Luke wasn't quite sure what had happened.

The conversation with the tattooed woman had been strange. He was fairly sure she didn't even tell him her name and she’d seemed angry before they even spoke.

He was in R.A.I.G’s Headquarters. The place and the group that the government had been trying to take down for years. The group that had been responsible for burglary, vandalism and murder.

And for some reason, he had chosen to stay.

Luke couldn't pinpoint the exact reason why - whether it was that he finally had a chance to help the city he’d been watching fall apart at the hands of people like his father or whether it was purely to spite his old man.

Either way, there was no going back now.

It was hard to imagine himself that morning - packing his bag, leaving the note for his dad to find and just…leaving. He wouldn't see his room again, or his house, or his dad, or his friends from school. But Luke found himself unexpectedly okay with that.

Luke wondered if his dad had found the note. He tried to picture him reading it, running to call someone because his son was gone, maybe even just running into the streets to see if he was anywhere close by, screaming his name into the air.

He knew none of that would happen though.

Benedict Daniels would read the note, shake his head, and go find some way to sweep his runaway child under the rug.

Just as he was coming to terms with the potentially life-threatening decision he had just made and his fathers lack of affection, another woman came into the room. She was far more smiley than the first one and looked less like she was seconds away from driving a knife through his skull - which seemed like a good start.

She had short bright purple hair tucked behind her ears, displaying more earrings than Luke thought someone could fit on their ears, and a top with more straps than Luke thought a top could have.

She walked right in and sat on the end of the bed.

“Hi, you must be Luke ?”

He just nodded equally intimidated by her forwardness as he had been with the other woman’s general threatening aura.

“I’m Zetta. Rowan didn’t scare you too much did she?”

He shook his head slightly, assuming Rowan was the tall tattooed lady he had just spoken to. Zetta laughed and leant back on her hands.

“You're a brave one then,” she said, “Scares most people shitless.”

Luke didn't mention that he had had quite a rough couple of hours and a tall tattooed woman with an angry expression was honestly the least terrifying thing he had dealt with all day. He’d never been on public transport before in his life and asking for a ticket was far more stressful than it should've been. Then he had to walk around a part of the city that felt like a different world to him.

Oh and then not to mention being knocked out and waking up in a warehouse belonging to terrorists.

“Well, we’ll get you sorted out proper after tea,” she said, giving his leg an affectionate pat. “Lucky you came on a Tuesday.”

“What’s lucky about Tuesdays?”

“Oh he speaks!” she exclaimed and Luke's cheek flushed red. “I'm only teasing,” she said with a smile. “Myra cooks on Tuesdays and her chicken biryani is to die for!”

Luke hadn't realised quite how hungry he was until Zetta had mentioned food and his stomach seemed to agree as it let out a large growl which made Zetta laugh.

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“You good to walk?” Luke nodded. “Follow me then! Oh and just leaving your rucksack here we’ll sort your room out later.”

…..

Luke was led through a corridor and into a large open area that was filled with mismatched tables and chairs. There were a handful of people already in there but none of them paid him much attention. A warm scent of spices wafted through the air and Luke’s stomach gurgled again.

“Come sit with me Luke.” Zetta led him to a round glass garden table with four wooden folding chairs surrounding it. He took a seat and watched as more people slowly filtered in. There had to be at least forty of them. The woman he now knew as Rowan came in with the last few stragglers. He watched as she surveyed the room as she walked through the tables - the others offering her nods and smiles as she passed them, some getting her to pause for a moment while they spoke to her briefly. It seemed she had some form of authority amongst them. She ended up at the glass table and cast a glance at Zetta as she sat down - a look that wasn't quite affectionate but was lacking in hostility at the same time. She then looked at him with mild irritation.

Luke wasnt sure what he’d done to offend her.

A handful of people - including a woman who he recognised as Myra - began to walk around the large room and pass out plates of food. The chicken biryani in question was in fact delicious, a mix of chicken and spiced rice. It may have even been the best thing he’d eaten all week.

He shoveled the food into his mouth, becoming increasingly aware of eyes on him. He glanced up and met Rowan’s steel gaze.

“So Luke,” she said as she picked up her fork, “ what was your plan going to be if we didn't pick you up?”

“Let the kid eat before you interrogate him again for christ sake!” Zetta protested through a mouthful of food.

