The Jungle

By Song Birdy

Part Four

author's notes: can you tell that I always write the first author's notes before I write and the last ones after? or that I usually write every chapter in one sitting? I wonder if I'm ever that obvious. It's just how I am. My boo (my not quite boyfriend) is leaving tomorrow for his mission trip and I won't be seeing him again for seven weeks so I'm gonna delve into writing to cheer me up. So uhm, enjoy some creepy wonderfulness. I think I'm going to enjoy this chapter a lot. Oh, also, I am a big fan of time gaps, so yes, a lot of this has big time gaps. For example: Chad and Taylor breaking up was something that just was going to happen, they just weren't working out. I didn't want to detail it because it's unimportant to their characters, in my opinion. Large time gaps are meant to be filled with imagination.

NOTE: This chapter includes a few flashbacks, hopefully you can follow them.

Six points for anyone who can find the words that aren't really words (not including the blood segment).
and EXTRA points for those of you who can figure out which word I forgot to spell check in chapter three.

loveyoukids.

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Part Four: All Saints Day.

---

Blood blood blood blood, oh my god, everywhere bloodbloodbloodohgodblood.

Ryan Evans's hands are covered in blood. This was not the way it was supposed to be - he was supposed to be cool, calm, collected, take the money, take the package, leave the body. Leave the body, it was for someone else to handle. Someone lower on the food chain. An Evans, Ryan was born into hierarchy, his very own crown of a revolver. He was supposed to be calm, cool, collected. But Jake -

He remembered the instructions his father had given him, the almost rehearsed answers he'd puppetted, "Yes, sir."

"There is a masquerade this weekend at the Cross estate."

"And?"

"Mr. Cross is a -" his father coughed, "a colleague of mine."

Ryan scoffs, "A colleague, su-"

"Ryan - " His father's eyes need not scold him further than his voice, but they do.

"I apologize, sir." Ryan's stomach sinks again, feeling as though he is in a dream, and this topsy turvy world will disappear when he wakes and splashes warm water against his face to exfoliate in the morning.

"He is a colleague of mine, and there is a man who we need to retrieve a package from."

"A package?"

"Yes. You need not know the contents of this package; merely that he will be delivering it to you following the party."

Ryan let out a sigh - relief. The gun must be for protection, then. He was only a boy, a package boy. A boy to pick up a package at a party seemed harmless. He could even lie to himself - the package contained several different samples of cheeses which his father and Mr. Cross were going to sample at a wine tasting at the Evans Estate the following weekend -

"The thing is, Ryan, after the package is delivered, we ah," he cleared his throat at this point, knowingly. He nodded toward the gun, resting in the hands of his only son.

Ryan panicked, yanking his hands away from the weapon and leaving it in his lap, laying there as though it had a mind of its own, "Father, you can't honestly expect me to -"

"It is of utmost importance. You need not know more for your own safety, but I need you to do this for me," and the tone of his father's voice changed, to almost begging, something which Ryan never thought he would hear his father do, even before his original discovery, "I need you to do this for our family. You need not know the details, but we are in grave danger."

Ryan felt as though his entire world was spinning, and the look on his father's face was the only thing standing still in the entire universe. He thought of his mother, her bright smile and shining pearls, practicing her golf swing in their spacious backyard and waving to him on his balcony. He thought of his sister, determined and hard working - she was going to make it to Broadway if she had to step on every other actress on her way up to do it. He thought of all those nights they had fallen asleep together after spending hours laughing and enjoying their collection of Original Broadway Cast Recordings. He could not let anything happen to them - his mother and sister, who knew nothing of these dealings. Who were completely innocent.

He was completely innocent. Or at least, he was.

Now, he is standing in a pool of blood, with Jacob Cross standing over his shoulder - he is shaking, he cannot seem to hold the gun in one place, he is falling apart.

"Oh my god," Jake is mouthing, "Oh my god, Ryan. Oh my god, I'm going to call the cops, did you see what happened?"

Ryan reels, Jake didn't see it? How could he not have seen it?

"No!" Ryan screams, "No, don't call the cops," Calm, smooth, like his father would be proud of, "No, let's just.. let's get out of here, this is too creepy for me."

Ryan feels the package in the inside of his waistcoat, and he wonders what he is holding so close to his heart - what he would have killed for.

A cog in the machine, he realizes, that's all he is. A cog in the machine. He is the part of a machine that he doesn't even understand, and he would kill for it. The gun he puts into his pocket where he'd been hiding it before, and Jake grabs him by the arm and they run.

They run and they run and they run and they run.

---

A knock at the door.

"Taylor, it's me, Troy." Taylor gasps, unprepared completely for Troy Bolton. Had she really called him? Had she really asked him over?

"One second!" She is throwing clothing about the room to the laundry basket, smoothing her hair, and making her bed all at the same time.

She opens the door. And there he is - The Zeus of East High School, Troy Bolton, with a bar of chocolate.

She laughs, he is confused for a moment and then, "Oh, yes. My mother always told me that girls want chocolate when they're upset so - here it is!"

