I called in sick for the next couple of days. I huddled up in the safety of my apartment ordering takeout. The delivery guys must have thought that I was insane considering I was telling them to leave the food outside in the hallway while I slid money under the door. I tipped them generously, so they weren’t complaining. By the third day, I was starting to get cautiously optimistic. It’s not like I could stay inside my apartment forever and besides, what were the chances that Mr scruffy beard could track me down to exact revenge. I just had to be a bit careful and keep my head down.

I went back to work the next day. Although I was a bit stressed about walking up to the restaurant, by evening I was much more relaxed. Things fell back into a familiar rhythm at work that soothed me. It was late afternoon when Rob finally came in for his shift. I thought I saw him throwing a few concerned glances my way. I thought I was imagining something until Rob came up to me and told me that he needed to have a chat with me. What really worried me was the fact that the ever cheerful Rob had a very serious look on his face.

I met Rob in the alley behind our restaurant.

“Pete, Did you jump in the middle of an alley beatdown and call the cops a couple days ago?”

All the comfort that I had built up after the incident vanished in an instant, a primal fear rushing into me. Rob noticed my expression as his lips drew into a thin line.

“I guess it’s true then,” Rob said with a sigh.

“Listen to me Pete, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you’re in deep shit. Those guys you called the cops on belong to a white supermacist gang in the city. And they generally don’t take too kindly to people who rat them out.”

I was too stunned to reply for a while. When my brain started to work again I asked him how he came to know about it. Apparently, a couple of guys had been making inquiries about me in the neighbourhood and yesterday evening they had come into the restaurant. Sadly, a picture of all the staff from the owner’s birthday party last week was on full display behind the bar. Rob saw them taking the owner out for a chat. I wasn’t exactly a favourite of that man and I couldn’t imagine him ever standing up to a couple of gang members for my sake.

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“Rob, how do you know for certain they were gang members and they were looking for me?” I asked.

“I’ve got a friend who’s had some dealings with them in the past. I’ve met one of the guys who came to look for you at a party. We’re not friends or anything, but he knows me well enough that he told me what he was here for.”

“Oh my god.. Oh my god…Oh my god..Oh my god.. What am I gonna do? Should I call the cops? Report them? What…What should I do?”

“What help will that be Pete? Even if you go to the cops, you can only identify the people you saw, which is only a fraction of the gang. The rest of them are gonna come after you. And I gotta tell you upfront that I can’t be involved with the cops. If they ever ask me, I’m gonna deny that this conversation ever took place. I think you’ll only escalate things even further if you go to the cops now.”

“Then what can I do?”. I was at my wit’s end with stress and worry. I had only just escaped the bullies from school and now it seemed like I’d become the target of an entire organisation that was much more dangerous and deadly.

“For now, I suggest you lay low for a while. Let me talk to my friend, he might be able to come up with a solution. Like I said before, he’s had some dealings with their organisation. He might be able to work something out.”

For me, Rob’s words were like the straw extended before a drowning man. I thanked him profusely and very much hoped that his friend would be able to resolve the issue that was now threatening my life.

The rest of my shift after our conversation passed in a blur and I soon found myself treading the familiar path back to my apartment. I opened my apartment door to find a scene that absolutely terrified me. My apartment was ransacked by someone. Things were strewn about everywhere. If I were less shocked, I think I would have screamed. It hit me suddenly just how much I depended on the safety of my apartment. It had been like my castle in the last few days when I was hiding out.

Now, as I stood there with tears streaming down my eyes, I felt like a sailor stranded at sea with nowhere to turn. I felt as if I was another person looking down at my body, connected and disconnected at the same time. After what felt like an eternity, I took out my phone and called Rob.

“Rob, they’ve found me, they’ve been in my apartment.”

There was a pause at his end “I’m coming over, wait there.”