Gangs of Emberlyn Chapter 26 - New Home
William awoke to find himself lying flat in the back seat of a car. The sun was hitting his skin as he raised his arm to block it out.
"Where am I?" he grumbled as he slowly sat up.
He rubbed his eyes as he looked around. William was lying in the back seat of a car. He was wondering how he was in a car when his memory kicked in, as flashes of Jack appeared in his vision.
"No," he croaked as tears started to form in his eyes, but he held them back as he shook his head.
I must move forward, he thought. I must pull myself up and go forward in life, for life. I can't let other people suffer the same way Jack has suffered.
He heard a buzzing noise that came from his pocket. He reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. There were multiple messages from his sisters and his mom.
"Where are you?" The text from his mother read. "I'm not mad. I just want to know that you are safe."
The other text messages from his sisters were similar, except for the fact that they made it sound like he had committed a grave crime. If only they knew what he really did.
I should respond to my mom.
"Hey, Mom," the text began. "I meant to text you, but I fell asleep earlier than expected. I am staying with a friend that you haven't met yet. I might stay over here until Monday. Just living free before my club, Rageblitz, starts having games on the weekends."
He hit send and placed his phone back in his pocket as he looked out the window of the car.
"Where am I?" William thought as he opened the car door. He stepped out and shut the door behind him, looking around slowly. He seemed to be in a small town. In the distance, the main city of Emberlyn was visible. He turned and saw the other side of the city as well. He was apparently on the outskirts of Emberlyn, where the city curved around this place in a crescent shape, surrounding the small settlement on three sides. Trees surrounded the area, making it feel almost like it was set in a park.
He turned his head back toward the town. Well, "town" wasn't really the right word. It was little more than five buildings clustered together. A narrow road led from the cluster to the main road. A sign stood nearby, covered with a tarp. Farther up the side road sat the five buildings, arranged in the shape of five on a die. The one on the right appeared to be a slightly rundown bar. To the left was a rundown restaurant with a broken window. Slightly farther back in the middle stood a small three-story hotel with maybe five rooms on each floor. Two more buildings stood behind it, but before William could look any further, he heard footsteps approaching him.
"Good morning, boss," the voice said.
William turned around to see that Felix had stopped behind him.
"Where are we?" William asked.
"This is our new base and place of operations," Felix exclaimed with a smile. "It's a little rundown due to the location. It sits between the border of the Shadowfire and Darklash gangs. They used to constantly clash here, which is why the sale for this place was low until I bought it a couple of hours ago while you were sleeping. Since it's at the border, the gangs shouldn't mess with us, as they won't know if we belong with the other or not. The place is in Marvin's name, but it's ours." He looked at the blood on William's clothes. "How are you doing?"
"I'm doing okay, I guess," William answered.
"Why don't you take a shower and change?" Felix suggested. "You have the bar and restaurant at the front. We don't have the resources for the restaurant, so we will have to refurbish the bar and let the restaurant be for now. Once the bar is refurbished, we'll be in business. The hotel needs fixing up, and we'll do that after the restaurant is operational. There are two buildings at the back. The one on the right is a dojo. We can use that to train. The one on the left farther back will be our headquarters. It's fixed up and refurbished. I wouldn't describe it as 'nice,' but it'll do. There are meeting rooms on the first floor, but there are living quarters on the second floor. Pick an open room and make sure you take the keys that are on the counter in the room. I need to go check on Marvin at the bar. When you're done, come to the bar."
With that, Felix walked away toward the bar like it was no big deal.
This is ours, William thought. I know we took the money from the Shadowfire gang's building, but that shouldn't have been enough to buy these two buildings. Was the owner that scared that he sold it for cheaper? Did Felix have some sort of payment plan going on and he got the rest of the money? Anyway, I should get cleaned up. The smell of blood is starting to get to me.
William started to walk toward the building at the back, which was the headquarters. As he was walking there, he continued to look around at the new property that Felix had fought for their little group. It was a nice little piece of territory since their gang didn't even have a name yet. He finally arrived at the entrance of what looked like a mix of a modern two-story office building and a nice big house.
He pulled open the wooden door and found himself in a lobby-type area. There were chairs, tables, and couches. There was a receptionist desk about three-fourths of the way back. On the sides, there were mini offices and meeting rooms. There was a staircase right behind the receptionist desk that went straight up to the second floor. When he got to the second floor, it looked like a floor of a hotel, except instead of keycard readers, there were just lever door handles. He went down both directions, and the rooms went over the office rooms and the lobby, so those two hallways had nice glass windows. The middle rooms that were connected to the staircase went back.
