One

Sometimes my job isn't so difficult.  Other times, I don't know how I haven't died of it yet.  Being a waitress really isn't a bad job... until you get the perverts that come in and won't stop howling and whistling at you.  That's when it just gets plain annoying.

"And I can't even tell them to stop!" I hissed to my best friend and coworker, Callie Jays.  She was giggling at my frustrated tone of voice.

"I don't see why it matters," she replied, washing dishes.  "You don't have a boyfriend, so-"

"I don't have a boyfriend because I don't want one.  I never have and probably won't until I'm out of high school."

"That's only a year from now!" she gave me an exasperated look.  "Why are you so picky on waiting?  You're seventeen!  It's not like if you did anything with them it'd be illegal or-"

"I don't want to do anything, Cal.  I don't want a relationship with some perv-!"

The chef dinged a bell behind us and I gave a frustrated sigh.

I gave Callie the 'We'll-finish-this-later' look and took the dishes of food and slid them onto my tray.  I slowly pushed the double-doors open and walked into the air-conditioned room.

One man sitting just a few tables away from me -with who I presumed to be his wife- raised his hand and said, "Check, please!"

I gave them a smile and said, "I'll be right with you!"

I walked in the opposite direction from their table, my stomach getting uneasy as I got closer to table F6.  There was a group of rowdy boys from my school there and they whistled at every girl they got the chance to.  They were big-time players and most of the time they didn't understand the meaning of "No!"

As I approached the five boys, the one sitting so he could see me tapped his buddy on the shoulder and pointed at me.

Oh no, I felt my stomach drop.

I didn't know their names because they were a single grade higher then me and I didn't pay attention to people in twelfth grade.

"Welcome back, Ms. Conrad," the boy with shaggy brown hair said to me,,.

They knew my name because -as you're supposed to- when I serve them, I have to say (with a smile), "Good afternoon -or evening,- I'm Kaylee and I'll be your waitress tonight.  What can I get you?"  They come here every Friday, and although on the first night they didn't know my last name, I found out that throughout the next week at school they asked my brother, "Who is that girl?"

Jason Conrad isn't personally friends with the boys, but everybody knows that when you need to know who somebody is, he's the one you go to.

I gave my most realistic fake smile and set their orders on the table.  I tried to recall who ordered what, but if I got their meals switched up, they could just slide them around the table and fix it themselves.

"There," I said, holding the tray to my chest as I stood upright.  "Anything else I can get you boys?"

"Yeah," a blond-haired boy said.  "Can I have..." he looked at the menu, as though being serious, then he looked up at me with what were supposed to be puppy-dog eyes, "your cellphone number?"

A few of them chuckled and laughed while I resisted rolling my eyes.

"Can I get any of you a refill?" I asked since refills were always on the house at Doscinini's restaurant.

Instead of answering me, they ignored me and started to joke about something and I shook my head and left.  I had another table to serve, anyways.

At the end of my shift, Callie asked me to stay later and help her clean up.  My shift ended at nine p.m.  That meant I'd be staying until eleven.

I agreed to help her, though, and called my parents to let them know I'd be late.  They didn't have a problem with it as long as Callie gave me a ride home--which she usually did anyways.

By ten-thirty, we already had most of the restaurant cleaned.  We were the only people left inside which I was partially thankful for.  The last thing we had to do was put two chairs upside down on a table- the two chairs at the table we were sitting at.

"So, why don't you want a relationship?" Cal asked.  "I mean, I know you said you didn't want to be in a relationship with a perverted guy and all that, but not all guys are like that, you know."

"They're either perverted or doing something they shouldn't be like-"

"Underage drinking and drugs," she finished my sentence.  "Yeah, I know."  She leaned back in her chair shaking her head.  The last three boyfriends she had were all druggies and only one drank.  Her current boyfriend, Michael, wasn't as bad as they were.  From what she told me, he only had a little liquor every Friday night, even though he was underage.

"Do you want to hang out Saturday?" she asked.

"You mean tomorrow?"

She nodded.  "I have to go to the mall to get a present for my sister's baby shower and I really don't want to go alone because I have no idea what to get her and I could really use another girl's advice."