Taylor takes it and smiles, "Well, thanks. That's sweet of you." She pauses and motions for him to sit down on the bed with her, "I honestly don't know what got a hold of me when I called you. It's just that - Oh," she starts to tear up, "Chad told me that he didn't want me anymore. That I wasn't everything he expected."

Troy shrugs, awkwardly, "Well, Chad's my best friend. He's a good guy. He probably just has -" He fumbles for words, "Some things going on in his life that he can't handle right now. Things he doesn't want you to have to go through with him. I know our friendship suffered a lot when his brother moved out of their house and when he gets stressed, he really pulls away from people, that's just how he -"

"No, no," Taylor is saying, leaning back onto the bed, "He made it perfectly clear that it was me that was wrong with the relationship. Maybe it's just that I'm not a cheerleader, that I'm too nerdy for him, not pretty enough, I don't know."

"You're pretty enough, Taylor, don't kid yourself." He places his hand on her knee, comforting.

She sits back up and looks him in the eye, then blushes, looking downward, "Thanks Troy."

He pulls his hand back, tentatively.

"I guess I understand what he means though," She says, "That it wasn't everything we expected. Do you ever feel that way? With Gabi, I mean?"

Awkward pause, "You don't have to answer."

"No, no," Troy is backed into a corner, "I understand exactly what you mean. It's a guy thing - the thrill of the chase. Chad is a chaser, and when he finally gets the girl, he wants another chase. When he realizes what he's missing, he'll come back to you."

Taylor smiles, "I don't know if that's going to work out," Troy gives her a confused look, "Oh, I mean to say that he's a great guy, but I definitely think that I can do better."

Her eyes are boring into him, and he feels the heat between their two bodies - a physical heat he has never felt from the sweet and innocent girl whose hips he loves to hold in his hands. He chokes out the words, "What do you mean?"

She is scooting closer and closer to him on the bed, "You are such a great guy, Troy. The perfect guy-" She is breathing into his neck now, and he wants to so badly -

"Taylor-" He says, firmly, "Taylor, I am with Gabriella."

She sinks back, "I know. I know. I just," And he looks at her, chocolate brown eyes and all, "I need someone to hold me tonight. To make me feel wanted. Troy Bolton, I can give you what Gabriella won't," She snakes her legs around him, she kisses his neck, she whispers in his ear, "No one has to know."

He quickly flips her over and is on top of her, they connect lips, angry, passionately, in a more physically demanding way than he would ever dare to kiss Gabriella Montez - animal like. She smirks, "Now, that's the Troy Bolton I always knew was there."

---

Ring. Ring. Ring. Ring.

"Hey, this is Jake, sing your song at the beep." Click.

Jake is not picking up his phone. Kelsi Neilson wonders to herself, could he have just gone to bed? That must be it. His parents were forcing him to stay for their masquerade, to be a good little boy and entertain his father's coworkers - it's just, it wasn't like him to not call her, even to tell her just simply that he was clean all day and that he loved her.

She frowns and hits her speed dial again.

---

When Ryan Evans wakes up, he can't remember where he is, what he's done, who he is with. The scene before him is mind boggling: instead of waking up in his spacious room underneath his framed promotional poster from the musical Wicked, he wakes outside, on a hill, in a suit - with the weight of the gun and package still in his pocket.

Oh my god.

Jacob Cross lay next to him. Probably still strung out from whatever he had taken last night. Ryan had not attempted to argue with the boy, who was already freaked out before the gun shot, when he had unrolled some white powder from his pocket and started to snort it in the most pathetic way off of the ground that Ryan had ever seen - if his headache served him correctly, he had kneeled before the powdered god himself and given away his soul to a gun.

He nudged Jake with his foot. God, if he could have known this would be the situation he would be in now a week before, he would have laughed and said it was nearly impossible. Jake didn't move. Ryan didn't care.

Slowly, as he shook his aching head, the events of the night before flooded back into his brain.

The way the man had laughed at him when he'd approached him, "I thought Evans said he was sending his son, not his daughter."

Ryan had lost control of his own temper and pulled the gun immediately, shoving the other man against the wall and placing it to his temple, he had never imagined himself shooting anyone, holding a gun to anyone's head, but this was just another part he was playing and when the show was over, he was going to get the flowers: his mother and sister.

He throws up on the lawn next to Jake. Murderer.

"Ah, man." Jake mumbles, half asleep still, "Why'd ya have to do that! I thought you could hold your liquor."

Ryan frowns, unable to explain as he throws up again, "Well, I guess not."

---

fin.

part four.

author's notes: I wrote that in a span of an hour. It is my favorite chapter so far. Slutty Taylor is something I've wanted to write for awhile now. Please, don't hate me forever for writing her. She is a complex character who I feel was broken by her own ambition to become a popular girl. She sold out and Chad left her because he didn't like who she became. If that covers the gap for you. More drama to come. Probably tomorrow, because my boo is going to be gone.