William went back to the staircase, but while he was walking around, he noticed that the hallway with the stairs had three rooms. The left and right doors were closed while the middle door that was directly in front of the stairs said Reserved for William.
"So much for pick an open room," William muttered as he entered.
His mouth opened slightly as he entered the room. It looked to be a small two-story apartment where the floor of the second floor only went out halfway. On the other side, there were big glass windows. On the top of these windows, there appeared to be two machines. One was halfway down, and it was roller shades, which are used to block out the sun. There was another machine that was attached to the ceiling, and it looked to be a rolling shutter, which is metal that rolls down for protection, which seemed to be on both sides.
"Must be gang territory," William muttered as he continued to look at his apartment.
The second floor that he was on had a small kitchen and a dining room table. William walked down the small stairs on the right wall, and on the ground floor next to the window was a living room with a TV. Now, underneath the second floor was walled off with a set of doors. William opened the door to find himself in a bedroom with a desk on the left side and a small bathroom on the right side.
"This is nice!" William said as he entered his bathroom.
On the sink counter was a pair of clean clothes: a pair of grey baggy pants and a plain grey t-shirt with socks and underwear.
They're in my size, he thought as he looked at the tags on the clothes.
He proceeded to take a nice long shower to clean the blood off of his body. When he was done, he put on his clean clothes. He opened the door to find himself face to face with Amelia.
"Whoa!" she said as she quickly turned around.
"I'm fully clothed," William said as he walked around her.
"Eh, sorry," she said sheepishly as she looked around William's room. "Felix said you were here, but your door was open. I heard the shower running, so I came down to see if you had a trespasser in your room."
"Oh, I didn't get my keys," the Felkin said as he started to spin in the gaming chair at the desk. "I was too busy admiring the place."
"Felix, you, and I have the same room design," Amelia stated. "Our rooms have two floors. The other rooms have only one floor that is above the offices and meeting rooms. I think Felix thinks that we are more important."
"I mean, yeah," William agreed. "He's the leader, and us two are the fighters."
He furrowed his eyebrows as technically he was the leader and Felix ran everything, but he wouldn't see himself as the leader until he started to act like one.
"How was Felix even able to manage to buy this place?" Amelia asked.
"Felix and I had an altercation with the Shadowfire gang last night. We took the money that was there. My friend Jack died."
"What!" Amelia asked with shock on her face. "Wait, how did Jack die?"
William felt sadness build up in his head as he quickly got up and left the room to avoid the conversation that he didn't want to have yet.
"William!" Amelia said as she ran after him. "You can't just drop two things on me and leave."
William ignored her as he went up to the second floor to grab his keys. When he did, there was a note.
"Hello, Will," the note began. "I'm sorry about what happened to you and your friend last night. If you need somebody to talk to, you can come to me even if we aren't that close to each other yet. We do need to tell the group how we got the money, and I'll leave that to you. The details are not for me to share. I will once again ask you if your skillful sister can join. The gang will do well with her. Cheers to a bright future of the gang. Welcome to the gang, boss."
When William was done reading the note, that was when Amelia had reached him, and she could only see the last word before William put the note in his pocket.
"Boss?" she asked in confusion as he walked out of the door, and she followed.
"Boss!" she shouted as William closed and locked the door.
"Just the face," William stated as the pair walked down the stairs and out of the building, heading towards the bar.
"If you were just the face, he wouldn't call you boss," she said as she jumped in front of his path, and he stopped. "Does Felix know about what we are?"
"No," William stated. "Just because I agreed to be the face of the gang doesn't mean I trust him completely."
"Did anything that you guys did last night warrant suspicion on what you are?" Amelia asked as she crossed her arms.
William pondered for a moment. He did kill a couple of people, and to Felix, he was the only one there. Was there actually a chance that Felix knew what he was? No, he would've said something if he did. Maybe he actually didn't suspect it, or it's like the thing he said in the note where he thinks it isn't his place to ask. He seemed to ignore the fact that he killed people. Maybe he believes that I was doing what was necessary to save my friend but failed early.
"No," William said as he walked around her.
"You took your time on that," Amelia said as she started to follow him. "You didn't sound sure."
"Just remembering each scenario to make sure," William answered her.
The two of them stopped talking about the subject as they were now too close to the bar. The pair walked to the front and opened the door, stepping inside.
"Good," the voice of Felix said. "They're here. Let's get started."
*****
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