I apologize to anyone who was confused in the first chapter for any reason. Hopefully you will be less confused after reading this chapter. So please enjoy reading.
My dreams that night were of Dally and I growing up. We each grew up raised by only our mothers in the rundown, dangerous part of New York. Dally was a year older than me. When I was born, our mothers decided to just share an apartment. That way it would be easier to raise Dally and I, plus it would be way cheaper. Our mothers soon became best friends, and loved Dally and I like we were actually siblings instead of two kids growing up in the same home. Dally's mom died in a car accident when he was ten, and I nine. He got arrested for the first time that year.
Our moms worked all day, so we had grown up on the streets, amusing ourselves and learning how to survive while our moms were busy at work. Dally grew hard on the streets, then harder after his mom's death. He protected me, he was the only thing that kept me from going as hard as him. Since our moms were away so much working, Dally practically raised me. After his mom's death, he dropped out of school and joined a gang. He was able to get extra cash for our small little family. But it wasn't enough that Mom could stop working such long hours.
I helped him out sometimes. When he was assigned pick pocketing jobs or small time stealing. He taught me how to pick pocket, I was fair decent, but no one was as good as Dally. When he did stealing, I was his lookout. I never joined his gang, heck, I never even met anyone from it until after he left. Dally just wanted to make sure he knew where I was, and that I might have some one besides Mom who would look after me if something happened to him.
Mom always got really upset when Dally got in trouble with the police, or just disappeared for a time. But she knew that there was nothing that she could do to stop him, and she wouldn't pull the "What would your mother think?" card. My mom loved Dally too much to hurt him with that. All Mom could do was treat any wounds he brought home and hold him when he was sad about his mom. I just tried to stay on Dally's good side and minded what he said. At least Mom knew she could trust Dally to take care of me.
Then my mom died when I was twelve and a half and Dally just over thirteen. Someone shot her on her way home from work. Apparently they were actually aiming for someone else. Dally grew even colder, if that was possible. He was still warm around me, but it was just a small thaw from how he acted on the streets. I got two jobs then, selling newspapers and working at a general store. I still helped Dally on the side, but not as often. Between school, my two jobs, and taking care of the apartment, I didn't have as much time to just hang out with Dally as I used to.
Without me to hold him down, Dally was on the streets more and more, getting into fights, smoking, drinking, and womanizing. It came to be, that almost every time there was a fight, Dally was the instigator. I lost count of how many times I had to pull out the first aid kit when he came home. Eventually I just left it in clear sight so that Dally could bind himself up if I wasn't home.
A few days before Dally's fifteenth birthday, he disappeared. The night before he had come up behind me while I was doing dishes and hugged me. He didn't say anything, just held me for a few minutes. That night, when he thought I was asleep, he crawled into my bed to sleep with me.
In the morning, he was gone. And I could tell he wouldn't be back. He had said his farewell the night before.
On the day of Dally's birthday, I heard a knock at the door. I was confused, because it was the special knock that Dally used to tell me it was he. I knew that it wasn't Dally, so who could it be?
When I opened the door, a gang stood on the doorstep. I knew it could only be Dally's gang. I nodded to them and gestured for them to come inside. When we were all sitting in the living room, the leader looked me straight in the eyes and told me that Dally had left, and had asked the gang to look after me. I nodded and told him that was what I assumed Dally would do. I stood up and asked if anyone was hungry.
After the meal, I asked Nathan, the leader, if I could talk to him privately. I told him that I would cook meals for the gang and they could crash at the apartment whenever they liked, I would earn my keep. Nathan saw the determination in my eyes and didn't argue. He said he'd continue my education of the streets.
For the next three years, I learned everything that Dally had learned. I grew as hard as him, only letting up my guard around the gang when we were at my place. Eventually, some news reached me, and I knew I had to find Dally.
--
I woke before Dally in the morning. I found myself in a different position than I had fallen asleep in. I felt a blush rise to my cheeks when I looked up to see Dally's face very near my own. I now faced Dally with our bodies pressed close together. My head rested on his shoulder, nestled into his neck. I really didn't want to acknowledge how close we were, so I slipped quickly out of bed without waking him.
I grabbed my black tank top, the jeans from yesterday, and clean underwear and bra from my bag. Taking my clothes with me I headed to the bathroom attached to Dally's room. I looked in the cracked mirror at my reflection for a moment. My long brown hair was matted and greasy from playing football, and I had dirt coating my skin, making my slightly tanned skin look darker. Hazel eyes gazed at a slightly large nose and dry cracked lips. At least the scar on my nose and forehead made me look tough. I sighed at my foolishness for wanting to know what Dally thought of how I looked.
After showering and changing I grabbed my pens and sat Indian style on the floor in front of the bed where Dally would see me when he woke up. I didn't bother doing anything with my hair, I always let it air dry. As I waited for him to wake, I pulled out a mirror with the intentions of doing a design on my collarbone. I didn't notice that Dally was awake until he spoke.
"It's always weird watching you doodle on yourself," he said quietly.
I finished drawing a curved line before I looked up at him. "Why is that?"
"Your thoughts are in the designs," he told me bluntly as he sat up stretching. "Right now, you're stressed and ready to mask your feelings by acting tuff." He gestured to all the designs revealed by my tank top, "so you show your designs to try to intimidate."
I didn't look at him. I put down the mirror I was using and fiddled with my pen as I stared at my lap. How did I tell him this? I guess bluntness is best.
"I found out who killed our mothers." Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stiffen and his hands form white knuckled fists. "It turns out neither the car or gun was an accident. Someone wanted them dead."
Dally moved off the bed to kneel in front of me, he gripped my shoulders in his hands. I looked up at him, my eyes like stone.
"Who?" his voice was like ice, demanding I answer him.
"Their old gangs." I spoke quietly. I couldn't manage to speak any louder, I was numb. Gangs were supposed to take care of their own, not hunt down members and kill them. "I didn't find out why they wanted our mothers, only that their old gangs killed them. I didn't even know our mothers had been in gangs!"
"Katie, what do I always say about tears?" It was only after he spoke that I realized I was crying.
"If tears fixed problems, there would be no problems," I answered him as I wiped my face with the strap of my tank top. He was right. The only way to avenge our mothers was to hunt down the bastards that ordered them killed, and… well, they'd wish they'd never been born. Let alone even thought about murdering our mothers.
I know Dally saw my resolve harden, because he gave me a brief squeeze and then stood up.
"I'm gonna take a shower, then we can go tell the gang we'll be gone awhile."
"'Kay."
I watched his hard, lean, scarred body walk to the bathroom. His white-blond hair was messy with bed head. Even with all the scars and his hard blue eyes, Dally reminded me of an elf somehow; a very deadly elf, but still an elf. It'd probably be a good idea not to mention the elf thing to him.
If you still have questions, please ask me, i would be glad to answer any questions anyone might have. At least, any questions that will not reveal what will happen later in the story.
By the way, if you are going to give me constructive criticism, please no sarcasm. Treat others the way you want to be treated.
I'm not going to update day after day. I only posted the first two chapters so quickly because i wanted an opinion, and my beta has disapeared on me. I was going to finish the whole thing, then rewrite it like a bajillion times before i posted, but yeah. i need help! so i'm going to finish writing the whole thing, posting one chapter at a time. And then when i'm finished, i'll use the reviews people have sent me to rewrite the whole thing and repost it.
So please, reveiw!
