Love, loathe, betrayal - a gang story

Chapter 8

It turns out the trailer park I was originally taken to, that my brother practically lives at, isn't that far away from our house. Me and Will walked home and we came up with a plan that I stayed at Layla's last night as an excuse for why I didn't come home. The plan goes - well to plan and my mum believes me and I go straight to my room to get changed and have a shower to scrub off the dirt physically and metaphorically. Images of the previous two days keep flooding my memory, I push them down but they keep emerging like someone trying to get a wasp out of their bedroom, except my thought is the wasp - keep coming back in no matter how hard I try to keep it out!

I toss and turn the whole night but not from my usual demons, the ones of my dad and his death, this time it's what happened to me and that I have to keep quiet about it. At around 3am I had, had enough and throw my covers off me and strut to Wills room. I open the door and hear his light snores, I sit in the end of his bed and gently shake him awake. He sits up groggily and rubs his eyes "Flo, what's wrong?" "I can't sleep, I keep... thinking about stuff" I say hesitantly, he tosses his covers off himself  and gestures for me to get on. I clamber into his warm sheets and snuggle close to him. Wills room is considerably small compared to mine and his desk sits neatly in the corner of his room with his PC positioned in the middle. "Do you actually still go to uni?" I ask breaking the silence, "sometimes" he says simply not opening his eyes "what did you mean when you said you'd avenge me?" I ask "Walter won't get away with this," he murmurs. "What are you going to do?" I ask "I don't know yet, don't worry nothing like that will ever happen again" he says finally opening his eyes. Something he says fills me with relief "thank you," just as I got comfy his phone starts ringing, he groans and picks it up. "Hello, yeah, really again? Fine I'll be right there." He hangs up the phone and gets out of bed "where are you going this time of night?" I question "when the gang need me, they need be and I be there" he says pulling his black jeans and navy blue hoodie. "Can I come?" I ask before I can think about it "no!" He says sternly "why not?" "It's too dangerous, you can stay sleeping in here if you want, I hopefully won't be gone long" "why do you need to go?" I ask a little disappointedly "one of the guys, Clayton has gone missing. Again, they need my help to look for him" he explains. The name rings a bell. He's the one I ran into and knocked over in the woods when I was running. I sit upright and take the covers off me. "Where do you think he's gone?" I ask and Will shrugs "clay has urm, a reputation for running off. Do you know the saying 'I didn't chose the gang life, the gang life chose me' well yeah that's Clayton, he thinks he's bloody immortal and we have to protect him, he's the youngest but when his head is in the game he's one of my best men!" He explains. "If he doesn't like it can't you just let him go?" I question "our numbers are suffering as it is but more importantly he has now where else to go, both his parents are dead and other than Seb he has no other siblings that I know off. And with the Luxe's after us he'd have no chance on his own." My heart aches for him "well if I come I can help you look for him?" I say hopefully "it might be a trap, he might have been taken I don't want to have to worry about you too!" He exclaims "now I really have to go." With that he leaves closing the door behind him leaving me in the dark.