Chapter 3
George Ragan p.o.v – 1 month later
Something's not right with Danny. He might just be feeling a little unwell, but I don't know for sure. A lot has happened in the last two weeks or so. All the girlfriends moved in, and he did amazingly well with the transition, and he gets along with them well. Then we started with light gang tasks with Danny partnering up with Dylan and Jordon since he gets along with them really well at the moment. He gets along with us as well, just doesn't seem to have anyone he's particularly close to. He still has trust issue; it will take a whole lot longer for him to get over those. No one is going to push him to that either, that's why he can chose if he goes with Dylan and Jordon on tasks or not. The choice is in his hands, and no one is angry at him if he says no.
"You're worried about Danny aren't you?" Asia asks me, we have been awake for a little while, even made breakfast, but Danny wasn't up yet. I think he had a nightmare or two last night, I heard screams. We're back in our room and I was sitting on the bed when Asia came and sat next to me. "Yeah, I am. There is just this feeling of something not quite right, but his mental state is so fragile I don't want to push it too much in the wrong direction," I tell her. Nothing I was telling her was meant with any ill intent towards Danny. We want what is best for him, but the issue is none of us have dealt with a young man who has been through such hell before. "I'm sure that whatever you decide to do will be the right thing for him," Asia tells me.
"I hope you are right," I tell her. One of the first things Asia told Danny when she moved in was that if he ever needed us at any moment day or night that he could come in and never needed to knock or anything like that. It was something I agree with whole heartedly. If there was one thing we got right about this was that giving Danny plenty of space and allowing him the option to come to us was very beneficial to him Whenever he got overwhelmed or overstimulated his room has become his safe space. We're going to help decorate it to more his liking soon. We might even make a den or something he can stay in where it's nice and quiet. Understandably this house can get quite loud, and the PTSD can be too much at times.
It wasn't long before Asia seemed to be right. A clearly exhausted Danny shuffled in and sat down on the edge of the bed. He's not had a good night it seems, but I am glad he trusts me enough to come to me like this. "What's up?" I ask him, as he shuffles down towards me. I could see Asia smile out of the corner of my eye. I suppose she sees him as a little brother as much as I do. "Just a rough night I guess. Kept having the same dang nightmare over and over," he tells me. He is slowly losing the Irish accent I've grown to love, but when he is over emotional like now it's so thick. I feel so sorry for him, nothing has really helped with those. Well, there might be one thing that can help him at least temporarily. I let him come closer.
"Aw, well I'm glad you told me about them. Maybe we can lay down together and you can try and get at least a little bit of sleep?" I suggest. We have nothing to do till at least 6 pm and it's roughly about 7.30 am right now, that gives Danny plenty of time to get some sleep and then decide if he wants to do the drug run with Dylan or not. Danny doesn't respond verbally; he yawns and gets close enough for a cuddle. I take it that means he wants to sleep. Asia is still smiling when I go with Danny to lay down on our bed. I think Danny was too tired to notice she was there, even still she wouldn't have made much of a difference if Danny cuddled me and went to sleep or not. He's too tired either way, and he would have crashed on the couch.
"You were right," I whisper, about 15 minutes had passed and Danny was out for the count in my arms. I am so glad he at least trusts me enough to protect him in his most vulnerable state. Everyone knows the phrase that you sleep with one eye open. It is somewhat true for the gang life, if you don't have a good base you're always cautious. You never want to sleep that close to someone you don't trust that well. So, for someone like Danny to sleep this comfortably with at least 4 of us is pretty good. He would probably have taken shifts to stay up with the younger ones back when he was in the Irish Warriors. The more I have learned about the Irish Warriors the more I have become increasingly concerned about the welfare of them.
I don't know why Leo and Vincent have that department to begin with. Yeah I get the whole kid sees you kill their parents, and you have to do something but kidnapping them and forcing them into a childhood that is so far from normal is not how things should be done. I hope they will close down the Irish Warriors thing eventually because I can't bear to think how everyone else in there would be dealing with the issues. "It seems like Leo was doing Danny a favor by releasing him to you. He's got a much better chance at having a decent adult life now. I am sure we can even find him a girlfriend, I know a girl," Asia says, and I laugh. She is worse than a sister sometimes I swear. I think I know who she is talking about as well and now I am kinda seeing it.
