After Headmistress Young had dismissed everyone, Kai, Marie and Innu were heading to the bus stop. Austin was already waiting there, since he had been informed over the group chat that they had been let out early.
Right now, the whole gang was riding the bus, heading to an area called Burnham. On the way there, it was obvious that it wasn’t as busy as the rest of Slough, most likely because it wasn’t a residential area. Nevertheless, the area still had someone controlling it, and they made their money off of catering to a certain clientele.
“I can’t believe the red colour gang would not only come to your doorsteps but try to hold your whole school hostage.” Austin stated after getting the full story on the mostly empty bus. The news about the event had spread like wildfire, but with everyone exaggerating, it had been hard to find out how much of it had been true.
“It’s a good thing they didn’t enter my school, otherwise there would have been an outright brawl between the students and the red colour gang. We would have pounded them and taught them a lesson.”
“You mean like the time when Billy entered the school?” Innu interjected. He was sure that Austin would have acted just like Gary, and he didn’t doubt his fellow gang member’s strength… yet he had a feeling it would have turned out no different from John’s resistance. Austin’s stare made Innu quickly change topic. “Anyway, Kai, you said there were five small-time gangs in Slough, so why did you pick this one? It’s really far away, so are they easy or something?”
The second Innu said those words, it was upperclassman’s turn to give him a glare, and he instantly understood the mistake he had made. The high schooler couldn’t help it, he was just someone who spoke his mind before thinking. No one should ever call any gang easy, underestimating them would be a big mistake.
“We’ll have to see about them being an ‘easy’ target, but them being so far away is actually a good thing.” Kai eventually replied after letting out a sigh. “We take over this place, the chance of anyone interfering will be lower than any other location. At the same time, if we leave it alone for a bit, it will be okay as well.
“We still really haven’t solved the problem with helping people run the territories we take over. We can’t just ask Austin to send over his guys each and every time. If possible, we’ll have to persuade some members from the gang we have taken over to work for us.
“Putting them on a payroll isn’t a problem, but we still need trustworthy people at the top keeping them in check. Otherwise, other gangs can always swoop in and convince them to stab us in the back while we’re small.
“Once we get bigger, and control this place completely like the Grey Elephants or the Underdogs, we’ll be okay. At that point, the others won’t even try to mess with us.”
“Does this place have a school?” Austin suddenly asked. It seemed to be a weird question, yet Kai didn’t outright dismiss it, seemingly understanding what the tall teenager was referring to.
“It does, but it’s not a school full of delinquents. It doesn’t look like the gang uses them as a recruitment basis, but I have to admit that I haven’t looked into them too much, so what I have is probably just some surface information. They might have someone like you on the top, since they don’t seem to be as disorganised as Eton High was.” Kai answered. “Your guys might actually know more about it.”
Austin’s idea was to pay the school a visit, to challenge its top dog. The delinquents at each school cared about such a hierarchy a lot. In a way, it was a more harmless version of gang wars. If the large teenager could take down the school leaders, then the school delinquents would willingly do the Howler’s bidding.
As long as they would be put on the payroll, they should stay fairly loyal. Even a little money looked like a gold mine to those types of students. In a way, this made delinquent students far easier to deal with than gang members, simply because the former had yet to experience the real world.
“Are we really just going to continue ignoring the issue?” Marie finally spoke up. “We all saw that look on his face. Gary has clearly gone off to fight the red colour gang. It’s probably for some revenge because of what they did to Mr Root… I know how strong he is, but what if he gets into trouble?
“He’s our leader, so shouldn’t we help him?”
The groups seemed to be in somewhat of a silence at this question. Surprisingly, Innu was the one to break it.
“You heard Kai offer him our help. He didn’t want it. While I don’t like him wanting to do things alone, he’s our leader, so we should respect his wishes.” Innu stated. “He could take care of those monstrous twins, so he should be fine… as long as they don’t have more of them…”
At the end, Innu’s voice started to shake a bit and Marie noticed that he had his knee shaking up and down, and that he was fiddling with his hands. It was clear thinking about Gary made him restless.
‘When the hell did this group get so close with each other?’ She wondered, looking down and smiling at the floor.
——
The group had finally arrived at the Burnham part of town. There seemed to be fewer people here, but the bus had stopped at the main area. It was a Saturday, so quite a lot of families were in this area.
“Wow, I didn’t even know Slough had a place like this… I think this is better than Cipen.” Innu commented as they walked down the street, every second shop being a restaurant of some kind.
“Depends on what you’re looking for. Cipen has the nightlife, whereas this place is just filled with restaurants.” Kai shrugged.
The group continued walking down, passing various Chinese restaurants, pizza places, Japanese sushi places, Korean barbecues. It all looked so delicious and there were multiple families inside, but there was one thing that Innu was noticing more than the others.
“There are a lot of beautiful girls here, the workers here are stunning, look at her!” Innu pointed at a girl wearing a traditional Chinese dress with a slit going up her leg. The red dress showed off her long legs, as they walked past yet another Chinese restaurant.
“Wait, now that you mention it, there are an awful lot of girls who work here.” Marie agreed with the observation. That was a signal for Kai to stop in the middle of the street.
“Remember, we are here on a scouting mission, but while we are here, why don’t we all grab a bite?”
It took a long time for the group to decide where they wanted to eat. There were far too many choices, and seeing that everyone’s favourite food was something different didn’t make things easier. Ultimately, they agreed to settle for an all-you-can-eat restaurant that had a little of everything.
Heading inside, Kai paid as they waited for the waiter to bring over their plates and drinks. Even in this place, all they could see were female workers.
“So tell me, these places aren’t really restaurants, right?” Austin eventually asked. The other two turned around, wondering what he meant by this, but judging by Kai’s smile, he was right.
“In some ways, you are right. Of course, restaurants can be a lucrative business, but a gang wouldn’t take control of a whole area just for that.” Kai started to explain. “You see at nighttime this place is something completely different. All the restaurants have a double front. You noticed a lot of girls, right? And all of them being pretty… well, that’s because the gang brings in a lot of trafficking cases and prostitution.
“The reason this place is on the edge of Slough is because their clientele don’t choose those from Slough. It’s a crucial point for us if we want to go beyond Slough at some point, and besides all the other reasons.”
Innu couldn’t quite believe it as he looked around, but he started to notice the skimpy dresses they wore, the tired look on their faces and in their eyes… it was starting to make sense.
There was a look on the other members as Kai casually brought up this topic. This was the real gang life… everything was suddenly becoming a little too real for them, and they wondered how Gary would feel about taking over such a place.
Innu looked like he was about to say something, when the waitress was seen approaching.
“Hi there, here are your drinks and the table is for the four of you, correct?” The girl smiled at them all.
Looking at the girl up close, Innu felt like there was something off about her. Sure she was pretty but there seemed to be a lot of makeup on her face. He was starting to feel… bad for her. If they were doing it out of choice then so be it, but the eyes of the one serving them, they didn’t seem that way at all.
“Do you like working here?” Innu suddenly asked the waitress. She was startled by the question as she raised the empty tray over her body. The waitress looked out of the corner of her eye at the one man who was in the room with them, one of the very few.
“Please ignore our nosy friend here, he just wanted to say that this here’s a great place… that’s all. Yes, just four of us will be fine.” Kai smiled at the girl, who placed the plate down, before taking her leave. The blonde teenager had paid close attention to the girl, noticing that her name tag read Stacy.