AN: I knew this chapter was coming, but I fought it so hard. I know Even Evil Has Loved Ones is a cliche so old it's practically a dead horse, but sometimes my plot bunnies and I don't see eye to eye. Sorry, guys.
Sometimes family wasn't blood related, it was purely those who cared. On that basis, a kind criminal named Sheridan had more of a right to be called Vlad's father than anyone else, living or dead. The fact of the matter was that Vlad's parents were a nightmare and a shadow while Sheridan was a creature of the night itself, who took him up in protective arms and hid him away from his father's wrath.
Sheridan was an unremarkable man, a touch short, thin, with his only distinguishing factor being a red scarf tied around his neck at all times. Later Vlad would learn it mean he was part of the Red Dragons, a local gang that ruled part of the city, later he'd learn this man robbed houses and ran numbers, but all he knew when he first met Sheridan was he was scared. His father had never hit him before, and the sting left one cheek red and swollen. Vlad had dashed out into the night at the kind of speed where everything rushed past in a blur, and kept going, a hysterical, sobbing mess, until he crashed into someone in an alley.
The next thing he knew someone was gently pressing snow against his cheek as he bawled like a baby. At six years old, he was far too old for such things. Sheridan told him to buck up as he listened, using swearwords Vlad had never even heard before to tell him that Vlad's father was awful and his mother should've said something. He asked the little boy where he lived only to get a fresh round of tears in response. Vlad didn't want to go back; who would? But it wasn't like Sheridan could just take the kid back to his apartment. This was a kid, not a stray dog. And so after some coaxing he guided Vlad back to his house, advising him to do one thing most kids didn't: once angry, stay angry.
Vlad didn't take his advice. He did manage to find Sheridan with a friend after robbing a house when walking home from school a week later, one eye black and bruised. The white haired man swore, smacked his own face with his palm, then signaled for Vlad to get in the van. Sheridan's friend thought it was the most hilarious thing in the history of the world, and recounted to an impressionable young Vlad how they'd robbed this place blind in eleven minutes flat. Sheridan kept interjecting stealing wasn't cool, until egged on into recounting some of his own ventures as a younger thief, and then he was in on it too. They emptied the stuff out at their apartment and while his friend ditched the car, Sheridan took Vlad right to the hospital for his injuries. He wanted to make some kind of abuse charge stick or at least scare Vlad's father senseless.
The red bruises and scratches didn't stay, and neither did the charges. Sheridan did, however, and that was enough for Vlad.
It wasn't just that Vlad was now a witness to a crime. He was a child, a little boy lost and overwhelmed by a man bigger than him. Vlad was bright, almost too smart for his own good, just without an anchor in life. Adrift, it was easy to see he was shutting down. He fell within himself in public, into the vast silences and staring of a child abused. In the presence of Sheridan he seemed to wake up, taking in the gifts and sights and trips together with wide eyes and a big smile of wonder. He was in love with the idea of life outside his house, life without boundaries, where people could stand up for themselves. He practically worshipped the ground Sheridan walked on, and over the years began to crash at the gang member's apartment when things were too rough back home.
At that rate it shouldn't have been too long before a red scarf or bandanna found its' way around Vlad's own neck. He was destined to end up in a gang. Under anyone else's mentorship maybe he might have, but Sheridan was not normal. His hair was white from stress, his eyes black pools, hands calloused, arms baring a litany of scars, and he had a tight grip when he wrapped his arms around Vlad and told him not to get involved with any of these people. He was too bright for that. Vlad didn't believe he was any smarter than anyone else. He did believe anything Sheridan said. And he said to keep fighting and stay angry, so Vlad tried to. He tried to believe he was worth something, he was worth the trouble Sheridan was going through of squirreling away money for college for Vlad and all the nights of pizza, Coke and bad cable movies. He felt worth it when he had his hair ruffled by Sheridan, that half-teasing gesture that came with a warm smile. He felt like he had a real father.
All it took to take Vlad from boy to man was Sheridan's murder. It was nothing personal, just a money murder, like anything else. But Vlad knew why Sheridan had enough money stashed up to even be a target: he had been keeping it for his 'kid', for the one person he took time to nurture instead of rob. They found the body by a walking path in a park, overlooking a river. His white hair had absorbed the vivid, searing red blood and retained it, the rain had made it pool, and the sight burned itself into Vlad's mind so deeply that then and there, he felt something inside break.
Stay angry, Vlad, and keep fighting.
He could do that. He would. He'd make his own way to college and one day he would come back and own this town, hunt down every possible suspect, be the rich man in a suit Sheridan assured him he would be. He had never wanted it before. Even when he lay at the feet of his father, shaking from being beaten, he'd never wanted to really destroy someone. He knew now what it meant to want revenge. Anger rushed into him like air. It taught him how to live, how to breathe, eat, how to feel without any real family left in this world. One day this was going to be the last thing some red bandanna wearing gangster saw before their life ended. He'd make sure of it.
First he had to get to college. Everything car related had been learned through Sheridan, and Sheridan had never been caught for anything major in the ten years Vlad knew him. So it should come as no surprise no one ever caught Vlad. The brakes on that red Jeep were cut like it was an accident, and the warm brown-red bricks of the college were staring down at him before he knew it.
Keep fighting, he thought to himself, and stay angry.
And yet, the world hadn't even gotten a glimpse of how angry Vlad could truly be.