Okay, here it is...(obviously, if you haven't, you should read the first seven chapters before reading this.) By the way, this is an action/adventure novel for everyone who hasn't read it before (and sees this on the home page), not a romance (as I was told it sounded like because of the name).

Anyways, read on...and as always...enjoy. Oh, right, since this chapter's really long I'll split it up into different parts.

Eight <^> A Powerful Friend

Part one

Finally, after a few more close turns—despite Brandon’s promise—the Black’s arrived at the spot. It was a field along the edge of the road, and there was a man sitting there.

The man wore a floral t-shirt and blue, fish-covered shorts, and was sitting in the ditch at the edge of a field. He was sitting in a tropical lawn chair, with an umbrella, a rich-looking pink smoothie, and a book called “Cruise on the Caribbean”. And this was before the sun had even come up.

Dante laughed, and Brandon said, “What’s up?”

“Is that your friend?” Dante asked, still chuckling.

“Yeah man. He seems a little quirky at first, but he’s a really great guy.”

“Quirky? We’re in Oklahoma for goodness’ sake! How’d he get here? I don’t see a car.”

“The same way I’m going to leave here.”

“Leave? You aren’t staying with me?”

“Do you see three seats in this Ferrari?”

Dante shook his head. “No. But aren’t we just going to talk to him, and then leave or something?”

“Nope. You’ll leave me here, and he’ll go with you. And don’t tell me you’re afraid of taking strangers in your car. It’s not like he’s a hitchhiker! He’s my friend, Dante… don’t you trust me?”

If he was asked by anyone else, Dante would’ve said that no, he didn’t trust his brother all that much. But he wouldn’t tell Brandon that, so he lied, “Yeah, Brandon, I trust you.” He hoped Brandon hadn’t noticed the short pause before he said that, but he noticed as Brandon got out that he did look a little less happy.

Dante got out to meet Brandon’s friend.

Part Two

The man was big—not fat, just large. As soon as Dante and Brandon stepped out of the car, he jumped up, slamming the book closed and dropping the smoothie on the ground. He looked at it regretfully for a moment, but then turned back to Dante. “’Ello!” the man said. “Are you Dante?”

“Yeah…” Dante replied.

“Splendidly great to meet you! Brandon told me about you a little bit.” He reached around and folded the lawn chair and the umbrella up. “Can I put these in the back?”

“Um, in the Ferrari, the engine’s in the back, but you can put your stuff in the front,” Dante said awkwardly.

“Okay, works for me! Good, good, very good!”

Dante reached into the car and opened the front storage of the vehicle. As he walked around to the front, he noticed the boxed shipment of the stuff for Rock.

Brandon’s friend tossed his stuff in the storage area, and started to shut the door on the compartment. Dante said, “Wait!” and stuck his hand in the way. The hood slammed down on his fingers—the one’s on his right hand.

The hood slowly slid back up, and Dante pulled his throbbing fingers away.

“Oh my, oh my,” said Brandon’s friend, “I’m sorry, I guess I didn’t wait!”

“It’s not your fault, it’s mine—I should’ve just waited to pop the hood again.”

“Oh, no, no, I’m sorry, I’m sorry….”

Dante sighed and said, “Okay, you’re forgiven. I’m just checking the stuff in this box.”

Politely, the big man walked over to the passenger side of the car and started whistling a Hawaiian song.

Dante laughed quietly, shook his head, and opened the box. Everything was in it.

Dante closed the hood—making sure not to catch any fingers—and opened the driver’s door. “Uh, you can get in,” he said, and watched the large, greasy fingers pull open the door opposite him. Dante felt the car shake as the big man sat down heavily. He winced, imagining the worst that could happen to the undercarriage if it scraped the ground. Dante started to drive away from the spot, and as he happened to glance out the window, he noticed that Brandon was gone. Man, Dante thought, he’s really flippin’ good.

Part three

“Well,” said the man after they started to leave, “I guess I should begin with my name, aye?”

“Uh, aye…” Dante replied. The man had the most odd, old-fashioned speech he could imagine.

