Pie
The police office was new to me, like so many other things I had encountered in the past month. I looked over at Shay and sighed. He smiled at me, a pained smile. Although he knew the decision was right, it was still really hard on him; his life was changed forever. It would be even more different for him than it would be for me.
◄○●○●○●○►
“Two large cheeses and one medium pepperoni!” called out the pesky little blonde boy. I despised him, not for any reason, I just did. I think his name was Jared, and I knew he was going to get fired some day; he was a lousy worker, and always made mistakes. He was the one who commented about my bright cherry red dyed hair when I first started coming to the Peace of Pizza. A waitress with light brown hair and blonde streaks made her way over to my table.
“May I help you?” She asked as if she were better than me. I tapped my feet together as I thought about what I felt like ordering.
“Yes, may I have a cherry coke, straw please, and some cheese breadsticks.”
“Is that all you’ll be having?” said the somewhat ‘Priscilla’ voice again.
“Yes, that will be all.” I said trying to hide my annoyance, due to the fact that they always ask ‘is that all you’ll be having?’ Every single time. Just like the song they were playing right now.
“What song is this?” I asked the waitress when she came back with my breadsticks and coke. Might as well know what song is stuck in your head every second of the day.
“Umm, well…it’s ‘Where’s My Weed’ by Storing Daisies.” What a silly name. No wonder she had hesitated. Maybe I would pay more attention to the lyrics and see what they said.
A brawny teenager pushed the door open and let it swing closed behind him. Another teenager, with white blonde hair which fell stylishly in front of his eyes, caught the door on his fingertips before it could fully close and followed the first boy. I watched them in something close to fascination as they went up to the counter and ordered two Cokes. They sat down and put their heads together secretively. When a waitress went over to them to see if they needed anything, they glared at her until she backed away and went back behind the counter. The blonde boy pulled a switchblade out of his pocket, I held my breath, and he began cleaning out his nails. They were up to something. I wondered what they were plotting. I saw through my peripheral vision that they were staring at me. They got up and left, leaving me pondering about the strange incident.
After five minutes of determining what they were planning, I decided it was useless. As I stood up to leave, I realized that I shouldn't have eaten so many bread sticks, but ah well, nothing I could do about it now, they had been so good I couldn't stop myself. I pulled the door open and walked outside. It was really very hot. The sun was very bright, and it took my eyes a while to adjust. When they did, I saw that the two teenagers were still standing to the side of the parlor, and that I had to walk past them to get to the bus stop.
“Excuse me,” I said. As I walked by, I saw a sudden movement out of the corner of my eye. Before I could scream, my mouth was covered and they hit me over the head.
◄○●○●○●○►
When I came to, I didn't recognize my surroundings, or the voices I could just make out through the haze of having just woken up.
“She knows too much. We have to make her one of us. That much is clear.
Otherwise she could report us. If she joins us, she can’t. She would be reporting herself as well.”
“She can get around that. We have to erase her memory, so she doesn’t know how she joined us. It's the only way that will work.”
“Of course, dude.”
“Yeah, of course. That's right.” I looked around. They were only about ten feet away, all of them lounging around on old couches, leaning against the wall, or sitting on crates. There were six of them, ranging from the age of about fourteen, to eighteen. The place stunk, from smoke, and there were beer bottles, and candy wrappers everywhere. There was also an occasional article of clothing that looked like it had been flung off, and just left there. I had a feeling that they stayed here by themselves, without any parent or guardian.
“Looks like she’s awakening,” announced some guy with light brown hair, majorly
ripped jeans, and no shirt, blowing the smoke from his cigarette in the face of a cute little big- eyed boy.
“Cut it out Shay!” said the big-eyed boy, glaring at the shirtless Shay.
“I’m mighty scared now, I think I need my mommy.” Shay, teased the big-eyed boy.
“Hey Shay, you got a spare cancer stick?” asked the brawny guy who had been in the pizza parlor. He was mighty handsome with super dark brown hair that was greased back, so that only one strand fell in the middle of his face. He had on a leather jacket, and light blue jeans with black high tops. It looked as if a gun was peeking out of his coat pocket; I couldn’t be positive, but that’s sure what it looked like.
“She’s definitely awake now!” said the big-eyed boy.
“Then why don’t you do the honors, Danny boy.” said a very familiar voice.
“You know I’ve never done nothing like it before Trey, please don’t make me, I’ll just mess up.”
