Thieves

Chapter 14

Dez came in a while later after Gloria had calmed down. “I saw Scar earlier! He said he was going to come here!” she said happily before then stopped and looked around in confusion. “Where is he?”  Her happiness faded as she realized that he wasn’t there.

Gloria stood and went over to the little girl, picking her up, glancing at Gray. “Dez, Scar won’t be coming home for a while. He has things to do and can’t stay with us,” she said gently, trying to get her to understand without upsetting her. “He’ll be back someday. We just don’t know when.”

Dez looked at her for a moment, thinking about it. “Really? Are you sure?” she asked after she decided that she mostly believed Gloria. “Will we see him once in a while? Will he come and visit?”

“Of course he will, sweetie,” Gloria said, smiling slightly at her. “He would never leave us alone for too long.” Her words were a lie as far as she knew. If Scar came back, she would give him a piece of her mind and she was sure that Gray would too. Neither one of them were very happy with him at the moment. They weren’t going to let Nath and Dez see that if they could get away with it, though.

Gray nodded quickly in agreement. “I talked to him too. He’ll be back,” he said as Nath walked in. His eyes went quickly to the blond boy. He would have to handle him a lot differently than Gloria had handled Dez. “Nath… I need to talk to you. Come on.” He walked towards the door and motioned for Nath to follow him.

Nath glanced between the three of them. “What’s going on?” he asked, instantly on his guard. He had seen Scar earlier and he wasn’t there now. It was all confusing in his mind. When he added that to the feeling of the mood in the room, it didn’t add up. Something was wrong.

Gray rolled his eyes. “That’s what I want to talk to you about. Come on. Something’s happened,” he said simply, opening the door and waiting for Nath to go through it first.

Dez looked up at Gloria. “It’s nothing bad,” she said quietly. “So why can’t we just tell him?” She tilted her head to the side, curious to why they were treating Nath differently than her.

Gloria put a finger to her lips to let Dez know to be quiet for now, not wanting Dez to alert Nath any more that something was extremely wrong in the house. He was already going to flip when he found out.

Nath shot a glare towards the girls. “What is going on?” he repeated loudly, not liking the way things were going. They were keeping something from him.

Gray grabbed his arm and pulled him out of the shed before things got out of hand. No need for a fight to break out in that little bit of space. “Come on. I’ll tell you,” he said simply, closing the door behind them.

Nath jerked his arm away from Gray once they were outside and folded his arms across his chest. “What’s going on? I have every right to know!” he snapped childishly, tired of them dancing around the subject. He wasn’t a child. He had a right to know.

Gray frowned slightly. “You’re going to have to promise to stop yelling and snapping at me. You’re probably scaring Dez,” he said, watching the younger boy carefully. He knew what would happen if he didn’t handle this right. Nath could very well run off if he got too angry.

The blond boy sighed before taking a deep breath, getting his emotions to simmer down a little bit. It wasn’t much but it would do for now. “Fine. What are you keeping from me?” he said, sounding annoyed but not actually snapping now.

“Well Scar came by earlier today. I don’t know if you saw him or anything but he isn’t coming home for a while. I ran into him earlier and he came here and explained things to Gloria. He’s going to take care of us. He just can’t be here while he does that,” he explained gently. He didn’t want to set the other boy off. “The police are still after him and all so he didn’t want to endanger us. Understand?”

Nath grimaced as he listened. “Why? He’s always protected us before by staying with us. And the police have always been after us. I don’t understand why he would change all of a sudden,” he said.

Gray shrugged. “I guess they’re close to him than they ever have been before so he doesn’t want them to get close to us. I know you might be able to handle running from the police all the time but Dez is too young for that,” he said. He made it sound like he depended on Nath a lot more than he actually did. He just needed him to handle this with at least a partial level head. An angry Nath was not something they could handle at the moment.

Nath bit his lip, thinking it through. “Okay then. But why didn’t he stay here and tell us this all himself? Surely he would have wanted to tell us all this to our faces,” he said. He wasn’t making this easy.

“Probably because it was hard enough for him to leave us without having to see all of us while he was leaving. You know how much it has to hurt him by leaving us,” Gray said simply. This had to end or he would slip up and tell Nath something that he really didn’t need to know.

Nath finally nodded. “Ok… If anything else happens with him will you tell me? I don’t want to be the only one not knowing,” he said, looking at Gray. He hated being clueless. It made him angry and then he tended to blow up. He admitted that he had anger management problems. He would never deny it.

Gray smiled in relief and nodded. “Sure. I promise,” he said simply. He opened the door to the shed. “Now let’s go inside and get something to eat.”

(I'm so sorry I haven't updated in forever! Please forgive me! My computer was broken and I couldn't do anything. So if you are still interested please comment/vote/fan. ~Cajun)