"I am sure both Theresa and Danny would be delighted that your playing cupid, not. How about we let them actually meet and get to know each other first? They might end up hating each other," I tell her. She laughs, but I knew she was being serious about it. At least Danny is oblivious to the plans been created about him. "I know, I would go about it the right way. Maybe we can get him out of the house and get them to meet soon then see how it goes naturally from there. I obviously wouldn't force Danny into anything he was uncomfortable with, and the same thing goes for Theresa," she tells me. That sounds more achievable than what I thought her original plan was going to be. I thought it was going to be a blind date scenario.
"Yeah, maybe tomorrow we can get Danny out of the house on non-gang related stuff. It would be nice for him to see more of Los Angeles than he has," I tell her. I am sure Asia could arrange Theresa to be in the same location and we just let things happen naturally. For me personally Danny's happiness will always come first in situations like this. He's been through a lot in his young life, and it is about time that he gets to enjoy his young adulthood as much as we can. Hell, I'd even give him the option to have a roof over his head and release him from the gang life forever if that is what he truly wants. We have the money for that, or he could just still live with us and not have that pressure of being in the gang anymore. I'll talk to him about these options one day.
It's got to be in his best interests, and he seems to enjoy doing the drug runs with Dylan so far. He is usually pretty tired and sleeps through by the end of them. Tonight has been the first night in a couple of weeks where he's come to us with major sleeping issues. It is to be expected to have nightmares after what he's been through, some of us have had nightmares after a job went terribly wrong. We've also ended up in hospital before and had to lie about what happened. It's the downside to keeping up the whole double life act. Danny's fitted into that lifestyle perfectly as that was something the Irish Warriors were already doing. They didn't have names; they were just called kid and whatever military style section they were assigned to.
It would almost make Patrick out to be a good guy until you remember the only reason they had those kids was cause their parents died. At least they could live in complete anonymity when Patrick finally became bored of them. I suspect the real reason is they were becoming too old to be easily influenced and started showing more signs of trauma than they were prepared to deal with. The easy way they could be bothered with is to send them off and say their skillset was required elsewhere. It is lucky that actually that was true for Danny. I was watching him code the other day and he is a tech wizard unlike anyone I had seen before. When he is ready I can't wait to see what upgrades he can give our current set ups once he is given the right access and tools.
We are going to wait a little while before that happens though. It's not that anyone doesn't trust Danny because they do. We just want to make sure it is for definite what Danny wants to do before we set everything up. Matthew is still a little bit stressed over what happened but my behavior towards him hasn't changed. I have to talk to him today, to see how he feels and again let him know that no one in this gang blames him for what happed. Deuce was a sneaky asshole and once again we have been left to deal with the consequences of his fuck ups. Asia left the room saying something about phoning Theresa and not waking Danny. I am pretty sure that Danny will be out for the count for the next couple of hours at least.
Speaking of Matt, I heard a light knock on the door and saw some of his curly hair poke through the opening of the door. It was only closed to, but I apricated the manners. "Hey Matt, you can come in. It's just me and an out for the count Danny," I tell him, and he walks in. Danny has only rolled over once so far and other than that must have been so exhausted he was just sleeping. "Everything okay?" Matt asks, as he sits on the edge of the bed. "Yeah just a rough night. He's alright otherwise," I tell him. Sometimes Matt worries a little too much, but that is okay because in this case it just means he cares a lot for his younger friend. "I suppose that is good, I thought he was having a hard time because of me honestly," he says. I seem to have become the gang's go to person at this point.
"Nope, not even in the slightest. Yes, this has been a huge adjustment for him, but he also understands how rough the impact of the betrayal has been on everyone especially you. No one blames you for what happened," I tell him. It makes take a few conversations like this for Matt to accept that as the truth, but he knows our attitude towards him hasn't changed and we have still been nice to him as we would naturally. The person who should be dealing with the consequences of all of this isn't here. Even if I hadn't made the decision to kick him out, he would have run away like the coward he is once we all found out about his shit. "There was literally nothing you could have done, Aron would have carried on regardless," I add.