I whipped around to see where the voice that had spoken before the big-eyed Danny was
coming from. I saw a pretty tall boy, with dirty blond hair, hazel eyes and pronounced
cheekbones, just like me, and his name was Trey. The boy saw me studying him.
“Long time no see,” He said, laughing.
I scooted backward, remembering my brother. He was three years older than me, and had run away when I was eleven, he had always been a bad boy, but he had been my idol, for the most part. I kept silent, not replying to him, I was too scared.
“What’s her name, Trey, she won’t tell us.”
“Sis, dear, why don’t you tell them your name?” He said in sarcastic astonishment. I glared at him, feeling my cheeks flame with embarrassment. I had never felt so much hate for someone before than I felt for my brother right then. He saw my hatred.
“Cool it, Sis; we’re not going to shoot you or nothing. Boys, her name’s Chloe, 'cept I call her Bloody Babe, cuz her hair’s so f*****g red.” Some of the boys laughed, but some of them looked at me with sympathy. “Ready for some memory erasing, Bloody Babe?” asked my brother. He came over to me and reached out his arm to lift me up, I bit him and he slapped me across the face. He then yanked me up, and pushed me into the arms of the boy with white hair, the one from the pizza parlor.
“Here AJ, would you mind?”
“I would be happy to.” AJ then tied me to a chair, and gagged me. They then stuck what looked like iPod headphones, into my ears, and turned on a machine. I knew that they were trying to erase my memory, because of the earlier conversation I had overheard, when I was supposedly asleep. I sure was stuck in an unexpected mess.
They all closed in around me. I wondered desperately whether I could escape having my memory removed, then realized from the way they were looking at me that they thought it was already gone. I decided to go along with it. Otherwise, who knew what would happen?
“Hey, hot shot. You've been out a while.” Trey said.
“Where am I?” I asked them, pretending to be clueless.
“You were knocked out in a rumble, and we brought you home, but it looks as if you may have lost a bit of memory.” AJ explained. Hah, what a little liar.
“We didn’t want to bring you to the rumble, but you insisted, you wanted to make sure that no one got hurt, especially AJ.” said the handsome guy with the gun. Was he suggesting that AJ was supposed to be my boyfriend? The nerve of that guy!
“Hey Jude, I think she knows why she went to the rumble, and who her boyfriend is. Right, Chloe?”
“Um... Yeah, of course. I love you AJ! I really wanted to make sure nothing happened to you, and look what I got myself into!” Oh god, did I really just say that? I laughed nervously. The other boys exploded with scornful laughter. I saw Trey laughing even harder than the others. AJ wasn't laughing, though.
“Shut up!” he snarled, moving threateningly towards the others.
“Ooh, Shay, look out!” Danny, the youngest boy, said, trying bravely to join in the older guys' fun. The atmosphere changed quickly. All of the boys turned on Danny, and Shay, who had been nearest to AJ, along with Jude, who was the burliest, advanced on Danny. Jude lifted him by the shirt and growled, his face so close to Danny's that I could see his reflection in Danny's big eyes,
“Shut up, Danny. Show a little respect for us. We're all older than you and we could beat you up in a second with our hands tied behind our backs.” I could tell by the way that Trey laughed appreciatively as Jude flung Danny back down and by the look on Danny's face that this was normal, that Danny was the target of the older boys' anger and aggression when they felt like it, and that they would even take their anger at someone else out on Danny. However, I could also see that Danny worshiped every one of them. I wondered what they did to impress him. It couldn't all be teasing AJ about me, because I had only been there for an hour or so.
“Anyway, Chloe,” said Trey, with the air of having just had a brilliant idea, “You know that even though you like AJ, you can't just belong to one of us. Your job is to be the girl. We only have one girl, you know.”
“Hear, hear,” said Jude and Danny together, but Shay stayed silent. Chloe looked at him curiously.
“Hey, Shay, why aren't you happy about our rule?” asked Jude.
“Yeah, dude,” Trey said, “I bet you'd be happy if she was locked in the closet with you!”
“Come on, dude” Shay began, but Trey cut him off.
“Come on, men; let's make dear Shay here happy.” They advanced around Shay and me, and before I could even try to fight, I had been forced into a dark closet with Shay, the door had clicked behind us, and I heard a key scrape in the lock. What an awful situation. Shay and I just sat there for awhile, while silence lapsed around us.
“Hey, I’ve got an idea.” Shay said suddenly. “If we pretend to be making out, I bet they’ll just get lost. Plus, it’ll be pretty funny.” Oh lord, this is so weird.
