{ON HOLD} Where My Loyalties Lie (Vanoss Crew Fanfic)

Chapter 13

"What?!" I sputtered, abruptly standing up. "There's no way I'm teaching you how to kill!"

Alice looked up at me, frowning; her eyes shone with innocence. She scrunched up her eyebrows in thought. "Why? It's not like there human anymore. That's what my parents told me. You know, I would've thought that you would be more supportive of this."

Wow, I thought, for a soon to be ten year old, she has really good vocab. With a jolt, I realized that this was the first time that Alice had mentioned her parents to me since I had taken her from Speedy's base. Perhaps they're alive!

First things first though, Evan, I thought as I crouched down in front of Alice, who had crossed her arms. She was obviously not happy with my decision. "Kiddo, listen," I started, "my answer is no." She started to protest, but I held out my hands to stop her. "Alice, you're way too young to start learning to kill. You're not even ten yet, and I don't think you or me are ready for this. Okay?"

She averted her eyes from mine, promptly landing on my old owl mask from the normal days. "Yeah," she answered glumly with her head hung low, "I understand."

I reached out with my hand and tilted her chin up. "Come on, Alice. There's no need to get depressed over it. We'll keep you safe here in the HQ, and maybe when you're older I'll teach you to fight, but until then..." That made me pause for a moment; I'd teach her when she was older? I realized that I hadn't put much thought in our future. I had been too busy worrying about the 'now'; would we survive long enough for me to teach Alice how to fight?

"Okay Evan." Alice said, tearing out of my thoughts.

Giving her a small smile, I replied, "Alright then. Go and find Mae or Brock; I'm sure that they can find something to do with you. Okay?" Alice nodded again, gave me a quick hug and ran out of my room. Once she had left, I sat down on my bed, sighing. Running a hand through my damp hair, I thought, Man, taking care of and talking to people is exhausting! I took a look at the clock I had mounted on the wall of my bedroom; it read – 5:12. I groaned; we usually ate dinner at 5:45, so that meant that if I actually wanted to look like a normal human being at dinner, and not like a sleep deprived (which I was) dumpster diving hobo (which I was not), I would have to go to sleep right then. Heaving another sigh, I crawled under the covers of my bed and was out before David could say "potato."

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I awoke to the sound of someone quietly knocking on my bedroom door. Groggily, I rolled over onto my side to look at the clock – 5:29. I groaned. "Why is everyone bothering me?" I muttered as I rolled out of bed. The person outside my room knocked again as I was searching for my shirt. Not finding it, I thought, Ah, fuck it and told whoever was outside to come in.

The door opened and Bobby slowly stepped into the room, freezing when he saw me shirtless. "Uh... do you want me to wait outside or something?"

I waved him off. "Nah, it's fine. Besides, you've come here to talk, not to fuck, right? At least I hope you did." I motioned for Bobby to close the door behind him.

"Okay..." Bobby replied, closing the door. "Well, yeah, I wanted to talk to you." I could see that he was nervous about the thing he wanted to talk to him about; he was twitchy and was sweating. I motioned for him to continue. "Um... it's kind of about me and Haley." For a split second, my mind froze because I thought that he had come here to talk to me about the little "looks" I had been recently giving Haley (which I wasn't proud of), then reminded myself that he was the nervous one here, not me. Keep your cool I thought as I straightened up. If he came here to talk about that I think he would've already flipped his shit. "I was just wondering if... if Haley and I could, um, work together on more shifts... Vanoss."

I burst out laughing. This was what he was so nervous about! Getting more shifts with Haley! Bobby gave me a confused look, which just caused me to laugh even harder. "What's so funny?!" Bobby kept asking as I sat there cracking up.

After I calmed down, I replied, "Man, this was what you were so nervous about?! I see you all twitchy and sweating buckets, giving me the impression that you're about to say that you've accidentally killed one of my crew members, and then you come out and say that all you want is more shifts with Haley! Man that is funny." I shook my head in disbelief. "You know what, sure. Go ahead."

"Thanks Vanoss, you won't-"

"However," I interrupted, standing up and walking over to him, "I'll always have someone else from my crew to be there with you. You can have more shifts with her, but I want to make sure that you're staying on task and not running off and fucking each other. Understood?" He nodded as he slowly turned red. "Good. Now get the hell out of my room; I need to get changed before dinner."

Later, after Bobby had left and dinner had been concluded (it was Ryan and Jonathan's turn to cook so dinner was awesome), I went upstairs to the penthouse of the apartment building; my old penthouse. After the outbreak hit and we had constructed our base, I had decided to move down to the third floor with everybody else. That was because: a) it didn't feel right for me to have a big penthouse with plenty of room and luxuries while the rest of the crew had to deal with regular old apartments and b) it was just easier and safer for me. If I stayed in my penthouse, I would have to walk all the way up to the top of the building if I wanted to get something from my room or go to bed, so staying on the third floor with everyone else was just more convenient. Also, it was the fact that I was with everybody else that made the situation safer; if someone was attacked, then we could all get help to them quicker.

Even though I had moved out, I had left most of my possessions in the penthouse, including my telescope (I didn't really have time for that anymore), movies – and my dad's book. He had given it to me four years ago when he had come to visit me from Canada. Dad had known about my criminal life and wasn't happy about it, but after viewing the situation in Los Santos, reluctantly gave me his "approval." He had handed the book to me at the airport, right before he had to leave for his flight. "Son," I remember him saying, "I don't exactly approve of what you're doing. It's illegal and dangerous. But I've seen how Los Santos really is, and how you have to be to get ahead, so if this is what does that, then you have my consent. All I want is the best for you." He rummaged through his bag and pulled out a worn and weathered book – his favorite one. "Here, take it." When I started to protest, he just said, "Take it. If you have a tough situation on your hands that requires a lot of thought, just sit down with this book and read through it. I'm sure that this will help." My dad pressed the book into my hands; I silently stared at it. After a moment, I looked up with tears in my eyes.

"I love you Dad," I said choking up. I knew that this book was my dad's favorite thing in the world, and the fact that he wanted to give it to me meant so much.

"Love you too." Dad replied, drawing me into a hug. We stayed that way until we heard the announcement for his flight. He pulled out of the hug; patting my shoulder, he said, "Remember son, don't get caught."

I smiled. "I'll make sure to do that." I stuck out my hand for a handshake, which he took. "Until next time, Dad."

"Until next time." Those were the last words he said to me for the past four years, and as I now stood in my apartment with his favorite book – A Painted House by John Grisham – I recalled what he had told me about tough situations and how to deal with them. Well, I'm in a tough situation, that's for sure. So, I took the book, running my hand over the worn cover and walked out the door of my penthouse. I ended up in the living room and, finding it empty, sat down in one of the couches in the corner of the room, by window. I got comfortable, opened the book, and began to read.

Sup everybody. How's everyone today? So this was a relatively short chapter in comparison to my other ones (It was only 1552 words long), but I wanted to get something in because I'm gonna be busy next week. But anyways, I hope you enjoyed this chapter and I'll see you in the next one. Peace.

P.S. - I've read A Painted House and I found it pretty good. I think you guys should give it a read. (But then again my sister said it was boring so maybe you shouldn't.)