"I suppose so. I just can't get rid of this feeling that everyone should be angry at me. I know I had nothing to do with what Aron has done, but I should have done more to have prevented it," Matt says. I am happy he is finally getting things off his chest. I have a feeling he has been wanting this conversation for a while now. Matthew was in charge of security of the cargo, and I knew he had done a very good job, it is just a shame that Aron was the one to steal from us because he knew all of that detail that someone from a different gang wouldn't have known. "I'll be honest Matt, if it was someone outside of this gang then it wouldn't have happened. Your security system was really tight and secure, it is just unfortunate that Aron took advantage of you and got into it," I tell him.
I bet that if Danny had the chance to get to grips with everything he would say how much of a good job Matt has done. "Yeah, I didn't really think about that. Even if he was working for someone else they would have made him do it since it would have been easier for him to have gotten access to everything," Matt says. I think it might be finally making sense to Matt a little bit. If he knows he isn't at fault and how easily Aron could have gotten the information he needed then there is less pressure for him to feel guilty about it. "Yeah, no doubt he will try and rear his ugly head again. We will deal with it though, even if we have to move again," I tell him. I want everyone to feel safe and happy in their life and even though we moved once already I know Aron will be working on trying to figure out where we are and if we don't make some changes soon he will get in easily.
"Yeah, I've already changed all the codes and will need to give everyone them. I will include Danny because I know there will not be much of a chance of him betraying us and I want him to feel more included," Matt says. I feel proud of him, he has been thinking hard about this over the last month and it shows he has made a lot of progress. We will see how it goes once Danny wakes up, I don't expect everyone to be given the new codes today, but I want to have those two work together. I still want Danny to see what Matt's security system is like without having the coded access for it first. It might make Matt feel happier if a very skilled hacker like Danny can't get into the system through his skills alone. I have to talk to them both about it maybe in the coming week to get them to agree on when and stuff.
Matt left and about another three hours later Danny woke up. I had turned on the TV and had the volume on low, but I had seen the show before, so it didn't really bother me that I had no sound. "Hey buddy, have a good sleep?" I ask, as Danny stretches and smiles. I am glad it looks like he has had a good sleep so far. He deserves some peace after everything that happened last night. "Hey George, I slept better than earlier thanks," he says. He has got incredible manners considering that I don't think they bothered with that sort of thing when he was growing up. Than again from what he said, he was with his parents for the first 7 years of his life. He will have some manners from that at least. "That's good, Matt was in here earlier and I think he might want to talk to you later," I tell him.
"That's good, I hope everything is alright. I didn't want him to be upset that I was brought in," he tells me. He is also very selfless and often puts the rest of the gang before himself. It is quite nice to see that he has fit in so well and it has been like he has been here this whole time. Vincent and Leo haven't bothered to ask how he is doing, but then again from everything I have learned in the last month I have begun to not expect it. After all everything I have learned so far has proven to me that they really didn't care about anyone but themselves. No gang should be able to survive like that, stepping on each other to get through the day. "He's not upset. He has been angry about what happened before you got here and thought you were having a hard time because of him," I tell him.
"It has been a lot to get used to, for sure. I know that Matt's behavior hasn't made it any harder for me to settle in. I came in at a bad time, but of course Patrick doesn't give two shits what anyone else is going through," Danny says. Yeah and it wasn't like they didn't know we were struggling at the time. I had to go about a week or two before Danny arrived to say give back what they wanted that Aron had stolen from them. They didn't seem too angry about that though which was good. We had a lot of people we had to fix our relationships with the other gangs we supply and get goods too. The devastation left behind was vast and it is still taking some time to fix everything and put it right again so that we have an income left.
"Definitely not, like I said before there are some worrying signs from those three. I think keeping our distance from them would be wise for now," I tell him. We don't necessarily need to contact them for any reason unless it is strictly for business purposes and we are still getting back on our feet, so that is not going to happen for a long while yet. Aron never dabbled in the drug side of the business, which has been the only reason we have continued for this long. We also had to make fast decisions when it all kicked off and we all agreed that losing the drug business was the least financially viable option, so Jordon and Dylan have bravely continued on for us. Now Danny has joined them, and it seems to be going well for the three of them.