“Um, sure.” So there we were, just making noises that sounded as if we were kissing. And sure enough, they left us.
“Sorry to disturb you two love birds, but just thought it would be best if we told you that we are leaving, we have an important mission. So if you need us we’ll be at 388 Fulton Drive. And Shay, don’t make her lips too puffy.” I have no doubt that that was my brother. Once we were sure they were gone, we came out of the closet. He got us some cokes, and we lounged on the couches.
“Y'know, technically, I’m not really parta the gang.” He said quietly. “I only joined so I could make some money. You see, me and my mom got in this big argument, about how I’d been arrested and all this other s**t, and I was real pissed, and not really thinking. So when I was crossing the street to go get a beer or something, I didn’t look where I was going, and this car was coming. Luckily my mom followed me out cause she knew I wasn’t thinking right. So she risked her life by pushing me out of the way, and was hit. She broke some ribs, her right arm, is in a coma, and is on life support. We didn’t have enough money in the first place, and especially not enough for all the medical bills. So I was desperate, willing to do anything to raise the money to keep her in the hospital, especially because it was my fault she was hit. No one would hire me, cause of my record, so I was left with a choice either let my mom die and become a homeless guy, or join a gang. And this was my decision.”
“You seemed like a good guy.” I told him. “How long have you been with them?”
“Three years. Jude’s a good guy; all of them have had pretty rough family life. Your brother though… has he always been such a d**khead?”
“Naw, he was always wild and reckless, but never such a jerk. I don’t know what
happened to him. It makes me so sad.” We talked for awhile, about life, and all sorts of other
stuff. We got along pretty well, I decided I liked him; he really was a good guy, but still a guy.
The others came back with dinner, about three hours later. By then, I was really hungry. They all left me in peace the rest of the day.
◄○●○●○●○►
The next morning I woke up to boy’s talking. Boys? Then I remembered. Oh yes, I remembered.
“Look who’s up. Our little Bloody Babe.” My brother said. “We are taking you on a mission today.”
That night I found myself standing in front of a high, wrought iron fence, waiting for AJ to climb over it. He succeeded quickly, and, expertly dodging the security cameras protecting the mansion of Alfred Pinkle (a rich veteran living just three blocks from the abandoned house where the gang had been living) he made his way to the huge house. I lost sight of him. We waited for at least ten minutes, and then the gates swung open.
“Security cameras out, guards out, all clear,” AJ said nonchalantly, striding out of the fenced-in yard. “Chloe, you’re up. Jude, you go too.” I looked at Shay. He sneered, keeping up his big guy act in front of the other guys.
“Go on, Sugar.” He winked suggestively. “Do your duty to the gang.”
I rolled my eyes and walked through the gates, trying to look nonchalant as AJ had, but failing miserably. Jude followed me. As I was new to the gang, it was my job to steal the things we needed. I fingered the things in my pocket which I had bought earlier on my “lunch run”. I would need them desperately; I had never attempted robbery before, and I didn’t know how. Jude was to be the lookout at the foot of the stairs as I went up to steal a precious diamond
Necklace from Alfred Pinkle’s wife. Fortunately, Shay had told me that the gang members were not particularly good at telling whether diamonds were real or not, and I had made a plan.
Jude opened the front door, the lock of which AJ had somehow opened, and we crept into the house. I crept up the first flight of stairs I saw, and Jude stayed at the bottom. I knew that, plan or no plan, if we got caught we were going to jail, so as soon as I was out of sight I sat down. After about ten minutes, I raced down the stairs, a necklace dangling from my hand.
“They’re on to us. She’s calling the police,” I said, grabbing Jude’s arm and hurtling through the door. We reached the others and we all ran pell-mell back to the hideout.
“That was fast,” Shay murmured to me, grinning.
“Yeah, well,” I said evasively. I still didn’t trust him enough to tell him about the fourteen dollar, paste diamond necklace hanging from my arm. We reached the hideout and went inside.
“Chloe, let’s see that necklace,” Trey ordered. I handed it over and held my breath while they passed it around. I was terrified that one of them would be able to tell that it was a fake, but none of them did. To my relief, Shay had been right. They knew nothing about jewels. I let myself fall asleep.
◄○●○●○●○►
That was not my last mission. I made a lot of trips to various stores, spending the money I had had in my pocket in the pizza parlor to buy fakes of whatever I was supposed to be stealing. Unfortunately, I had only had sixty bucks, so I ran out fast. Eventually I had to start actually stealing things. I guess I got good at it, but the risk was too great. I knew that sometime I would have to admit to the gang that I didn’t like stealing, and I didn’t love the idea of giving them an excuse to do something awful to me.
