So, here is the second chapter. Hope you like it. Please review!!
Disclaimer: Blah, blah, blah, don't own Death Sentence or any of its characters. And yes, I invented Hansen, so I claim her. Hibiddy-hooplah.
I sat on the front steps of the group home, reading some random book, not really paying attention to it. My attention had been stolen today, just like every other day out on these steps. I looked up from the edge of my book, watching the car repair shop across the street.
He stood outside, shirtless, head bowed under the hood of some beat-to-shit car. He was there everyday, at Bones Darley's place. And everyday that I could, I'd sit and watch. Today was different though. He was mad today, slinging parts around, throwing shit and not caring where it landed.
His dad was most likely the cause of his troubles. Bones Darley was not a nice man, coming around him, yelling all the time. And when the yelling didn't seem to take an effect, I had seen him do far worse things. The two Darley brothers lived with him above that heap of a car shop and at night when I sat out on the roof, I could see them through the windows.
On most days when Billy saw me sitting on the steps, he'd nod. No smile, no wave, just a slight movement of his head, letting me know that he was aware. Today, though, his anger had seemed to change a lot of things about him, because today, he talked to me.
His dad came from out of the office and threw a backpack at him and yelled something I couldn't hear, pointing off in some obscure direction. Billy stared at the ground while putting on a black t-shirt, and then started to walk away, his father smacking him on the back of the head before retreating back to the office.
He walked out of the gates, and looked up at me. Instead of nodding as usual, he stared for a moment as I stared back, too startled to rip my eyes away. Then he came across the street, stopping on the sidewalk in front of the house, not coming into the yard.
He was quite a site up close, a mop of dirty blond and brown hair, eyes that could pierce metal. Skinny, but muscular, and a stance that could intimidate anyone. A hard exterior seemed to radiate off of him and he stood there, cigarette hanging limply from one side of his mouth.
He removed the cigarette, holding it between his index and middle finger, the backpack his father had thrown at him was slung over one shoulder.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," I replied, shutting my book. We continued to stare until he broke our eye contact, looking me up and down instead. Finally, he seemed to decide on something. What it was, I'll never know, but to this day I'm glad he decided it.
"You wanna go for a walk?" he asked.
I didn't hesitate for a second. "Sure," I told him, leaving the book on the steps. Technically, at the home, we're not supposed to leave, but I didn't care. What could they do to me? Once you hit the group home, there was nowhere left to go.
We walked in silence for a few blocks, him just breathing, smoking, staring straight ahead. Me, just staring at my feet and trying to keep up with his long steps, sneaking glances at him. I kept trying to think of things to say, things that wouldn't give away my watchful eyes. But nothing came. We just kept walking.
We walked until we were near the highway, walking underneath the overpasses, a well known drug hotspot. We stopped under one of them and he looked around, taking a second to study everyone's face until he found the one he was looking for.
He motioned for me to stay a ways back while he talked to the other guy, a boy just around his age. Billy opened up the backpack, showing the other the contents. Finally, the other nodded, opening his pack and watched as Billy took out a brown paper bag and deposited inside the boy's bag while placing a large amount of cash inside Billy's. That was my first drug deal.
Billy walked away, waving for me to join him, heading back in the direction we came.
"So,"
he finally said. "I see you everyday and I have no idea who you
are. What's your name?"
"Hansen," I told him.
"No last name, Hansen?"
"Hansen Matthews according the birth certificate that was dropped off, along with me, to the home. Not that having a last name makes a difference. It's just an empty word to fill in the blank spot on paperwork," I told him. I had said this speech many times, coming up with this conclusion in 1st grade when it was "Heritage Week" at school.
"Pretty bleak outlook for someone so young," he said. I looked over at him, as he looked back at me. He had a small shadow of a smirk on his features.
I shrugged. "Sixteen's not so young," I told him. "Not 'round here."
"I'm nineteen," he told me. "How old does that make me?"
"However old you feel," I told him. "So what about you? What's your take on this world in the nineteen years you been apart of it?"
"'Bout as bleak as yours," he said with a small laugh that had no effort behind it.
And that was it, that was where we became friends. Everyday he'd pick me up at the steps to do errands with him. At nights I would sneak out to go to parties with him. If he was outside working on his car, I would walk over there and sit on a chair, just talking or reading.
His younger brother, Joe, would come with us a lot, never wanting to be home with Bones. After being with them a while it became evident that Bones was more of a boss than a father. To him, he was doing his fatherly duty by housing them and they did their job as sons being his errand boys.
"Lord knows I've been patient wit' the lot of yous," was always Bones excuse for the mistreatment of his two boys.
Billy was more of the father-figure to his younger brother. He took care of Joe, always protecting him, always knowing where he was and who he was with. They were their own family and I loved to watch them take care of each other.
