Raven Mortis's Arc

Chapter 3 of 5

Raven woke to a hangover of hype. The teaser was up past three thousand likes, and buried in her inbox sat a note from the state board reminding her that a licensed budtender had to be on the floor from the minute she opened the door. Six days. She had no one. She grabbed her keys and drove to the only place open at that hour where people who sold weed for a living ate after closing. The diner sat off the highway with its striped awning and glowing windows. The back booth by the smoke lounge was full of budtenders still in their work polos. Raven bought a round of coffee and pitched. Two shook their heads. One was already spoken for at a chain across the county. A fourth laughed at her timeline and went back to his waffles. She left with syrup on her sleeve and nothing in her hand. She called Steven from the parking lot. Steven had been her lab partner in high school, then vanished into jungle work, cutting rough diamonds out of riverbeds. Steven picked up on the second ring like no years had passed. Raven asked the only question that mattered. Steven still held a state cannabis license from a stint managing a friend's shop three summers back. It was current. Steven owed her from a bail night in eleventh grade neither of them talked about. "I'm home for two months," Steven said. "Ring me up." Raven drove straight to Steven's apartment with the signing bonus she'd cobbled together overnight. She slid the envelope across the counter. Inside sat a stacked pack of Eminem tour passes, floor section, VIP row. Steven had loved that man since they were fourteen. "Six days," Raven said. "You run the counter. I run the shop. You keep the passes either way." Steven flipped one pass, then the next, then closed the envelope. "Deal." On the walk back to the car Raven's phone rang. Harold Mercer. She'd met him once at a neighborhood meeting, the retired pharmacist who smoked on his porch and knew every regulation in the county by heart. She'd left him a voicemail last night as a backup. He hadn't heard she'd already solved it. "Heard you're hiring," Harold said. "I filled it." "Good. One thing." A pause. "Board did a sweep last week. Three shops. Surprise audits before opening. Paperwork on the wall day one. Not day two." "Noted. Thank you." "Don't thank me. Post the license where they can see it from the door." He hung up. Raven sat in the driver's seat with the key in her hand. She had her budtender. She also had five days to get Steven's license transferred, printed, framed, and mounted before an inspector she hadn't planned on walked through her door.