Family Story - 013

"Ray Starcrawler."

In response to hearing his name, he looks over at me.

"Do we know each other, boy? I was thinking that you looked somewhat familiar."

So that is him, after all. The two strangers that I met from the Mother's Order. It was my first day back at school, and I coincidentally ran into him, as well as a woman called Kiss Duskdancer. I didn't realise it at the time, but the two of them were members of the Mother's Order, the same religious group that Tayla had belonged to previously.

In fact, the reason that Tayla had left the Mother's Order, and the reason that the two of us met in the first place, was due to an incident involving Ray's son. His son and some others from the Order, had been planning to rape her. Though nothing happened in the end, that's how it would've ended up. If I hadn't tried to stop them. Or if that police patrol hadn't happened to be passing by right then.

And then the Mother's Order, who Ray is in charge of in this city, protected his son and the others. And nothing came of it.

"Wait, you two know each other?" AJ looked confused, and brought me back to the moment.

"I see, that's right. You're that kid. The one that Miss Duskdancer asked for directions to the convenience store. So, it was nothing. You know, you really shouldn't have answered her, she was just messing with you. She's a very strange woman. I don't think she even bought any ice cream, or whatever it was she pretended to want."

"No, I guess our meeting was just coincidental," I replied, "but you probably remember the name of someone close to me. Tayla Faust."

Ray scowled, "I see. So that was you too? I'm surprised I didn't notice last time we ran into each other. You know, you almost caused a great deal of trouble for me with that whole thing. With your false accusations."

"False accusations? Don't even try that crap. I saw it happen right in front of me. In fact, the only reason it didn't happen is because of me! Your son and his friends tried to rape Tayla!"

"But you can't prove any of that," Ray said, "it's your word against my son and the others. And they are faithful children of Our Mother. I'm sure they would never do anything like that."

"Why would me and Tayla make up something like that? I can't believe you'd try to justify all of that."

"Maybe you were setting us up. You know, the Order has a lot of critics who would like us to be discredited. The Church, powerful businesses, even governments. Were you paid to do it?"

"Wh-"

He's trying to make me upset and angry. I can tell. How can he remain so rational and calm?

"Anyway," Ray spoke up again when I didn't reply immediately, "we can discuss this afterwards, but right now I have a customer to attend to."

"Huh, customer?"

He doesn't answer me, but instead turns to AJ, "so? Do you want your usual?"

Of course. It never even occurred to me. How had AJ been able to get in contact with her brother's dealer? It had taken her less than a day to set up this meeting. It should've been obvious to see, and yet I hadn't even thought about it. This would've been impossible unless AJ had an already established way to contact Ray. Unless… she had also bought drugs from Ray herself.

"Wait… you two need to clarify this first. The two of you, and Tayla… your all involved with those nutjobs from the Order?"

"AJ why didn't you say that you'd also bought drugs from him?"

"Answer my question first."

"That isn't really important, Angharad," Ray cut in, "like I said, we can talk about all of that later. My business with you came first. I like to stay organised, and do things in the proper order."

AJ sighed, "I'm not buying from you, Ray. We're here about my brother."

I guess I'll let AJ go first then. Her and Ray can discuss her brother. It'll give me time to think. Then me and Ray are going to talk through what happened. I'm not letting him get away without getting a real answer for why he's doing all this.

"Your brother?"

"His name's Brandon. I know you sold your drugs to him."

"Brandon? Hmm… unfortunately I don't know all the names of the people I sell to."

"Come on, I'm sure you recognised him. Everyone says that he looks just like me."

"Are you sure that I sold to your brother? I'm not the only dealer in the city after all. There's plenty of other people he could've bought some from. Or maybe he just stole it from you."

"Cut out your crap, Ray. You're the only person in the world who would be enough of a lowlife to sell drugs to a twelve-year-old."

"Well, I doubt that I'm the only person in the world who would, but you might be right about in this city."

"So, will you stop selling drugs to my brother?"

"Why would I? You're not offering me anything that would make me want to stop."

"Offer you something?"

"Yeah. What about… you and your friend here buy double what you usually would? And regularly. I think that would be fair."

"That's not how this is going to go, Ray. If you don't stop selling to him, I'm not going to buy from you anymore."

"You're one customer out of hundreds, Angharad. You aren't important to me in the slightest. This conversation isn't going anywhere."

"Well, at least there's two things we-"

AJ stopped mid-sentence. Her eyes became dazed over, and she faltered. She faltered, and then she fell down to the ground.

Ray sighed out loud, "that was boring, wasn't it?"