"Yeah I don't plan on speaking to them any time soon," Danny replies. I wouldn't blame him if he went the rest of his life not seeing them again if he had the option too. If I had a shit time with someone I definitely would not choose to spend time with them willingly once the friendship had ended. We can all agree that we don't want to see Aron again after what he has done to us. Although having said that, I know some will want to rough him up for the pain that he has caused us. I had been debating whether or not I should stand by and let that happen should the time come, and ultimately I have decided they can do whatever they want, and I won't intervene unless they go too far, and he is about to die. I am not that cruel, even though I want him to suffer.
"Do you think you will be able to go out with Dylan and Jordon tonight?" I ask him. We were getting ready for the day as Danny has been awake for long enough now and we have some errands to do before tonight's drug run. "Yeah I should be fine, I think the rough night just made me a little over tired and now I have had some sleep I am alright," he tells me. I am glad that he is feeling alright, but I don't ever want him to feel like he has to say yes to me because he doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings. I want to give him the chance to be open and honest about his feelings and not feel afraid of people being disappointed in him unnecessarily. "Okay, only if you are sure Danny. I don't want you saying that because it will make me happy. I want you to be one hundred percent confident in yourself," I tell him.
"Don't worry George, I will be okay doing this tonight," he tells me, and I know he is being truthful with me. Right now though, we are going to get some lunch and we are going to go and look at getting Danny some new furniture for his room. We have been in the process of renovating the room once again. It has been quickly redecorated once Aron had left, but now that Danny is more settled he is asking to make it more personal to him. "That is alright then. Let's go and get some lunch out and then go and get the things we need for the room redecoration," I tell him. Well, technically speaking it is brunch for Danny, as he didn't have breakfast this morning and slept instead. It's only 1.30 pm right now, so it's not too late either.
I'm also giving Danny another chance to practice driving. He has his drivers permit, and I have done a few lessons with him at this point. The only thing he is struggling with more than anything right now is confidence. We are driving automatics, so the worry about changing gears has been removed. He has done really well with steering and making sure he follows the highway code at all times and has even not gone over the speed limit yet. "I take it I'm driving then?" Danny asks when I hand him the keys. I nod and I follow him out to what will eventually be his car. "Don't worry about it Danny, you're a good driver," I tell him. He's better than Dylan when Dylan first started, I think it took almost 6 months before anyone would get in the car with him.
The drive there was really smooth. Danny was getting more confident, but I know it is not going to be the same every time. It takes time and a lot of practice for him to become confident, he's only had a few weeks of lessons so far and the rest of us have been driving for years now. "See, like I said great driver," I tell him, as we get out of the car. He just shakes his head and smiles at me. I don't think he fully believes me on this just yet. He will one day, he is an amazing guy, and he just doesn't know it yet. One day the world will know how amazing Danny is, we just have to find the right time and place to do so, and it can't be related to gang life. Anyway our task right now is to find a good spot for lunch, even I am beginning to get hungry.
I don't mind where we go, as long as Danny is happy with it, and he chose McDonalds. We were gathering up a list of places where Danny hasn't been to and plan on taking him to visit these places. It turns out Danny has never been to any fast-food restaurant in his life which shocked Jordon. Jordon's favorite place in the whole world has to be Taco Bell. It might not be the best for your digestive system, but Jordon doesn't seem to be bothered by that particularly. I am going to leave that job up to Jordon though, I am more than happy to take Danny to any other restaurant. "Did Jordon really freak out when you told him I have never had fast food before?" Danny asks, we had ordered our food and had just sat down in the store to eat it.
"Yeah I have never seen him like that before. It's like you had told him that his favorite item from the menu had just been discontinued forever. At least you will know that he will be ready and willing to take you to Taco Bell whenever you wanted," I tell him. Danny nodded, but at the same time he seemed to be really enjoying his food at the moment. I don't blame him, some days you just really fancy a really good burger and fries. We enjoy the rest of our meal in a comfortable silence. After we finish our food it is time to go to some stores to see if we can find some inspiration for Danny's new room and the furniture to go with it. He has a rough idea on what he wants, but I told him it doesn't have to be a solid plan just yet and we can change it on the day.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Danny p.o.v
We have just entered Ikea, our mission this afternoon is to find some furniture and other things to decorate my room with. I have got to admit that I am a little intimidated by the sheer size of this place. I am not looking forward to the possibility of getting lost in here. I know to stick close to George, almost like I am a kid again, but I know in a busy store like this it can be easy to get separated. Once again I am left in charge of the cart as George guides me around the store, pointing out different items which could be used to redecorate my room. I have a color scheme for the walls, but not for the furniture. I suppose we could get some advice for that. So far all I have to go on is that the walls are red with a gold accent wall.
