Far Too Young To Die

Chapter One

It all started with a simple visit to the art gallery.

Victor Laing was never one to go out by himself during the day, and that was for a number of reasons, most of which he would not like to think about. He stuck out like a sore thumb for a start. From his messy black hair that made his skin appear even whiter than normal, to his awkwardly long limbs because of the fact that he was almost six feet tall. Well, five foot eleven and a half to be exact. That half meant a lot to Victor, despite how trivial it was.

Another reason was the fact that he didn't really want to be out. He figured he had better things to be doing, like trying to keep himself out of trouble, trying to stay out of the way of his rivals. However, being one of the most dangerous guys in the area made it pretty hard to be to do either of those things. That's another thing - Victor was a gang leader. Not just any gang leader, but he leader of one of the most notoriously dangerous gangs in the city. If you were in the right circle, or had spent a lot of time in the downtown area of the city, you at least recognised Victor.

However, today was a different day. Victor liked art, and if you were in the gang, you knew that. If you were in the gang, you had visited Victor's very own living place yourself and you would've seen the extraordinarily highly priced portraits that hung on every wall of his house. You never touched them, you never even went near them in fear of Victor killing you with his bare hands.

As such, he was what you could call an Art Hoe. He loved hearing about new collections and exhibitions and always secretly wanted to see them in person, but he had time and time again decided against it for his own wellbeing. For the wellbeing of the people he could consider family. But not today. Today, he had had enough. He'd heard about a new upcoming abstract artist's work being displayed in one of the art galleries near his house. He saw an example of one of their works online and simply knew he had to go. No question in his mind.

Victor headed downstairs, yawning and rubbing one eye as he switched his TV on and headed to the kitchen to make some coffee. It was strange, Victor never really watched the TV - he really just put it on for the background noise. He wanted to feel as if he had someone else there, as if he wasn't alone in his house. His house was way too big for one person, it had two stories and each room was very spacious. He would never know why he had bought a house this big, whether he was just going crazy with his new found money or whether he just wanted to be a dick and show off how much money he had. Probably a bit of both. Victor was very young when he bought this house, around nineteen or so. He was always the previous Leader's favourite, so he was always given more than the others.

Victor was good at anything you needed to be good at to be in a gang. He was good at using a weapon and he was good at running. He was able to problem solve relatively easily and quickly, he was very logical and precise. If Victor was given a task, he would do it on the same day within hours of being asked to do it. He was everything you'd need and want in a gang member, so he was the favourite. Everyone seemed to know that except Victor, who was blind to it. Pretty much every member of the gang hated that, but dealt with it because they knew better than to say anything about it. Eventually, when the last leader disappeared and Victor was assigned as the new leader, no one could do anything to take him out of that position.

As he headed out to his sleek black car and got into the driver's seat, he began to doubt his decision. Was this a good idea? Maybe not. Was he being stupid? Possibly. Should he turn back now? No. Definitely not.

He took a deep breath, reminding himself of all of the things he had missed out on, all of the things he never got to see purely because of his status. No more, he decided. He was going to do this even if it killed him, which it very well could. Being one of the most well known guys in the gang 'community' (if it could be called that) came with a lot of people trying to assassinate you. It was a given, really. It was almost amusing seeing them fail though, so he couldn't decide whether he cared about it or not. He soon buckled up his seatbelt, starting the engine as he did in order to let him leave as soon as he could.

Once he arrived, he took another breath before getting out of the car. Victor had never been his nervous about something this simple before, it felt so strange to him. Alien, even. At that thought, he took a cigarette from the box in his pocket, along with his lighter. He took a long drag of the lit cigarette, breathing the smoke out slowly. He did this a few more times as he walked towards the entrance of the gallery, extinguishing it as he walked inside. It was free to enter the gallery but you could leave a donation, and generally anyone who didn't was judged pretty hard. While Victor was a gang leader, a scary sort of guy you really wouldn't want to upset, a guy that no one was likely to confront, he wasn't an asshole. He put two tens through the slit through the top of the clear box that stood in the foyer, heading upstairs and to the right.

There it was, the collection. Each painting was hanging on a blank white wall, which really highlighted the bright colours that were used. Victor was in awe, he had never seen anything like this in person really. Yes, Victor owned a lot of art himself but nothing...like this. He couldn't really explain how this was different, but it was. Victor was so engrossed in his thoughts, that he didn't realise that there was someone behind him. A boy who seemed as though he couldn't be any older than maybe 17, who was much shorter than himself.

Alex Page. The one who would change him forever.