Page 2 of Collide

I walked out the door with my head held high, not stopping to give my family home a second look. I collected Angel from school, and we hopped on the next bus out of that town. I didn’t exactly have a plan for what our next steps would be, all I cared about was that Angel was with me.

I don’t know if we were ever listed as missing children, but no one seemed bothered enough to try to find us. I mean, we only made it to a few cities away from where we grew up for fuck’s sake, yet no one came looking. They were probably relieved it was two less children in an already overcrowded system to have to worry about.

The weeks that followed when Angel and I landed in the city of Hollows Bay were pretty fucking hard, and there were countless times when I questioned my stupid decision to run away. We really did raid bins, hiding at the back of café‘s, waiting for them to throw out their daily leftovers before finding a comfy park bench to spend the nights, which normally resulted in me not getting any sleep because I was too worried a dirty scoundrel would do something to Angel while she slept.

I spent days exhausted and starving and yet I couldn’t bring myself to take Angel home for fear she would be taken away from me.

Selfish, I know.

It soon became apparent that Hollows Bay was a den of iniquity, or at least the parts where Angel and I frequented. Yeah, there was the rich side, known as West Bay, where skyscrapers towered over the city, cash exchanged hands in the casinos and million-dollar deals were struck every day in the many businesses that were in operation.

Or so I heard, we never ventured to that side of the city, we didn’t dare. Rumors on the street were that the rich folk wouldn’t allow smelly, hungry homeless kids to dirty up their neighborhoods and so any street rat seen within a square mile radius of West Bay would wind up floating face down in the docks.

Even if they were just rumors, it was enough for me to keep Angel well away from the area, instead spending our time in the slums of East Bay.

East Bay was like any other dump in America, poverty on every corner, streets laced with graffiti, drug deals taking place on every corner in broad daylight, and girls, some younger than me but thankfully not younger than Angel, offering their bodies in exchange for pocket money to buy food.

Or drugs.

After a few weeks of sheer hell, Angel started to fall into a deep depression. One evening when the weather turned bad, we sought shelter in a derelict train station. Unbeknownst to us, the station had been overtaken by a bunch of homeless kids who had made it their sanctuary. I say kids, they were several years older than us and had lived on the street a lot longer than Angel and I had.

They took pity on us and despite their own personal hell, they were mostly a good bunch. Almost overnight, they became family. They pulled Angel out of her slump, much to my relief, and everyone looked out for each other.

I instantly hit it off with a boy called Tobias, or Toby, as he liked to be called. He quickly became a close friend and when I wasn’t with Angel, I’d spend my days with him.

Toby taught me how to look after myself with some basic self-defense lessons, and then he taught me how to shoplift without getting caught. It wasn’t something I was proud of but needs must, and I needed to look after my baby sister. Whatever happened, I refused to accept we would ever be split up.

Toby was the one who told me in detail all about the history of Hollows Bay. Apparently, it was controlled by the Wolfe family who had power over the city and city officials, and had done for generations. The guy in charge at that time was Christopher Wolfe, but Toby explained how his two sons were becoming more and more involved in the family business, and he had heard rumors that Christopher was preparing to hand over the reins to his sons.

Toby told me all about the gangs who worked for the Wolfe family, how the junior ranks worked the streets in East Bay, dealing drugs and weapons and enforcing the Wolfe family’s law to those who needed to be reminded of exactly who owned the city. Those in the junior ranks would aim to be promoted to the next level as it meant a ticket out of the dump. More importantly, it gave them better recognition which according to Toby, the better recognized you were, the more respect you had.

It all sounded like a crock of shit if you asked me, but hey, what did I know.

It was evident in the awe in Toby’s voice that he one day aspired to make his way up the ranks in the gang, and although he never admitted it, I suspected he was already heavily involved in the drug dealing side of things.

Although I had zero idea who the Wolfe family were or if they really existed, the rumors surrounding them scared me. Everyone knew they were neck deep in murder, torture, and only god knew what else, and with the Hollows Bay Police Department firmly in the pockets of the family, it seemed like they were untouchable.

But Toby assured me the Wolfe’s rarely stepped foot in the East Bay area, they didn’t need to, the gangs did all their dirty work for them. So, as long as I didn’t piss off the gangs, I had nothing to worry about.

And I had no intention of pissing anyone off.

I learned some good life lessons from Toby, we became closer and closer as the days went on and life seemed to be on the up, well, as much as it could be when you are homeless.

That was until one day, I made the mistake of trying to steal from Joe Mason, the owner of a small grocery store. On this particular day, Angel hadn’t been feeling too well and I wanted to cheer her up with her favorite candy. There was only one cashier working and I timed it so she would be busy with the lunchtime rush, it should have been an easy win.

When her back was turned, I grabbed a stash of candy bars, shoved them in my pocket, and ran out as fast as my legs would take me. Only, I ran smack straight into the fat belly of Joe, who had seen exactly what I’d done. He grabbed my arm, demanded I emptied my pockets and threatened to take me down to the police station.

I’m not ashamed to admit all of my lessons from Toby went flying out the fucking window, and instead of fighting my way out of his grasp while accusing him of touching me, I cried like a little bitch, apologized profusely and begged him not to shop me to the cops. And when Joe asked me to give him one good reason why he shouldn’t hand mythieving little assover to the police, I told him all I had wanted to do was feed my homeless, disabled sister.

OK, yeah Imayhave played on the sympathy card a little bit, you know, my sister is deaf, if I’m taken away, she’ll be all alone with no one to look out for her, etcetera, etcetera.

I don’t know what did it, but instead of rounding me and Angel up and taking us to the nearest cop shop, he drove us to a tower block, made us ride the elevator up to the fifteenth floor, and then led us to an empty apartment. Angel and I huddled together, all the while I was signing to her, telling her everything would be okay when really, I was shitting my pants.

But then Joe transformed from a mean-looking motherfucker to a friendly giant. He told us we could crash in the apartment for a few nights and he would bring us some food. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry or to get the hell out of there for fear Joe would want some kind of repayment for the gesture, namely my body.

Or worse, Angel’s.

As it turned out, the old man was our savior. I guess you could say he was our Genie from the magic lamp.

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