Disclaimer: The character Rafe Edwards is the creative property of me, as is Stress, Dice, Switch and various other characters. The character Jack Kelly (among others) is the property of Disney. The words following each chapter heading are from the Bryan McFadden song, "Demons in my Dreams" and are used in order to help create the context in which the plot was conceived.

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DEMONS IN MY DREAMS

Have you ever been lost in a different world?

Rafe Edwards is a leader eager to try his luck out at going straight.
What happens when his gang wasn't what he thought it was?
Or his newfound loyalties are questionable?

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IV. ENTER LOKI
I searched my world but I can't find you.
You're standing there but I can't touch you.

Dice's first day on the crate had been a good one. Though there had been a slight hum of conversation on the topic of Rafe, none of the boys had the nerve to be the first to approach him on the subject. Instead, they all, one by one, wordlessly handed their earnings over to Dice. For they knew, as it was and always had been, the man on the crate had the power. And Dice, he loved that power.

As a tall shaggy haired boy with a large nose slouched his way over to Dice and placed fifty-three cents and a gaudy ring into Dice's waiting palm, Dice smirked haughtily as he shook his hand up and down, slowly, as if weighing it's contents. "Pretty good job today, Riff. I'm proud of ya," he said before hanging the ring back to Riff. According to the rules of the Wraiths, instituted by Quick and adopted by Rafe, anything a Wraith took that wasn't food or money, it was theirs to keep without the boss taking their cut and distributing it out among the others.

"Sure thing, boss," Riff gruffly replied before walking over to where Rhys and Jax were playing a game with cards. Boss, I like the sound of that, Dice thought as he began to nod to himself, taking a head count of all the boys who had returned to their hideout for the night; when he had finished, he determined that they were all there sans for one. As it was, it was almost time to divvy out the day's earnings - Rafe usually split the takings after the nighttime boys got back. Dice slid off of the crate and, lifting it up slightly, he added Riff's contribution to the money in the center, all the while thinking about how he would get a majority of the profits without leaving the warehouse once. He smiled widely to himself before turning his thoughts to, for the umpteenth time that afternoon, Rafe and his hasty decision to take off. What were you thinking, Boss?

Shaking his head slightly, Dice let the crate fall back down to the floor and sat back upon it just as he heard footsteps approaching his corner. From the head count he had taken a moment earlier he knew that it was the last of the gang to arrive: Loki Wares.

At sixteen, the towheaded boy was the youngest, and newest, member of the Wraiths. Tall and thin, with longish sandy-colored hair and grey eyes, Loki had been a huge find of Rafe's.

"Hey, boy. Get back here."

Loki turned around and stared blankly at the short, dark-haired man who was standing at the corner. Rolling his eyes Loki recognized the man as Nero Rassi, the sleaziest and most well-known master of the nightwalkers off of Duane Street. "What do you want, Nero," he called out, knowing full well why the twenty-year old was harassing him yet again.

"You know what I want, Loki. You took something from me and I have yet to get my money off of you."

Loki sighed and leaned against the front door of the closed eatery. "I haven't seen your whore in weeks, Nero. And, I'm telling you again – if she wanted to go with me and my brother, then I ain't paying for nothing."

Nero slid forward until he was standing right next to Loki. As he began to poke Loki on the chest, he said, "That bitch is my property. Anytime she sleeps with anyone, whether it's her choice or not, I get paid for it. Just because you and your scumbag brother convinced her to spread her legs without handing over the dough first doesn't mean it ain't gonna cost ya."

"My, my, my, Nero. I though that after our last chat you would have learned to treat those poor girls of yours with some respect."

Momentarily forgetting about Loki, Nero ran his hands across his slick black hair before whirling around and grinning at a shadowed figure. "Rafe, that you? Didn't see you standing over there. Shouldn't you be watching over your gang or something?"

The figure took a step forward so that he was standing under a streetlight. Then, the flickering flame glinting off of the blade that he tossed nonchalantly from one hand to the next, Rafe nodded. "Well, Nero, all of my boys are in for the night, so I figured that I would head out for some air. Good thing I did, too. Seems like you forgot that lesson me and Quick taught you last time we met."

Nero, shedding his oily manner as if a second skin, decided to adopt a more sympathetic attitude. "Ah, Quick. Good man. Such a shame what happened. I'm sorry for your loss, Rafe."

Loki, who hadn't been paying a lick of attention to Nero once he had started to prod his chest, looked up sharply when he heard Nero's hurried apologies. However, Nero's ramblings ceased when Rafe's mouth slid into a frown and his right hand gripped the blade.

"Yeah, well, Rafe, it's been nice talking with you again. I, uh, I gotta go back and make sure that all of my girls are being taken care of good," he stammered, recognizing the expression on Rafe's face. It was the same look he wore right before he and Quick beat the living tar out of Nero when they spotted him raising a hand to one of his girls on the street.

Rafe watched Nero scamper away before palming his blade and walking towards Loki. "Hey, there. He didn't get none of his grease on ya, did he?"

Loki raised an eyebrow at the older boy and smirked. So, this is Rafe? "Nah, he's harmless, anyway. Though," Loki paused as he withdrew a chain from his pocket and laughed, "his jewelry is awfully nice."

Rafe joined in with Loki's laughter as he slipped his blade back into his pocket and reached his hand out for the chain. "Did you get this off of that pimp without him knowing?"

