Fighting to Be Free

My heart was beating out of my chest, it felt weird to be walking away from the place I considered home for the last four years. I felt like I shouldn’t be leaving, I was waiting for the alarms to sound and someone to tackle me to the ground and start smashing me with a baton or something. They didn’t, I walked to the edge of the grounds, I didn’t look back, I’d never look back, this was my fresh start. I laughed and ran a hand through my shaven hair, I guess I could grow my hair back now, no rules, I could do whatever the hell I liked. The thought actually scared me a little.

I started to walk over to the yellow cab that was parked there for me, “Hey kid!” someone shouted, I turned round and my heart dropped down to my feet. What the f**k do they want?

“Ed? Callum?” I said curiously, I hadn’t seen these guys since I was sent down and I didn’t want to see them now. But why the hell are they here?

Ed grabbed my hand and pulled me into a hug slapping me on the back, “Good to see you kid,” he said happily. Yeah sorry I can’t say the same!

“Yeah, what are you guys doing here?” I asked, looking around nervously, I didn’t even want to be seen talking to these guys again.

“Boss wants to see you.” Ed nodded towards their shiny Mercedes parked a few feet away from the cab that I was so desperately trying to get into.

Shit! “I can’t right now, I need to go get checked into my new place,” I said, trying to think of a better excuse, but I knew it was useless anyway, if Brett Mason wanted to see me, he’d see me conscious or unconscious.

Ed smiled, “Boss wants to see you, now. You can check in to your place later,” he said sternly, walking off towards his car without even waiting for me to answer, he knew I’d follow. No one ever went against what Brett said, or if they did they didn’t live to tell the tale. Fuck my life!

I followed behind and sat next to Ed in the back of their car, I felt sick, how on earth was I going to get out of this? In total honesty I probably wasn’t going to live through the rest of the day, so much for the fresh start I wanted. Wow, I wasn’t even going to see the sun set. To say that my life sucks right now would be the understatement of the century.

I rested my head back on the seat and closed my eyes, why did I even hope that things could be different? There was no way he would let me live, I knew too much stuff about him. The things I knew could put him away for years, but I would never tell. I’d been offered a deal so many times when I was going down, reduced sentence, a high class juvie instead of the crap hole I was sent to, even a cushy little job when I was inside. But I never once even thought of turning state and standing against him, never. What was the point I wouldn’t have lived to see the trial anyway. Brett Mason had people on the inside of the police too, I probably would have been shanked in my cell by one of the guards.

Ed patted my leg bringing me out of my little self-wallowing state, “So how was it, Kid, ok?” he asked curiously.

Jeez, I hated being called ‘Kid’. They all called me it when I worked for Brett, I guess because when I started working for him that’s what I was, I was twelve years old the first time I did a job for him. Dropping off a brown envelope full of cash through the window of a parked cop patrol car, bribe money. The cops turned a blind eye to his activities and he stayed off of their turf, perfect.

Things got worse as I got older, the jobs got more involved. Information gathering, being a lookout for robberies, stealing cars, running drugs, the worst one was when I was asked to tag along and ‘witness’ an exchange. God I hated those, I could still hear the sounds of the shop owners who paid for Brett’s ‘protection’ begging as he smashed their fingers with a hammer when they couldn’t pay.

He told me watching it was character building, I think he was grooming me to move higher in his organization, catch them young bring them up on violence that’s all you know I guess.

“Kid? You ok?” Ed asked when I didn’t answer.

I nodded weakly, “Yeah I’m fine, Ed. It was ok I guess, the time went slow but it was ok,” I said honestly. I wouldn’t tell him that I actually loved it there and it was the safest I had felt since I could remember, no one knew what it was really like for me when I lived at home and I wanted to keep it that way.

“Boss was pretty pissed when you broke Terry’s face when you first got sent down,” Ed said, laughing. I looked at him confused, why the hell would Brett be bothered if I got into a fight in juvie?

“Why?” I asked.

Ed laughed again. “He pulled in a favour, had Terry all set up to look after you when you first went in. You were only fourteen, Terry had been in there a few years and knew the drill, Boss thought that if you had someone looking out for you that no one would pick on you, but you knocked the guy unconscious,” he said, shaking his head looking at me proudly.

Crap Brett set that up? “I didn’t know Brett did that! The guy came over offering me protection, so I did what I thought was best,” I said shrugging.

That wasn’t the whole reason I did it, ‘protection’ was the kind of thing Brett offered to the shop keepers and I knew I would owe the guy who was offering it. There was no way in hell I was starting my first day in juvie owing a big guy anything, so I grabbed the back of his head, smashed his face into the table and told him and everyone else that was there that I could look after myself.

No one picked on me after that, so I guess it had the desired effect.