"Excuse me, we are looking for bedroom furniture that would look good with red walls. What color would you recommend?" George asks a worker he managed to flag down. I knew black would look good with the gold, we had figured that out once we saw some shelving units and had chosen a couple and put them in the cart. "Oh for red, cream would be the best," the worker says, and we thank them and go off to look for cream colored furniture. This would be things like the end tables, the dresser, and any other bedroom furniture I wanted. The way I have it planned is that the gold wall is going to be where my creative space is, so a desk and shelves would go against or on that wall. The rest of the furniture is going to be against the red.
I already have a bed I am pretty comfortable with, so actually a new bed frame isn't necessary. Neither is a new dresser come to think of it. I don't fancy spending time organizing all my clothes again, not after I had so many issues the first time around. I just couldn't understand what I was supposed to do. I had only a bag with a few items of clothing in before, and that was often stolen from me. They were always the cheapest kids clothes they could find, often donated because we were poor orphan children, so it didn't matter how long they lasted. "Right, so we don't need to get a new bed or dresser. That means just cream end tables, lamps, paintings, shelves, and anything else we might need," George says. I nod, we have the desk and the chair as well as some shelves for one side of the room.
Then somehow whilst looking at photo frames, I turned around and suddenly George wasn't standing right next to me anymore. The cart is still with me though, so I just put the frame that I was holding into it. I wasn't going to move either, George will remember which aisle I am in, and I don't want to get more lost trying to find him. I am not going to panic either because I know that is not going to help me find George in anyway. He might have seen something he wants to get, and I probably hadn't heard him over the noise of the crowd of people around us. I think I can walk down the aisle a little bit as long as I remember where the cart is. I can also see if I can spot George from either end of the aisle. I don't want to worry him though.
"Oh my gosh I am so sorry I should have looked where I was going," I say, I had walked into someone, and my reflexes meant that I had caught them before they had hit the floor. I also realized a little too late the stress of my situation meant my Irish accent had snuck back out in full force and I wasn't sure I was understood. I help the person back to their feet and let them go. When I look at them I am glad I wasn't about to talk because man oh man was she a pretty woman. "It's okay, I wasn't really paying attention either," she tells me. I am starting to think this is where it might get a little bit awkward. I have never been in a situation like this before, I don't know if I am reacting the right way or anything. Only one way to find out.
"I love your accent by the way, what's your name?" she asks me, this is where my accent is probably going to go back to the American one I have now. "Oh thanks, it's Danny. What's yours?" I ask. I don't want to mess anything up, I don't want things to go too quickly and for her to not want to talk to me. "Nice to meet you Danny, my name's Theresa," she tells me. A pretty name for a pretty woman I think. I felt calmer, but the accent was still there. It was just not as strong as it was when I apologized immediately after walking into her. We talk a little more, and then she decides she is going to give me her phone number, so that we could keep talking when I got home. I give her mine, I was still learning it though, but she didn't seem to mind.
We talked until George found us again. He look relieved to see me and we had stayed within the aisle I had gotten lost in. "Danny, thank god. I am so sorry I thought you were behind me," he says, and smiles at Theresa. It seems like they know each other, which I suppose is a good thing. I hadn't learned a whole lot other than she works as a nurse and she is one of 8 children. I had to lie a little bit about my past other than I am an orphan and I had grown up in a home with many other children. "It's okay, I think I got distracted too," I tell him. I don't want him to feel too guilty about it, these things happen sometimes. He puts his hand on my shoulder and nods towards Theresa. "Hey Reese, I see you've met Danny," he tells her.