“I'm not sure honestly,” he replied, trying to hold her gaze but feeling increasingly uncomfortable with his decision.

“What sort of idiot runs away from home with no plan?

Zetta snorted into her drink and then proceeded to hit Rowan’s arm with the back of her hand. “I told you, leave him be.”

Rowan raised her eyebrows, her eyes flicking between Zetta and where she'd been hit. Zetta narrowed her eyes in response, a smirk forming on her lips as she wiped her nose with the back of her hand.

Luke wasn't sure what to make of their interaction - not helped by Rowan’s lack of displaying any emotion other than annoyance.

Rowan soon moved on from trying to make conversation with him - though it was definitely closer to an interrogation- and had turned to speak to a guy with dark green hair and a leather waistcoat who had appeared with various pieces of paper in his hand. Zetta listened for a few minutes before turning back to him with a bored expression.

“You know,” she said, stabbing a large chunk of chicken with her fork. “I think you'll be surprised to find out that rebel groups turn out to have a lot of paperwork.”

“What sort of paperwork?”

“Supply inventories, keeping track of members, finances. I signed up to cause trouble, not bore myself to tears over accounts and emails.”

Luke had never put much thought into what organisations such as R.A.I.G did when they were not making news headlines but sitting at desk sorting forms was definitely not high on the list.

“Well lucky for you Brookes, your incompetence keeps you away from most of that.” Rowan had quietly rejoined the conversation.

“Yeah, yeah I'm shit at maths, leave me alone,” Zetta said, dismissing Rowan’s comment with a vague wave of her hand.

“Call it a side effect of being a raging bisexual.”

A tall blonde man with a sorry excuse for a beard had wandered over and was leaning on the back of Zetta’s chair.

“What's your excuse then?” Zetta asked, tilting her head upwards. “Last time I checked Shaun you were as straight as a ruler.”

“Oh haha.”

“Oh come on.” Zetta reached up and patted Shaun’s cheek. “Stop being jealous that I get more women than you.”

Shaun looked unimpressed - possibly even mildly offended. He turned to Luke, clearly wanting to change the subject, leading Luke to believe that Zetta was probably right.

“Hey new kid, Luke right? That prick Daniels son?”

There was no hostility in his tone yet Luke felt his cheeks burn. So everyone knew his dad then. Luke wouldn't consider that a good start.

“Prick is one word for him.”

“Hell yeah it is.” Shaun held out a fist and Luke bumped knuckles with him. Well, they seemed to hate him as much as Luke did so maybe some common ground was good.

Luke was finding common ground with terrorists.

Honestly, he was enjoying it.

….

As more people finished eating they began to wander around the room, most coming to say hello to him since he was clearly the entertainment for the evening. Luke met a flurry of people and didn't remember many of their names but he was struck by how he wasn't treated as an oddity or an outsider. People he didn't know greeted him as if he was an old friend - with smiles and handshakes and fistbumps.

He couldn't help but try and picture if somehow the roles were reversed, if one of them had come through the wall and was sitting at his dining table. It was unimaginable.

Luke couldn't get over how the city outside the walls of Eden Colony seemed a different world, how much of his life had been spent living in a bubble filled with lies. A bubble that had been burst so quickly by the short time he'd spent beyond the wall.

Luke was used to introducing himself last name first and having conversations drift into comparing schools, cars, clothes, phones and families.

But here, no judgement was passed on where you came from because it didn't matter. They were all fighting the same fight.

From what he had previously learned about the group he’d been led to believe they were a gang of thugs who liked nothing more than to cause trouble but as he looked around and shook hands and heard stories he began to realise that they were all just regular people, trying to make a life a little more bearable. R.A.I.G was made up of mechanics, cooks, plumbers, electricians, bus drivers, builders, cleaners, teachers, shopkeepers and so many more. Some members still had day jobs and families - wives, husbands, partners, children. For the others, R.A.I.G was all they had - it was their job and their family rolled into one. There were Refugees that had fled the civil war in the USA, people that had come to Dòchas in search of a better life, and people whose families had lived in Dòchas for generations.

They were all so different to each other in so many ways yet they came together to fight the shitty deals that life dealt them time and time again because they didn't need to come from the same place to understand hardship.

To understand that sometimes all you needed was to know that someone had your back.

For the first time in a long time, Luke felt like someone had his.