Chapter 1: A Dream

"This is your fault...”

That's the last thing I remember before my eyes open each morning. It's about the only thing I remember, it's been the same dream for a while now and as I lay here in bed I wonder when it'll end. I close my eyes and try to focus on my breathing. In, out, in, out. It takes my mind away from the dream, allows me to focus on the present. I take one more long deep breath before I sit up and open my eyes. I look around my room and there’s not much to see, there's my bed, a dresser and oh yeah me. Pretty empty little room but moving into a cheap little apartment with two roommates’ kind of leaves no room for personal stuff. Still, as I sit there on my bed I think to myself,

It's better than where you were at before.

Which in away is true, sure back with my "family" I had money and a nice place to live but hell, spending one more minute with them I would of seriously lost my mind. So, the day I turned eighteen I packed up and left, moved out to this apartment in California.

I sit there with my head in my hands, and in the back of my mind I hear the whisper of her voice

"This is your fault...”

I know what she means, after all it is my fault I dug this grave for myself, and it runs deep. I didn't set out to hurt anyone or get hurt myself, I tried to make the best out of everything that happened but I'm only human. After what happened... How could I face them again? Any of them... so I ran, I cut contact from them all and buried myself in self-loathing and hatred. I felt like I owed them something. A debt that I could never repay, after all it's my fault he's dead.

Let me tell you my story, and hopefully you'll understand. I'm not asking for forgiveness, I'm not asking for your sympathy, no I'm asking that you just understand.

Turn the clock back two years. Sixteen and thought I was on top of the world. Ryan, one of my oldest friends and one of the best people I’ve met in my life. Shit, He was a more like an older brother to me than my real brother. God the trouble me and that kid used to get into, we just didn't know when to stop. Back then we thought that if you can get away with something once, why not twice? Three times? God we were stupid. We started lifting cars and selling them to a local chop shop. It paid good enough money and when you’re a poor kid growing up in a bad neighborhood, on the wrong side of town, you need money.

It was alright at first, stealing old beaters and getting maybe a couple hundred for them hell it was easy money and kept the drugs coming. It wasn't till we got cocky that everything started to go downhill. We started moving up, wanting more and more money for newer and newer cars. We we're just stupid teenagers! We thought nothing could touch us, God were we wrong.

"This is your fault...”

"It's now or never little brother, you ready?"

"Yeah I'm ready; let’s just get this over with." I whispered back. This was our first jack we had it all laid out, we had a plan for what we'd do after we got the car and what we'd do if it all went south. We'd watched the car for several days, it was an old, beat up, black, Dodge Charger parked on the side of the street in front of some old rundown apartment complexes it probably was some drug dealer’s car so we really didn't care about who we screwed over tonight as long as it wasn't ourselves. Ryan was the driver and I was the lookout, made sure no one got the drop on us.

We ran out from behind a pair of shrubs. It was a warm night and a dark one too; the surrounding street was pitch black except for the occasional street light. I kept my eyes on the apartments looking for any sign that someone knew we were out there; I had a bad feeling this wasn’t going to be as easy as we thought. I glanced around us as Ryan pulled out a wire hanger and slipped it in between the door paneling and the window on the driver’s side trying to catch the hook on the lock.

"Got it" breathed Ryan “get in." As he pulled his door open and jumped in starting work on the steering column. I started to move around the car to the passenger side when I thought I heard something, I stopped dead my heart caught up in my throat and listened. "Shh! shut it up for a second!" I whispered harshly at Ryan. He looked up at me giving me a 'what the hell' expression. I strained to hear something, glancing up and down the street all I could see was the occasional car illuminated by the street lamp and black a lot of black. That’s when I noticed the light flip on inside one of the second floor apartments in front of us.

"Shit, hurry it up; we got to get out of here."

"I'm hurrying! This is a first for me too yeah know." Ryan whispered harshly back.

“I know, I know but we might have some company here in a minute.” Just as the words left my lips a silhouette of a man stepped out from the door way illuminated by the light from inside his apartment. “Fuck, make that a couple seconds” I whispered.

“Hey! What the fuck are you doing to my car!?” the man yelled and started moving fast towards the stairs leading down to the courtyard below.

“I’ll stall him, just get this done.”

 “I’m going, I’m going” whispered Ryan.

I got out and jogged to the side of doorway leading into the dark courtyard and waited for the man to come running out. The adrenaline was pumping through my system and I couldn’t stop shaking my leg no matter how hard I tried. “Come on, Come on.” I whispered to myself. He came darting around the corner and started running towards the car, and I ran towards him.

“Hey, get the hell out of there!” He yelled as he closed the distance towards his car, the guy was pissed who could blame him after all he was getting his car jacked. I reached him right before he made it to the car, slamming into his side. We rolled to the ground and he managed to kick me off as I rolled to one side I used my momentum to jump back to my feet and start moving towards him. As he was crawling to his feet I threw a hard kick to his ribs and was rewarded with a satisfying thump. He doubled over on his side and as I went to throw another kick, he wrapped his arms around my leg and rolled using my momentum to bring me down. He moved faster than I expected and was on top of me before I knew it. That’s when he started to let me have it, letting off hard right jabs to my nose and eye before I managed to throw my arms up to block his punches. When he threw his next punch I grabbed for his arm but missed and was rewarded by another satisfying crack to my eye. When he shot of another hit I got luck and managed to grab his forearm and pull him down into a right jab to his temple. As my fist connected I rolled my hips to my left and flipped him on to his back.