"Hey George, yeah we sort of bumped into each other. Is he the new roommate Asia was telling me about this morning?" she asks, dang it Asia. I knew she was up to something this morning, when I was making a coffee she had this look on her face as if she was plotting something. "Yes, moved in about a month ago now. We were just shopping for some things for his room actually," George replies. At least I know that they get along with each other which is good for me if I want Reese to come over at any point as our friendship develops. They talked some more before we both had to part ways, we were almost done shopping and it was getting closer to Theresa's shift starting. "Once again I am so sorry that happened Danny, but I must say considering that it was an accident you handled it really well," he tells me.
I think about it for a second, I had been quite calm this whole time. Even when I bumped into Theresa I was still calmer than I thought I would have been in that scenario. "Thanks George, I just thought if I stayed here and stayed calm you'd remember that I was here with you last and come back and you did and I just happened to meet Reese too," I tell him, it was probably pretty obvious to him that I had seemed to have fallen for the young woman I had only just met. We had been taught the whole birds and bees thing when we were 12, but dating was strictly forbidden. They banned everything that they thought would turn us against them and make us work less efficiently for them. I don't know why they had told us all of that when we weren't allowed to do it ever.
We paid for the items we found and then got in the car when I drove us back home. George helped me get the stuff from the car into my room. I was going to try my best to do all of the building of the flat pack furniture myself, and then George was going to teach me how to put the shelves up tomorrow sometime. There won't be enough time tonight, I might be able to make the end tables and the start of the desk before dinner and then once we are done with dinner we are going out on the drug run. From my understanding we are just going to do deliveries to some of the other distributors who have been working hard for us over the last two or three months. By the time I got called for dinner I had only built one end table.
The instructions were more complicated than I first realized, but I know what to do tomorrow. I will finish building everything tomorrow morning or early afternoon, depending on when I wake up. I know I will go to bed quite late and depending on if I have any more nightmares will determine how much sleep I actually get in the end. Luckily it won't be too much later than 3 am that I actually end up going to bed because these jobs never take too much time. "Don't forget Danny if you ever want to come back before your done, just message me," George tells me, and I nod. I am grateful for that because it removes that pressure I have given myself stupidly that I have been transferred to a new gang and therefore I have to work hard straight away.
That is not how this gang operates and I have learned that over time. It still doesn't completely remove the training that I have received over my gang career this far. It's going to take a lot to learn all of the things that make this gang different from the Irish Warriors. "So a little birdy told me you met Theresa today," Asia says, and I shake my head. I wonder what Theresa has said about me to Asia since we met a few hours ago. I am not going to be nosey though, I doubt that there would be anything negative regardless. "Yeah, we might have bumped into each other at Ikea," I tell her. There isn't much I can tell her that either George or Theresa could have told her already. We met; we seem to be getting along well.
We were texting whilst I was building the furniture and she found my struggles to be pretty hilarious. It's like poor orphan boy doesn't know how to do DIY. I know if I said that in public that people would have an issue with it, but I am the kinda guy that likes humor involving insulting myself at the same time as making a joke. Asia and I didn't have long to talk about Theresa before we had to leave. I am sure in no time I am going to be lovingly teased by Asia about the possibility of being in love. She's always been that loving big sister figure to me. It's good since I haven't really had female role models since I was 7. We have had female gang members, but I have always been older than them and they've not lasted long.
I think we managed to beat our new record for the quickest batch of deliveries ever. Everyone was where they needed to be at the times we needed them there for and the handovers were the smoothest we had ever experienced. Somebody must have told them to stop fucking around with the undead because even Marcus who usually tries to haggle us down for a lower price didn't even attempt to argue with us when we said what our price was, and he just handed the money over. "There was something weird about tonight," Dylan says when we get into the car to go home. I nod in agreement; it is something we gotta tell George about. Either we got really lucky, or that something sinister is going on and they're just being nice before the blow comes.
After talking to George we decided that it was just our persistence paying off and that we were finally getting the respect that we were entitled too. No one was going to find good quality drugs at the prices we offer. We have been nothing if not consistent and pleasant with all of our exchanges even with Aron was trying to drag our names and our reputation through the mud. There was nothing he could do about me, outside of the Irish Warriors I am a newcomer unknown to the wider gang community. I didn't even have a name until George presented me with a golden mask and dubbed me Golden Beast and told me that will be my gang name from now on. I like it, it goes well with the theme of my mask and it's gonna stay.
And that is the end of another chapter, hope you enjoyed.
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