"I heard you have something for me." Harry said as he walked into Tom's office. Tom looked up from his computer. "Do I?" Tom asked mildly surprised. "Danny told me we had a Polydon. You know, our archenemies? Those rats we've been trying to catch for years?" Harry went to sit in one of Tom's comfortable chairs. They had been waiting for this for so long. Ever since he, Danny and Tom had founded Terka, they had been fighting with Polydon. Terka was now the most influential and most powerful gang of the city, but Polydon was always trying to steal that position. "Oh that. Yes, well we do have one. A rookie probably, he was standing in the front of our headquarters, staring. We could easily capture him. He's in his cell." Tom said airily. "Has anyone already..?" Harry asked. Tom shook his head. "No, no of course not. Everyone knows that if we captured a rat, you would be the one to interrogate him." Tom said with a smile. "Do note tough that if you agree, you'll have to do everything." Harry raised his eyebrow. "Why?" He asked simply. "Because otherwise people will think you're abusing you privileges of being Terka-2, second in command? People will talk and we can't have that."
Two weeks later
"Whatever you do Tom, don't talk in riddles." Harry said when they walked towards the cell that held their prisoner. "Why not?" Tom asked, placing his finger in the reader. "He was hit on his head the day before we captured him, with an iron bar if I'm not mistaken. His head is still shaken up." Tom turned abruptly. "Can we trust him to speak the truth? If he's mentally unstable…"Tom trailed of, wanting Harry to explain it to him. Harry sighed. "He isn't mentally unstable. According to him, his mind just works a little slower than normal and he gets a killer headache if he has to think hard." Harry grinned. Tom rolled his eyes. "So everything he told you.." "Is the truth. Although he hasn't told me much." Tom snorted. "I'm sure he told you loads, just not what you wanted to hear. You stay with him for hours." Harry grumbled and ignored the slight jab. That was none of Tom's business. And NOTHING had happened! "Yeah, he's hard to crack. An interrogator for sure, knows all the tricks." He simply said. "But he will talk right? I mean, you putted in his breakfast, didn't you." Tom asked. Harry nodded. He hated doing it, he absolutely hated it. But they needed him to talk and this drug would make him talk. Harry just hoped that Dougie would forgive him.
They fell silent when they entered the cell. Dougie was sitting on his bunk, eyes closed, but his mouth moving like he was talking to himself. Harry held up his hand, signalling his friend to keep silent. Dougie was apparently praying, something he enjoyed doing, since it pissed people off when they had to wait. He wasn't even actually praying. Just mouthing nonsense. Dougie opened his eyes after five long minutes. He blinked a couple of times, like he was surprised to see them and smirked.
"Well, well, well. I feel honoured. Terka's number one in my little cell, I would offer you something to drink but I haven't had my lunch yet." He shot Harry a dark look, Harry merely grinned. "You'll have to wait a little longer before you can eat Poynter." Tom said, his playful behaviour had changed into what Danny called "T-1 cool headed poker face". Dougie looked at him. "That's a pity. But to what do I own this honour?" Dougie answered, seemly completely at ease. "Judd gave you a list with questions on your first day here, you haven't answered all of them and we're getting inpatient." Tom said. "What were the questions again?" Dougie asked politely. Harry rolled his eyes. "You want me to repeat them, don't you." He grumbled. "That would be ever so lovely." Dougie said, still smiling pleasantly. "Well, we wanted to know your name, why you were standing in the front of our headquarters staring at it for a day, why you didn't fight back when we captured you, why you joined Polydon and what your rank is in Polydon." Harry summed up.
"Well, you know the answer to the first one!" Dougie said smiling. Tom nodded, also smiling pleasantly. "We would like the answers to the rest as well if you please." Dougie looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "If I didn't tell him, what makes you think I'll tell you? Besides, I already told you that I wasn't staring at your headquarters and I am not a Polydon." He finished trough gritted teeth. "You have a Polydon tattoo on your arm and you were staring." Harry said softly, he knew that this was for some reason a very touchy subject for Dougie. He had tried to make him explain, but Dougie was stubborn like hell. Dougie turned his angry gaze towards Harry. "I may have their tattoo, I may have been inside their headquarters for three months, they may have trained me and they may think I'm one of them, but I am not. I am not an Polydon, I never was one and I'll never be one." He said, voice thick with anger.
"Why not?" Tom asked. Dougie glared at him. "Because Polydon is everything I promised myself not to be. They kill, hurt, blackmail and kidnap innocents and they think they rule this city. They don't. I've been living on these streets since I was six years old. I've been in a gang since I was six. I've taken care of my little sisters as long as they can remember. I know how gangs work, I know how the street works and I know that what Polydon does is wrong and not something I will ever do. And I'm not a traitor. But I had to join them! I didn't have a fucking choice!" Harry saw that Dougie was starting to panic, probably trying to figure out why he was telling them this. "Explain." He said simply, guessing that commands were the way to go now, Dougie may have noticed something was up, but he apparently decided to continue.
"Six months ago, Polydon killed one of my fellow gang members. Then Polydon starts kidnaping and killing random people, innocent people, we had to do something! Then Polydon decided to make it even more personal, for me." Dougie stopped talking at once, he was really in full panic mode now. Harry placed his hand on Dougies shoulder. "Relax. You can tell us, we won't judge." He muttered softly, rubbing the shoulder reassuringly. He could feel Dougie relaxing into his touch, something that didn't surprise him anymore. Really, Dougie was still a kid at heart that needed comfort. Although Harry wished it wasn't his comfort he needed. "They kidnapped the boyfriend of my sister, he's a good bloke. Smart and one hell of an actor. He wanted to join you guys. He wanted to be a Terka, he's a great actor and he's my sister's boyfriend, so they took him. So I decided to join them, to get him back. And to get back what was ours." He muttered softly. Harry could see him relax, before tensing again.