“Meeting at the table!” Trey shouted the familiar words. He had become something of a leader for the gang, not because he was good at it, but because no one else could handle it. AJ was good at figuring things like how to get into and out of houses without being caught and Jude was a good bodyguard, but neither of them had any sense of leadership. Danny wasn’t an option because no one would ever do what he wanted them to, and Shay didn’t want to lead, even though he was both Jude and AJs’ choice for leader.
“How about we kidnap someone, and hold them for ransom?” suggested Danny, during our meeting. They were trying to come up with ways to make good money.
“Are you insane?” AJ asked in disbelief. “And get ourselves found out, that’s like a free pass to jail!” Danny looked down hurt, but the next minute he would be kissing AJ’s feet.
“I know, we could kill old Mr. Anthony Dowry, down on Cherryhurst,” AJ suggested. “We could make it look like a suicide, then take all we want.” Trey grinned, and I could tell that the idea was going to be fine with the rest of them too. Danny was nodding slowly, and Jude wasn’t rolling his eyes or shaking his head. Shay was, though. Shaking his head, I mean.
“That’s not a very smart--”
“Whatever, Shay. If you don’t like it, come up with something better.” Shay struggled to think of something, but I could tell that, even if he did, AJ’s idea was firmly planted in Trey’s mind.
I knew I couldn’t do it, or live with the guys after they did it. I couldn’t imagine killing someone just to get money which I knew would be spent on cigarettes, gum, and beer. But how on earth could I get out of it?
◄○●○●○●○►
The police office was new to me, like so many other things I had encountered in the past
month. I looked over at Shay and sighed. He smiled at me, a pained smile. Although he knew the
decision was right, it was still really hard on him; his life was changed forever. It would be even more different for him than it would be for me. We both wouldn’t be able to live normal, happy lives, but he also would have to live with the fact that his mom was dying because of some stupid fight they’d had.
“So,” said the police chief, “This is the infamous gang who committed arson, kidnapped people, and stole all over the city, is it?” Trey and AJ exchanged a look, and Danny looked at his feet. Jude just tried to look more muscled.
“One of them,” amended Officer Wiccum. He mopped his sweaty forehead with a linen hanky, and I pulled my lips in to keep myself from laughing.
“Okay, well, throw them in a cell. Under high security, of course.” We were led away.
“Listen, guys,” I began, but before I could go on, we had reached our cell.
“In you go,” said Officer Wiccum. Trey was evidently thinking hard to find a way out.
“Hey Wiccum,” he said in the suck up voice he used on people with any sort of power over him. “Weren’t you in the paper a few weeks ago? Something about a roller coaster?” Wiccum frowned, evidently not wanting to be reminded of the event.
“Go in the cell. Go on!” he shepherded us in. “You aren’t alone in this area. That guy burned down a building, that lady committed murder, and that fellow over there is in for a number of crimes, including causing some poor girl to get in an accident and suffer serious dain bram- I mean, brain damage.” Wiccum, flustered, hurried away.
“Listen,” I began again. “I don’t know how we got in here, but I have an idea. If you guys convince Wiccum that I didn’t have anything to do with our various crimes, he might let me out, and then I can bail out the rest of you, I promise.” They ate it all up. I had turned us in, of course I knew how we’d gotten there. Also, there was only one person I intended to bail out, because of
the connection I had to him.
◄○●○●○●○►
I must admit, I don’t have any idea how I would have gotten out of that jail if AJ hadn’t been there. He sweet talked me out of the cell like he had trained to be some sort of professional sweet-talker all his life. I had half a mind, in fact, to bail him out, just for that. I left the jail, and whispered to the others, “See you soon,” before hurrying home. It had been a month since I had been there, but my parents had, luckily, been on vacation, and they didn’t know that I’d been gone at all. It made me sort of sad.
I returned to the jail the next day with only enough money in my pocket to bail him out and get us pizza at a Peace of Pizza afterward.
“Come on, Shay, let’s go.” I said to him when I went with the officers to show them which of the guys I wanted to spring. Shay looked up at me, astonished.
“What? You’re springing me?” he looked around, bewildered. “Why--”
“Just come on. Your mom, remember?”
“Chloe, what about us?” Trey asked. His normally clean shaven face was covered in fuzzy whiskers. “You promised!”
“I know,” I said, turning nonchalantly and beckoning to Shay. “I lied.”
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