I had him now I remembered everything my older brother taught me, at least his beatings as a kid taught me how to fight. My instincts took over as I throw two hard punches back to back into his nose; I felt it break under my knuckles. I figured by the blood coming from his nose he’d had enough I started to get off of him, I took a glance towards the car and was about to ask Ryan how it was going went I felt a fist land in my gut knocking the wind out of me I rolled to the ground clutching my stomach, that hurt.

“Ughh..” I let out a groan as I watched the man slowly get to his feet. I knew I had to get up, I had to do something. He started moving towards the driver’s side of the car. I caught my breath and got to my fight, he was in the street by the time I closed the distance and tackled him to the pavement. I heard a hard crack as his head smacked into the concrete and he stopped moving. I got up panting and look at Ryan.

“Ryan I don’t know how long he’s gonna be out tell me your almost done over there.”

“Another couple minutes tops, get back in”

I jumped back in the car and two long minutes later the engine roared to life the sound practically made me jump straight into the back of the car, I was still on edge from the fight. Ryan threw it in gear and hit the gas speeding down the street once we were a good ten minutes away we slowed down and I started breathing again, “Holy hell, bro. That was fucking crazy! I can’t believe we did it" I exclaimed.

Ryan just started laughing and took a glance at me. "What? You didn't have faith in me? I'm just messin' with you, man. Jesus, I practically shit myself when that guy came running out, way to handle yourself though little bro. You scared the shit out of me when he got you on your back I almost jumped out to help you." Ryan said between laughing.

I don't remember a time that I ever felt more alive than that night. A smile was stuck to my face and together Ryan and I drove straight to Oakland to cash in on our night of work. We had just entered the game and it seemed, at the time, the best idea we ever had.

We pulled into what looked like the most ghetto auto mechanics place I've ever seen. The sign above the one garage door was rusted and falling apart, in red paint was written Lou's Garage underneath that was you break it we fix it.

"You sure this is the place?" I asked as we parked the car on the side of the street. 

"Yeah this is the address Danny gave me he said to ask for a Lou, tell him Dan sent you." 

We got out and started crossing the parking lot to the side door on the right of the garage. We were half way there when the door opened to show a big guy with a goatee and mean star in oil stained one piece jumpsuit with Jesse written above his heart. "What ya'll kids doin' here" he yelled to us. We slowed to a stop and Ryan light up a cigarette. 

I called over “We’re looking for a guy name Lou! Dan sent us!"

He let out a grunted and walked back inside. Once he left the door frame we caught a glimpse inside all we could see where two other guys, a Mexican and skinny Black guy both couldn't be more than twenty. One was holding a gun, that’s when I started to sweat a little but I trusted Danny and if he said these guys where straight then I believed him. 

"Hey give me some of that" I said to Ryan. He passed me his stogie and I took a nice long drag letting the smoke fill my lungs before I blew it out my nostrils. It took of some of the edge and I started to relax a bit. 

"How much longer do ya thi--" Ryan cut off his sentence as a guy with a noticeable limped stepped through the door and started walking toward us. Once he was about eight feet away he let out a sigh and said " The names Lou, what can I do fer ya?" 

“We’re friends of Dan, I’m Jake and this is Ryan, he said to come to you with the kind of um... business we’re looking for.” I said as I point over my shoulder towards the car we pulled up in.

“Huh, mmk lets have look n’ see if we can’t strike up some sort of agreement.” Lou started for the Dodge with Ryan and I following closely behind. I took the last pull off my cig and flicked it into the gutter.

Lou walked around the car slowly, rubbing his hand along the side. “This is yer lucky day fellas. That is if all checks out good underneath this here hood.” He popped and lifted open the hood to inspect the engine and whatever else is under there. After he was done he slammed it shut and said “Fifteen hundred, cash, what do ya say?”

I took a quick glance at Ryan, who did the same, when I looked back I met Lou’s eyes I said “Hell yeah, we do.”

“Great bring the car up to the garage. Jesse n’ Ernie will take it from there. I’ll get your cash from the office.” Lou started to shuffle off towards the side door of his garage. Ryan brought the car around to the garage and I walked up towards the building to collect our pay.

“Here ya go.” Ryan said as he got out of the still running Dodge to come stand next to me. He lit up another smoke. Two minutes later Lou came out with an orange envelop packed with cash.

“Nice doin’ business which ya boys” Lou said as he handed over the money “Ya’ll be careful now.” With that he turned and hobbled back inside and shut the door. I shoved the money in my sweatshirt pocket, turned and walked away.

“Whoa! That was easier than I thought! Jesus Jake we actually pulled it off! I can’t fuckin’ believe it man!” exclaimed Ryan as he threw his arm around my shoulders. “Yeah know little brother I think we might have just found our calling.”

“Ryan, give Charlie a call tell him to come get our asses.” 

“Okay, okay hold on let me finish my smoke. You want one?” Ryan asked throwing his pack to me while he sat down on a curb. I pulled one out and lit it savoring the taste and burns of the smoke traveling down my throat into my lungs and back out again. It truly is relaxing, even if it is slowly killing me. Whatever, we’re all going to die sometime.

It was around 4 a.m. by the time we got back home. Charlie asked us a ton of questions but Ryan and I were too tired to talk about it at the time and told him we’d tell him it all tomorrow after we knocked back a couple hours of sleep. He understood and let us nod off in the car, I remember thinking to myself how easy this will be as long as we play it smart.

Morning, god I hate mornings It’s the time of the day that your body starts to feel everything that happened the night before and damn was I feeling it this morning. I looked like shit and felt even worse the guy from last night had really done a number on my face. I took several Advil threw on my jeans and walked out of my room towards the living room, I lived in a small, ordinary house. Brown carpets, white walls and cheap linoleum floors that were starting to peel back. I walked out the front door to have a smoke