“Oh, aye, aye. Well, let us see… my name is Richard, but you can call me Bill. Is that good?”

“Um, yeah, sure.” Inside, Dante was helplessly confused—didn’t Richard become Rick, and William become Bill?

“Yes, yes, so I don’t suppose Brandon told you how I met him, did he?”

“No.”

“Oh. Well, that’s a long story that really is irrelevant to our conversation. But let me tell you, I’m a very important, well known man.”

“Well, unless you have the power to send me back in time to give this stuff to Rock within the three days—or better, make it so that I never got the shipments confused at all—then I don’t think that you could help me much.”

For the first time that day, the man—Bill—became serious. “You truly do not realize how powerful I am, do you?” he asked.

“I guess not. Look… Bill, I don’t know anything about you, Brandon only told me that you were his friend!”

“Oh, I see…” Bill replied. Unfortunately for Dante, he didn’t become happy again. “Well, then, I guess that leaves it to me to explain.”

Yes, it does! Dante wanted to scream, but he restrained himself.

“Have you ever heard of The Center of Chocolate?” asked Bill.

Dante froze for a second, and the car swerved into another lane. “Yeah,” Dante said.

Bill continued, ignoring Dante’s driving. “I’ll get right to the point… I’m the president.”

“Of The Center of Chocolate?” Dante asked, swerving again as he stared at the man. He heard a horn from behind him.

“No,” Bill said sarcastically. “I’m the president of the New York Associated Morgue.”

Dante was surprised, as he hadn’t expected the beach-loving man to talk that way.

“Of course it’s The Center of Chocolate!” Bill said loudly.

Dante nodded. “Yeah, okay. So how are you going to help me?”

“How do you think?”

“Okay, I get it…” Dante said. “Here’s a quick question for you: how much money does it actually take for you to make one of those little squares of chocolate?”

“Oh, only about half of what I sell them for.”

“So it just costs you 50,000 dollars?”

“Yeah. It seems like a rip-off to my customers, but the bars go bad in about a week, so we can only stock them for three days, then we have to get rid of ‘em. We don’t have many customers, so I’m really not as rich as it would seem—sometimes I barely have enough money to keep the company in business.”

“Yeah. So now I get how important you are, but… how are you going to help me with Rock?”

Part four

“With the chocolate!” cried Bill.

“Wait, you brought chocolate… so that I can get enough power to get through Rock?”

“Yes. What you’ll have to do is meet Rock, give him the stuff, apologize for being late, and get out of there using the powers from the chocolate. Then you’ll have to hope for the best from Rock. And maybe he won’t hunt you down.”

Dante laughed. “Yeah, right. You could never hope for the best with Rock!”

Bill glared at him. “You must.”

“Okay. I know where Rock will be, should we go?”

“No. Rock’s been following you for the last ten minutes. That black car behind you belongs to him. Just pull over and he will as well.”

“Should I take the chocolate first?” Then Dante remembered… “I don’t have any money—the cops took all the rest that I had.”

“Don’t worry, it’s a gift. Once I was a criminal as well… something similar to this happened, and someone helped me out. After that I became a ‘good guy’.”

Dante couldn’t believe that the large, longhaired man had once been a criminal. “Well,” Dante said, “I can pay you back sometime later.”

Bill became irritated. “No!” he said. “It’s a gift, I don’t want you to pay me back.” He pulled a large bar out of his pocket. “Here it is,” he said.

It was the equivalent of eight smaller bars, and Dante said, “Wow. So this is worth like 400,000 dollars?”

Bill smiled. “800,000 dollars to you, Dante.”

“Cool, thanks.”

“You’re welcome. Now just pull over and meet Rock.”

“Wait, what’ll you do? What if some of Rocks guys find you in the car?”

“Don’t worry. By the time you give Rock the stuff I’ll be gone. And don’t ask where or how. It’s the same way that Brandon left. See you ‘round, Dante.”

thanks for reading! comments and edits wanted very badly...lol