Page 44 of Let the Game Begin

To say that the other group of guys wasdifferentfrom us was a massive understatement. They belonged to another world entirely. I had felt it the first time I encountered them, but seeing them here now confirmed it. Everything about them—their strange, fanciful appearance and the challenging stares they gave to anyone who dared pass—made it undeniable.

“So who are they exactly?” I played dumb, hoping to get some more information, but everyone just stared at me like I’d grown a second head. Was what I said really that weird?

“You don’t know? For real?” Cory tilted his head, and I cleared my throat awkwardly. Logan just sighed and toyed with an empty straw left on the table.

“They call themselves the Krew, but with a K,” Jake offered, running a hand through his heavily styled blond hair.

“The Krew?” I echoed with a frown.

“Yeah, apparently it means ‘blood’ in Polish.” This time, it was Adam who spoke. “They get into fights everywhere they go. They’ve sent more than a few people to the hospital,” he explained flatly, looking over at the table of them like they were actual monsters.

“Even the girls are crazy.” Alyssa twirled her index finger around her ear to emphasize her point.

I was shocked by this information.

“But why are they allowed here, then? How can they keep attendingcollege?” I asked, and Logan tossed the straw he’d been playing with back on to the table.

“Almost all of them come from very wealthy families,” Logan answered with a certain discomfort, training his hazel eyes on the table of them. “The blond girl, whom you’ve already met at our house, is Jennifer Madsen. There’s talk that her stepdad is abusive.” I glanced at her and found her grinning, perfectly confident and comfortable. It was the same smile she gave Neil when he wanted her.

I hated it.

“The girl with the blue hair next to her is Alexia Vogel. Her parents died in a car accident, so now she lives with her grandparents. She’s a lunatic. Last year at a party, she beat another student so bad she broke the girl’s jaw.” I turned to Logan in shock. This anecdote of his sounded like something out of a horror movie. I looked around at our other friends who, with their unsurprised looks, confirmed that Logan was telling the truth.

“That… That’s…wild,” I murmured in shock.

“Yep,” Jake muttered.

“And then there’s the guys,” Logan kept going when he noticed that my gaze had once again drifted over to the Krew. “Luke Parker, the blond dude, his dad’s a lawyer and his mom’s a journalist. He’s probably the most normal-seeming of the group, but he’s honestly just as messed up as the rest of them.” Logan shook his head in disgust, and I wondered how someone like him had learned such personal details about those people. It seemed like he knew them well.

“Finally…” He dry-swallowed and carefully lowered his voice. “The black-haired one, with the lip and eyebrow piercings, that’s Xavier Hudson.” He indicated the guy I’d been observing earlier. He was a good-looking guy. I had noticed that about him right away back when I’d first seen him on the side of the road.

“He’s a Bronx native. Lives with his alcoholic uncle. Allegedly, he saw his dad murder his mom when he was a kid. He stabbed her twenty-four times.” I shuddered at that alarming story and looked mutely at Logan. What could I possibly have said? This was all so surreal that it rendered me speechless.

“He took a gap year before he started school, and it’s supposedly somysterious how he earns all his money, though…” He stopped and heaved a sigh. “It’s pretty easy to figure out,” he concluded, making a meaningful expression that no doubt alluded to the illicit activities that allowed Xavier to live just like his rich friends.

Right then, Xavier was giving the waitress a sinister stare as she arrived at their table. The poor girl’s hand was shaking as she clutched her order pad to her chest.

“So, sweetheart, I asked you for a cold beer. This beer is warm. It’s garbage. It feels like a bottle of piss,” he snapped. Then he grabbed the neck of the bottle with two fingers and stretched his arm out over the table before dropping it, allowing it to shatter on the floor.

I was genuinely shocked by this atrocious behavior. It was like he was trying to start a brawl.

“This is how he always is…” Cory offered, pushing back a lock of black hair that had fallen over his forehead.

“He picks out a victim and then provokes them until they snap. He especially likes to target women,” Jake added.

“Leave! Get the hell out of here!” The waitress pointed at the exit, still scared and visibly trembling. But Xavier just laughed in her face. He stared at her, first at her chest and then at her legs, left exposed by her uniform’s skirt. He stood up to his full height. He was slim and tall, though not as tall as Neil.

I glanced around the room, and what I saw was extremely unnerving: everyone was just watching this awful scene play out, totally silent, not doing a thing. This wasn’t about staying out of it; it was just pure cowardice.

Things like this couldn’t just be allowed to happen—and in a busy public place as well. Someone had to step in. I didn’t know what I was going to do, but I instinctively tried to get out of my seat and rescue that girl from this “Krew’s” clutches. But Logan grabbed me by the arm and held me down.

“No, wait,” he whispered, cautious but confident.

“But—”

“Wait,” he repeated more decisively, so I listened to him, but I remained on alert.

A man strode purposefully across the restaurant toward the group as the waitress scurried back to the kitchen.