Got ya hook, line and sinker. "Damn, right. It's what I do," Loki shrugged, hiding a smile at how easily he read the boy, as he dropped the chain into his waiting hand.

Rafe turned the necklace over in his hand giving Loki a view of a pale pink scar, just past healing. So, it really is Rafe, Loki thought to himself, slightly surprised. For some reason, he thought the leader of the Wraiths would have been bigger. "Really," began Rafe as he hesitantly handed back the chain, "If that's the case, then you could be the best pickpocket around since my old pal Quick took up the sport. Hey, let me ask you a question, pal. Have you ever heard of the Wraiths?"

Loki's sideways grin answered the question for him.

"Hiya, Loki. What do you got for me?" asked Dice, his hand outstretched, his face, shadowed by his derby, twisted into a greedy smile.

Loki looked down at Dice, who was sitting on the old, splintered, wooden crate as if it were a golden throne and he the king, and smirked. He hadn't expected to see that Rafe had left his crate so soon, but he was not surprised; Loki had begun to wonder if his persistent questions about Quick and side comments about the luxury of life on the street were just passing right over Rafe's head, instead of urging him to make for the street himself. No, what was a bigger surprise to him was that it was Dice who had taken up the crate. Did they realize how easy they just made everything for him? As his smirked faded into a slight, amused grin, Loki simply replied, "Nothing."

That one word being uttered caused a hush to fall over the dusty warehouse. As all of the others looked over to see how the new boss would react to this act of defiance, Dice calmly stood up from the crate. Then, placing a booted foot onto the top of the crate, and resting his arms on his knee, Dice shook his head at the year younger boy. "Loki, I know you've only been here with us for 'bout a month or so, but I feel that I ought to set you right. You see, I'm the boss. I sit on the crate, I keep watch over the warehouse, I get the loot. You," he continued, removing his right hand from his knee in order to gesture towards Loki, "go out and run the business with the others. Then you give me the money and we're all happy. Got me? Now, I'll ask you again: What do you got for me?"

There was a moment of silence that followed Dice's words that was only broken when Loki rustled around in his pants pocket and slowly pulled out a thin piece of metal attached to a black handle. The blade, slightly crusted with the blood that he had failed to wipe off after its last use, moved fluidly from this hand to that as Loki, in a mockery of Rafe's own habit of tossing his virgin blade, smiled at Dice once more. "Nothing."

--

"Hey, pal, what you doing standing out here? How's Hope?"

Rafe slowly spun on his heel. "Hey Cowboy, Miss," he nodded when he saw both Jack and Stress approaching, hand in hand, the Bottle Alley Home. "Can't honestly tell ya how the kid is. Some sort of guard is standing in the front lobby and she ain't lettin' no boys inside, except for that old man. Not that I think she'd let you in, Cowboy, even if you were a gal. That dame seems to have it in for ya."

Jack rolled his eyes as Stress let out a snort. "That would be Rae," she said with a smirk before pushing past Rafe. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go see how Kloppman is handling Hope."

Rafe threw his hands up in the air and stepped aside as Stress hurried past him and entered the building. "You got yourself a feisty one there, Cowboy," he said as he jerked his thumb in the direction she had gone.

"Yeah, she is," replied Jack as he pulled out a cigarette, lit it and placed it on his lip. "And, because you're new around here, I'm gonna hip you to the way things work around here. Ya see," he began, taking a puff on his cigarette and ignoring Rafe's annoyed expression. For the second time that day someone assumed that he was a schmuck who had no idea to how the world worked. After Jack let out a mouthful of smoke, he continued, "Stress is my girl. If you want to talk to her out on the street and all, go right ahead, but remember – she's spoken for."

Resisting the urge to yell out that he was not interesting in the girl, Rafe just nodded. "I got ya, Cowboy. I, you know, just wanted to ask her and her little friend where a good place to spend the night was. I couldn't get the two of them to give me an answer, so I talked to some kid, Switch. He sent me on my way to Duane Street."

Jack took another drag off of his cigarette before tossing it to the ground and using the tip of his boot to put it out. "I don't mean to sound all protective or nothing, but I can't be too careful with all these attacks you know. This is the fourth one in Manhattan this week. Though," Jack said looking past Rafe and towards the lit Bottle Alley Home, "this is the first attack where one of us might not make it."

Rafe took a step back and ran his hand through his dark hair. Four? There have been four attacks this week alone? "Hey, Cow—," he began but stopped when a girl, near on twenty, with long dark hair, slowly exited the building, pausing before approaching the two boys.

"Angel," Jack said, recognizing the girl as a newsgirl who was very close to Hope, "how is she?"

Angelstar shook her head slowly and, under the flickering lamplight, both Jack and Rafe could see tears in her brown eyes.

"Shit," Jack exclaimed as he pushed past Angelstar and ran up the steps into the Bottle Alley Home, leaving Rafe with the girl, tears silently streaming down her own newsprint smudged face. Rafe knew where he was going – surely Stress and the other girls he knew wouldn't be taking this well. As he watched Jack disappear inside the entrance, he couldn't bring himself to look at Angelstar, who had sat down on the first step to the building, as if her world had forever changed - and it had with the loss of a girl she saw as her little sister. And, as Rafe stuck his hands in his front pocket and thought of the young girl he had encountered out selling, mere hours earlier, her life cut short with a swipe of a Wraith blade, he couldn't help but think that he should have prevented all of this.