"When did you plan on going?" I asked her.

"Probably around noon."

"Text me around ten and I'll ask my parents."

While I'm only seventeen, Cal is nineteen and moved out of her parents' house.  She lives in an apartment by herself although her boyfriend will occasionally spend a weekend or two with her.

She had her smartphone on the table between us, looking at the news site.  She was looking at the weather and then an alert popped up and her green eyes went wide.

"What's wrong?" I asked.  "Bad weather moving in?"

She pushed her blond hair over her shoulder as she showed me her phone.

In bold, capital letters, it read, "WARNING: AXTON PARKER HAS ESCAPED FROM PENNSYLVANIA STATE POLICE CUSTODY."

I took her phone from her after clicking on the alert and read the article out loud.

"After being taken into the state police's custody on March 8th, 2014, Axton F. Parker has escaped from said custody June 9, 2014.  Police authorities believe that Parker planned a jailbreak three weeks after being taken in and somehow got word to his [believed-to-be] gang members to break him out.  Authorities also believe that he will next be spotted in Pittsburgh, PA, the town where he grew up and lived most of his life, although they say he may also return to Damascus, PA where he was originally arrested before being turned over to the state authorities.

"Axton Parker is very dangerous and attacked the police arresting him on sight.  If you see him, you are authorized to call the local police right away and get away from him.  He has been responsible for many murders and the police do not want to see another victim on his behalf.  If you have any information on where Parker may be or is, call the number below right away."

I looked at her and she was still wide-eyed.  I didn't blame her for being, considering the house right next to her apartment complex was the one Axton Parker stayed in.  Or, at least it's the one the police thought he stayed in because they raided it on March 6th, thinking he may have been inside.

He wasn't.  But Axton must have had cameras or something inside the house, because moments after the police went in the house, it shot up in flames.  Only two out of the great many that went inside came out.  We had our local police and state police on sight, but only two state cops came out, both carried on stretchers and covered in severe burns.

I happened to be at Cal's that night.  The explosion shook the whole apartment complex and screams erupted from outside.  We exchanged uneasy glances before walking to the window, and all we saw were black columns of smoke drifting up from orange blazes.

She stayed at my house for a week after that.  My parents had no mind against her and they were more than happy to help her out.

"Well," I said.  "You know he can't go back to the house besides yours, so that's good, isn't it?"  I tried to offer some kind of comfort.

"It doesn't matter where he stays, Kay.  The fact that he may come back to town at all is bad.  He's only twenty-one.  Twenty-one, Kay!  And he's already been responsible for hundreds of deaths and so many fires set to businesses that owed him money or-or whatever he and Clark deal in!"

"Clark?" I asked.  "Your brother?"

Callie's eyes narrowed at me and she looked like she was going to throw up.  She leaned over the table and I did the same so she could whisper to me.

"I've never told anybody about this, but Clark joined Axton's gang a few years ago or maybe even longer.  Just-- one day when I was still living at home, Mom and Dad were out at work and I was downstairs watching a movie and he came in late at night with a bunch of bruises and he looked really hurt, so I asked him what was wrong and he just broke down in front of me.  He was crying and he made me swear on my grandma's grave that I would never tell anybody and he told me that he was in a gang and he just came back from a 'job' where he had to kill these two guys who owed his boss money.  I asked him who his boss was and he looked at me dead in the eyes and he said, 'Axton Parker'.

"He told me the two guys beat him up pretty bad and he ended up just shooting them to get his job over and done with.  He told me that this job was his initiation test and he passed it.  I wasn't really sure what he meant at the time- I was sixteen and I figured he was just being irresponsible and needed a story to cover up what he was really doing.  But the next night he came in late again and told me that he was moving out tomorrow and he was going to stay where Axton's men stayed and the morning after that he started a huge fight with Mom and Dad so they would tell him to leave and he did and I haven't seen him or heard from him since."

I stared at her for a long minute.  I was at a loss" I didn't know what to say.

"So when your parents told the cops they sent him to boot camp, it was a lie?"

She looked right into my hazel eyes.  "Kay, you can't tell anyone."

"I won't.  I promise."