"Shouldn't have told you that." He mumbled. "Why not?" Harry asked softly. "Because now you guys are involved. You weren't supposed to get involved." Harry squeezed his shoulder again and stepped back. "I think.." He said carefully. "..that it's time for you to tell us your story. And I mean the whole story." Dougie looked up, he suddenly looked his age. Just nineteen years old and very, very tired. "What do you want to know?" Harry could literally hear his walls crumble. "Everything. You can start with the beginning, when you got on the streets." Dougie sighed, closed his eyes and fell back on his bunk. Then he started to talk.
"Like I said, I've two sisters. Twins. A year younger than me. I was six when we joined the streets, they were five. I needed to look out for them, take care of them. The only way to do that was to join a gang, so I did. A kid gang, which is basically a pre-school for gang members. I joined the wrong one. When I was old enough to be useful, around ten, they asked me to join the mother gang, I refused."
"Wait," Harry said. "You refused to join the gang? You actually refused to join the mother gang?" He sounded unconvinced. "That's weird?" Tom asked, confused. "Yeah it is! Danny told me! If you join a kid gang, you join the mother gang. Unwritten rules!" Harry said.
"Well, I didn't join them. The mother gang was a bit like Polydon, but less organized. But if you live on the streets without a gang, you're dead, I had to find something else. So I went searching. And finally, they found me."
"Who found you?" Tom asked softly. Dougie grinned, pulled his shirt off and turned around. On his left shoulder blade was a tattoo. A tattoo of a Dragon. "Shit." Tom whispered. "You're a Dragon." He continued, then he turned towards Harry. "Did you know this?" Harry shook his head. The both turned towards Dougie, who simply shrugged.
"Like I said, they found me and took me in. And let me tell you right now, everything you've heard about the Dragons is mostly bullshit. We are no longer the gang we used to be, we don't want to be that kind of gang anymore."
"What kind of gang?" Tom asked sharply. "You don't know?" Dougie and Harry asked surprised. Tom shook his head, annoyed. "Danny doesn't tell me everything alright? Explain." He grounded out.
"Well, the Dragons used to be what Terka is now. The most powerful gang of the city. We owned this city, without our approval you were doomed. We started around five hundred years ago and we kept growing. But more gangs began to rise and we decided to take a step back, watch from afar. Like silent guardians or something. Now we're just a bunch of extremely talented, gifted and skilful people that don't want to belong to a gang, but have to to survive. Most people call us the Pirates these days. You can hire us to help you, as long as there are no innocents in danger. We don't really mingle with the other gangs. If you want our help, you come to us and the whole gang decides together whether we help you or not. We do have a leader, but we're quite democratic. Anyway, they took me and my sisters in, although neither of them actually joined us. My oldest sister is a Freelancer."
Harry whistled. "A freelancer? Really?" Dougie nodded. "You might've heard of her. She made quite a name of herself. They call her The Shadow." Now both Tom and Harry whistled. Dougie grinned, it was easily to see that he was proud of her.
"My other sister didn't join the gang life, she's a dancer, although she does help my older sister every now and then."
"Wait a moment, the day we captured you, you weren't staring at our headquarters, were you?" Tom said. Dougie shook his head. "I wasn't. I was looking at the dance studio, trying to get a glimpse of her before I had to go back to Polydon." He muttered softly. "They let you go?" Tom asked, one raised eyebrow in place. "Patience Terka. Patience." Dougie said with a smile.
"So everything went alright you know. We did our jobs, got paid and just lived our lives. Then Polydon began to get annoying. The killed members of other gangs and they killed one of us. We fought back and the whole thing with Jack happened. Then Polydon really fucked up. They decided to anger us further and they stole…"
Dougie felt silent, gripping his fist. He looked murderous. Harry actually took a step back. "What did they steal?" Tom asked softly. "They had no right. They had no fucking right!" Dougie all but screamed. Harry's hand was back on his shoulder. "What did they take?" He asked again.
"They took our Dragon. It's a statue, made by the first Dragons around five hundred years ago. It's our symbol. It isn't really valuable, in money, but it has a huge sentimental value. Taking that Dragon is like taking our whole identity. So then we had to do something. We called a meeting and we decided that someone had to infiltrate Polydon to get Jack and the Dragon back. Even if Jack isn't an actual Dragon, everyone knows and likes them so we had to do something. We finally decided that I was the one to do it, since I'm our best actor, after Jack of course."
"That's not the whole reason." Tom interrupted Dougie. "Excuse me?" Dougie asked, eyes calculating. "Just a good actor, that's not the only reason, is it?" Tom continued. "There is more." Tom walked closer towards Dougie and softly forced him to turn around. "Your tattoo is bigger than the normal Dragon tattoo, isn't it? And it has gold lining. You must be quite important." He looked at Dougie questionable. "Yeah, you could say that." Dougie muttered. He stared at the floor, not meeting their gazes. "You're not only important, aren't you." Harry took over. He kneeled in the front of the boy and forced his head upwards. Harry stared into the ice blue orbs. "You're their leader, aren't you?" He said softly.