Riding The Line

Chapter Three-Dumb Luck

Remember how I said that I hate surveillance? That hasn't changed since the last time we spoke.  Here I was, sitting in my car again. This time I was stationed in a parking garage across the street from a large apartment complex, one that Lester said looked very promising. It didn't seem too busy at the moment, but I was monitoring every single person that entered and exited, just to be sure.  The complex is a pretty high end place, somewhere you could definitely afford if you robbed banks for a living. 

At this point, I've been here for nearly three hours and I've seen nothing promising. Anyone unusual gets photographed and their pictured sent to Diego to see what they have on record. If anything didn't fit right, he'd sent it back to me. Unfortunately, its been a slow day and everyone we've pulled up is not working. 

It's hard to not get distracted and start daydreaming when you're doing something like this. My mind wants to focus on more important things whenever I sit in one place for hours on end. That defeats the whole purpose of what I'm doing though, so it helps that I've cut out pretty much anything fun from my life. Not that what I do isn't fun, because there's nothing like the thrill of getting into a gunfight, or running from the cops. Normal fun never really worked for me, and now it's just a distraction. You can say thats boring or sad if you like, but that's my life. I love what I do. 

Sometimes I like to think about my family when I do things like this, not because it makes me happy, but it reminds me of how far I've come and why I do what I do. If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be here, which is a statement you're welcome to take any which way you want to. But thoughts of them leave fairly quickly. I learned a long time ago the less I think about it, the better. 

-- --

"RYAN! HURRY UP!" Ryan barely flinched at Micheal yelling downstairs because let's be honest, it's a pretty natural occurrence.  He had a tendency to get a little loud at every inconvenience, but that was just Micheal. He's from New Jersey, can you blame him? But Ryan wasn't going to listen for the moment. He was currently standing in front of his bathroom mirror yet again, staring at himself. He'd been a bit introspective as of late, and Ryan couldn't think of a better way to figure out why other than more introspection? 

So far, he hadn't figured anything out. Maybe there was nothing to figure out, and he was just getting into his own head, but maybe there was something that was eating at him. It's not that he was unsatisfied with his life, because he couldn't imagine anything better. He knew from a young age that he wasn't like everyone else, and a mundane life with a regular job and a regular family just wouldn't cut it. He needed something exciting, something interesting. A life of crime was something that always intrigued him, kept him entertained. And then when he found the rest of the crew, struggling to make something of themselves, he finally understood why everyone else wanted a family. This was his family. He'd never had anything that he wanted to protect and take care of like his friends.  

"What's taking you so long, huh?" Ryan heard Micheal from down the hall. He wanted  to walk out and answer him, but his feet wouldn't budge. He turned to the doorway as Micheal walked up and leaned against it. Micheal opened his mouth to speak, but stared at Ryan instead. His face softened.

"What's up man? You good?" Micheal asked.

Ryan nodded. He felt the need to explain himself, but he didn't. Instead, he just put his hand on Micheal's shoulder for a moment. 

"Let's go," Ryan said after a couple seconds. Micheal nodded slowly, utterly confused about what just happened. Ryan's emotions were not locked away in a safe, but rather sit underneath a think layer of ice. To get to them, you have to break through a cold, solid layer to reach any sort of warmth. Even then, Ryan has outbursts of feelings every once and a while when the ice gets too thin, but it usually came late at night or when he actually drinks, not in the middle of the day.  If it were anyone else, Micheal would be fairly concerned, but since it was Ryan, he wasn't exactly sure what to say.