Page 9

Her eyes go big, she grabs the key, and she laughs. “Hell yes.”

I start the car and drive off, dialing my old foster brothers. Nicholas picks up.

“I need you,” I tell him.

Hawke

I watch her speed off, not taking the direction home, but I don’t care to worry about it.

What was Dylan thinking? Weston is bad enough, but Green Street won’t stop. She doesn’t want them on her ass.

I see Schuyler covering her mouth, blood dripping.

It was bad back in the day, the rivalry. But only to the point of being mildly dangerous—the clashes at the Loop between the Pirates from the Falls and the Rebels from Weston—but things had changed a lot in twenty years. Our town got richer—with people like my father and my uncles succeeding and giving back with jobs and events that brought in revenue—and Weston got poorer.

But struggle isn’t always a bad thing. Only when we’re desperate do we dig in, and Weston found ways to brace themselves. They’ve risen. Disgracefully, but still.

And all in ways that are illegal.

Bella and Socorro pull Schuyler off the floor, and I approach. “Are you okay?” I ask her.

She just turns, whimpering and running for the bathroom. Her friends follow.

She’s bleeding hard. She’ll need stitches, probably. Pretty sure she’s never been hit in her life.

I start to follow her but stop. She broke up with me. She’ll ask for help if she needs it.

Spotting Dylan, I pull out a chair at her table, Kade taking a seat next to me. He holds our cash in his hand. “We need to send a message,” he tells me. “We’ve got enough problems with St. Matt’s, and I don’t want you leaving me to deal with Weston, too.”

I start at Clarke University, my dad’s old school, in a couple of weeks, and Kade will be a senior. He bitches about what’s ahead of him, but honestly, he can’t wait. Grudge Night, senior year, football, and Rivalry Week—he’s waited for his chance to be in charge.

“She’s not over here as a Rebel,” I retort. “She’s a shallow, senseless, little punk, soon-to-be inmate at Stateville Prison.” And then I give Dylan a look, only her long, dark lashes visible from underneath her baseball cap as she plunges the tortilla chip into the queso. “If you all would just stop buying from them…”

She shoots her eyes up. “I had no choice,” she tells me. “Every time I had a missing assignment last year, my dad took my phone. I need a spare before school starts.”

“Or you could just stop missing assignments?”

“Can’t.” She shrugs, stuffing the chip into her mouth. “Too busy looking for you while you’re skipping classes.”

I shake my head.

But I shut up. She always does that. That younger cousin thing, looking at me with her mom’s storm-blue eyes and her dad’s big, bright smile that she uses a hell of a lot more than he does and saying that she’s just following my example and she’ll do as I do, not as I say. I have a perfect GPA. I can afford to miss classes.

“Here.” Kade hands me my money, pocketing the rest that was his.

I take it and dig in my back pocket for my wallet. “And all that bullshit with St. Matt’s is on you,” I tell him. “You can deal with your own brother.”

He purses his lips and looks off, knowing I’m not leaving him with any messes that I made.

I switch hands, checking the other pocket.

“Well, if we’re all just too small town for you, Hawke,” Dylan chimes in, “why’d you decide to go to college so close to home?”

But as I dig in my pockets and come up empty, realization hits and Dylan’s words are lost on me.

“What’s the matter?” she asks.

I jerk my eyes up to her and then to the door. Shit!

Dylan gasps. “She didn’t…” She gapes at me, and then…she throws her head back, pealing with laughter. “Oh my God. That’s fantastic.”

Seriously? Whose side is she on?

An alert hits on my phone, and I pull it out, staring at the notification.

JT Alarm 08 Activated. Do you need assistance?

Oh, no. My wallet. My card key to the race shop.

I dart my gaze up to Dylan. “Move!” I order and then look to Kade. “Now!’’

They don’t ask why. They bolt, scrambling out of their chairs and follow me out of the bar. We dash across the street to Kade’s truck. He tosses me the keys. “I can’t afford another ticket,” he says. “You drive.”

We climb in, and I start the engine, shifting into Drive before speeding away from the curb. The seatbelt alarm sounds, but I ignore it, turning left and then right. The shop is less than two blocks away.

“I’ll text Dirk and Stoli,” Kade says, tapping away on his phone and messaging our friends. “We may need help.”