Total pages in book: 192
Estimated words: 182641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 913(@200wpm)___ 731(@250wpm)___ 609(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 182641 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 913(@200wpm)___ 731(@250wpm)___ 609(@300wpm)
Delta and I play good girls and head where we were instructed, but we don’t slip into the connecting hall. We continue straight out to the patio, where Sai already awaits, car door open for us to slip right inside.
I toss the man’s watch into the open safe on the floorboard and kick it closed.
“Well, that was so easy, it was almost boring.” Delta reaches for the actual champagne in the fresh pile of ice, bringing the bottle to her lips before passing it to me.
“Yeah, and apparently”—I make a show out of looking around to the empty seat on the left, where Bronx should have already been firmly planted—“so is our friend.”
Our eyes meet once more and we both begin laughing.
The glass blocking us from Sai’s view rolls down, and he grins over his shoulder. “Where to, your Greysons?”
“Back to the airstrip, Sai, and then The Enterprise.”
Time for the real fun to begin.
Bass
Twisting my torso, I slip through the cut wire fence, Hayze on my heels. I roll right while he cuts left, looking for leeches trying to hide out between the stacks of crates framing the gate and following the length of the abandoned lot around until we meet again, making sure we’re all clear. No homeless hanging around or overeager partiers looking to secure a spot before we allow it.
I yank on the chains of the old warehouse door, making sure no one’s decided to be real fucking stupid and pick the lock. The last thing we need is this place collapsing on some punks who think they don’t have to follow the rules when no one’s looking.
Hayze sends the text, letting people know bets are open, and within ten minutes, body after body is slipping through the fence, ready for a show and some Friday night fun. If watching poor assholes punch each other to the point of split flesh for a small stack of cash counts as fun. And if it doesn’t, most of us out here turning a ten into a quick twenty, that’s enough incentive to slide this way. Not much feels better than taking cash from spoiled rich kids, and these fools love to throw bills around. It leads to a lot of dick-measuring when you mix the rich and the poor, but that’s why I’m here. To keep all these assholes in line, to remind them the second they crawl through that gate, who they are on the other side of it, means jack shit.
This is a dark spot on the edge of town with no electricity, a makeshift fighting ring in the dirt, and wooden flats stacked all around, the only seating option.
Bring drama here, bleed here. Run, we chase you. Disappear, we find you.
Sing? Well … better say your goodbyes before it’s too late.
Rats die. It’s as simple as that.
Three hours later and the place is louder and fuller, the air pungent with the scent of weed and tobacco. The dirt is stained red, pockets have been pinched or plugged, and the patrons are good and buzzed.
Holding the joint between my fingers, I pull in a long drag, letting it roll out over my lip and inhaling through my nose. My phone beeps in my free hand and I glance at the screen.
Hayze: your ten. Green jacket.
My eyes flick up, skating past Hayze, who is positioned on the opposite side of the yard but directly across from where I’m sitting. I don’t look in the direction he gave. Don’t need to.
If trust exists in this cesspool, Hayze holds most of mine in his greasy hands. He doesn’t live at the group home with me but stays in a tent behind his sister’s trailer on the south side. He’s two years older than me, got his GED in juvenile hall, found me again the minute he got out, and hasn’t left since. He’s my friend before he’s anything else, but he doesn’t work for anyone like I do. I prefer it that way. It will make it easier for when my time comes to leave this place, to find something better out there and to bring my sister home. He’s coming with me.
Right now, to keep the peace with my bosses, I don’t tell Hayze what he doesn’t need to know, and he understands it. I know the drill of bringing someone else into my jobs—I give him a cut of my money and if he fucks up, I pay the price. I wouldn’t risk my spot or my sister’s safety by bringing some fool I wouldn’t bleed for into the mix.
He was my neighbor before I came here, heard and saw more than I’d like, but it goes both ways. I wasn’t always from a group home, and he wasn’t always squatting in the back of a trap house. His situation is worse, which is why I leave him my car most of the time.