of illegal activity that you can do now are the money laundering to get the last of your profits into our accounts. After that, NO MORE CRIMES!”
“pero mama-“
“Don’t you pero mama me young lady! When your friends get back, I am going to lay this down with them too. No more prize fighting, no more street racing, and no more drug dealing.”
She then downed another shot before continuing. “Thanks to Amity we don’t have to pay for gas for the car or electricity for the house, and Willow is taking care of our produce needs. That combined with my salary from the clinic should be enough to take care of the bills. How much do you have left anyway?”
Luz then reached down and pulled up a notebook and flipped through several pages while writing the figures down on a louse piece of paper. “Here are the amounts that is waiting to be laundered and the ones in Adrian Vernworth’s and John Hopper’s accounts as well. Here are also the properties and businesses we own and are running.”
She then handed the paper to Camilla who began to read, her jaw dropping more and more as she reached the bottom.
“There is more on the back.”
She then flipped it over and saw that her daughter was right. She eventually gave up halfway though the back and downed another shot.
“Why are you still doing this? You have more then enough in the bank now that I could just retire and be fine.”
Luz then began to shrink into herself.
“This is about more than just paying our bills. I know I am trying to keep everyone’s spirits up, but the truth is that we may never be able of getting back to the Isles. My friends may be trapped on Earth forever.”
“That’s not true Mija.”
“Yes, it is mama. We have been here for over a month and have no leads at all. Looking into what history there is about Caleb and Philip didn’t reveal anything. Even using some of the mob connection has turned up nothing. At this point we are debating breaking into federal buildings to see if the conspiracy theories about them hording alien tech is founded.”
“¡Mija! ¡No irrumpirán en ningún edificio cuando vivan bajo mi techo! ¡Federal o de otro tipo!”
“I just said I was considering it! the ones we would need are too far to make the trip worthwhile anyway.”
Luz then shook her head. “That doesn’t matter now. The point is that my friends and I have to start preparing for a lifetime spent on Earth with no official documentation. That is why I am practicing back alley medicine, so I can do so for my friends that can’t go to a Earth doctor without being exposed. That is why I am forging all these documents, so they can get jobs and go to school without anyone noticing. That is why I am making so much money and looking for more ways, to set up college funds and nest eggs for 5 people.”
After having the long rant, Luz then realized she had stood up and sat down before continuing. “Before me and the others started doing this, you were stretching yourself thin trying to cover all the bills. Even with Willow’s produce and Amity removing the gasoline and electricity bills you were being stretched thin financially. I am sorry for not talking to you about it, but that was a mix of giving you plausible deniability in case the cops asked, forgetting to tell you, and being embarrassed about forgetting to tell you.”
Camila’s heart broke at seeing her daughter look so beaten in front of her. She then moved forward to wrap her in the biggest hug she could and whispered sweat nothings into her ear while rubbing her back.
“Oh mija, I am so sorry that you felt like you and your friends had to do all of this on you own.” She then pulled back to face her. “I promise that we will figure never stop trying to find a way to get your friends back home. We can figure something else out together for the money that doesn’t involve risking all of your lives or futures. Ok?”
Luz just nodded.
Camila then sat back down in her chain and threw back another shot. “How about a deal? If you and your friends cut back their criminal activities to just drugs, cage fighting, street racing, back-alley vet/nurse, and money laundering, I will help figure out how to get the money into our accounts and collage funds for all 6 of you. OK?”
Luz’s responded with a small smile. “Ok mami. I promise not to do anything illegal beyond that from now on. I’ll talk to the others about this later also.”
“Don’t worry, I’ll do the talking. You get to spend the rest of today and the weekend grounded in your room.” She then pointed to the stairway. “Now march!”
Luz then did a salute and stared over to the stairway before stopping halfway there and turning back around to face her.
“Oh, before I go. I just remembered one more crime.
She turned to Luz with horror in her eyes. “What?”
Luz then sheepishly pointed to the bottle on the table. “I actually made that mama junan your drinking.”
Camila just stared in shock at Luz before looking back to the bottle, switching between them a few times before responding.
“How? Why?”
“For the how, Eda made her own hard alcohol all the time. It was one of the first things she taught me actually. Said it was a nice intro to potions that wasn’t going to break the bank on ingredients.”
Camila then just narrowed her eyes. “As grateful as I am to that woman for taking care of you, me and her are going to have strong words.”
Eda’s cell
Eda was having a one-way conversation with the inanimate form of Raine when she suffered from a full body shudder.
“Huh. For some reason it feels like I am going to be brutally murdered.”
She then shrugged and went back into her cell proper. “Probably the Collector coming this way, best make myself look feral.”
Noceda household
“As for the why, that is a case of three birds with one stone. I could make sure your mama junan was always stocked up so you didn’t have to buy any, I could sell some to the small market of people willing to buy illegal home-made alcohol, and it reminded me of Eda.”
Camila took a deep breath while counting to five before responding.
“Who have you been selling alcohol too?”
Luz just shrugged a little. “Not that many people to be honest. Lots of collage kids are willing to buy at least one drink to see how it is to just buying some from the package store, but most don’t do it for more than the novelty of drinking ‘moonshine’, even if that technically isn’t what this is.”
“It’s not?”
“Technically moonshine is homemade whiskey. I can make that too, but there aren’t that many people willing to buy an illegally made version of a product that is as widely available legally as alcohol. The people that do mostly just do it for the novelty, especially when I don’t sell to people that aren’t at least 18.”
At that Camila sighed in relief before taking a long look at her glass and downing another shot.
“Ok, you can add alcohol making and bootlegging to the ‘approved crimes” list.’ She then froze for a few seconds before continuing. “I can’t believe I am making a ‘approved crimes list.’”
Luz then walked over and pated her on the back. “Don’t worry mami, you’ll get used to it.”
Camila could only sigh.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.”