[u][b]Chapter Two[/b][/u]

It was the same thing every morning; she had the same nightmare that woke her up early in the morning. She would sit in the dark trying to collect her thoughts before laying back down and going back to sleep. 
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She sat in the dining hall with her friends, but along with them was Trixie’s new boyfriend Zack. He looked like the typical punk rocker with his buzz cut hair, ear rings and nose rings, black shirt with skull printed designs, arm bands with spikes, and skinny black pants. The two were all hugging and kissing each other.

“No dignity in their love, just make out right in front of everyone,” Trish said. Some of the dining hall had started to stare at the table while the two continued.

“Trixie, Trixie! Everyone’s staring,” Jessie whispered. Trixie looked at the three before sighing and the two stopped their little show and started eating their lunch.

“So this is Zack huh,” Serenity said.

“His name’s Base,” Trixie snarled.

“Don’t worry about it babe, it really doesn’t bother me. That’s my stage name for the band,” Zack said. It wasn’t a very thrilling conversation because when Trish, Jessie or Serenity tried to spark a conversation, Zack would change it to his band and what they’re doing or Trixie would change it to what Zack was doing. In the end, all the three got out of Zack was that his band was either trying to find a record deal or trying to find a gig to become famous. 

By the time all of them left the dining hall and headed for their classes, Serenity was already sick of any mention of Zack’s band, “Car Crash on the Scenic Route.” She headed to her next class which was Business Law 102, a class she enjoyed because of the fact that all the tests were take home and open book. Also, the teacher didn’t just bore the class with business and law lingo. He would give easy examples and definitions to the topics so everyone could understand them. When she sat down in the back of the class, the Professor walked in and placed his laptop on the desk and plugged it into the projector and went to YouTube and opened a video titled, “Disorder in the court: 20 more shocking outbreaks in the court”

“Today, we’ll watch a TruTV show that will help you all understand some unique things that could happen in the court room. Usually, these will only happen in criminal court but the knowledge is still good to know,” he said before he started the video. For forty minutes the class watched criminals trying to attack their attorneys, the judge, family members of the victims attacking the criminals and so forth. When the class ended at 4:30, most of the sidewalks were clear of student and only had a few walking around with food from the campus store or those rushing to get to class even though they were already 30 minutes late. 

She walked home and did the same thing she always did: Placed her keys in the bowl next to the door, petted the cat, took out a snack (usually whatever she had for supper last night), and listened to the police scanner. Usually it was nothing out of the ordinary. An officer calling in that they pulled over a car for some reason or reporting to a noise complaint. The city rarely had any huge incident were cops had to use their weapons or deadly force. The only big incident that actually happened was a bank robbery a few days ago and the news stations haven’t stopped talking about it.

Even though it seemed there was nothing happening on the surface of the city, under its metallic skin, there were drug dealers, smugglers, and the city’s biggest, yet secretive problem: Gangs. Most of the gangs were just street thugs that would threaten but never back up their threats. They usually used their numbers just to intimidate people and rarely got into fights but there were a select few gangs that actually backed up there threats to the point of murder. The police department tried their best to catch and lock up the gang members but it seems many of them have high officials backing them up because within 24 hours anonymous people seem to come from no were and pay their bonds and all their records seem to disappear. 

That’s partly the reason why Serenity did what she did. She hated to see the city she grew up in turn down this path and wanted to correct all that’s wrong with it. She wanted to see the city she use to know were a person could walk home every night and not fear getting jumped or killed. The other reason was because she wanted to find the person that killed her sister. Just thinking about it made Serenity angry. She knew he was part of a gang and even went so far as to assume he was a leader of a gang. There were so many that she couldn’t pinpoint the gang he could have belonged to.

She heard someone knocking at the door and walked over and looked through the peep hole and smiled as she swung open the door and quickly hugged the man on the other side.