“Hey!” she yells, stumbling to my side.
“Aro, what the hell?” Axel barks.
But I ignore them, swinging us around and tossing Hugo a look. “I’m taking help.”
If Reeves is coming, then she’s leaving. I push her in front of me, following her out and not sure why I give a shit. I guess I wish someone had done the same for me years ago.
I push through the door, hearing Hugo shout behind me, “And stay away from those little Pirate shits!”
The steel door falls shut, and the kid spins around, but I grab her arm and pull her forward again before she has a chance to run.
“Let me go!” she yells, her white hair falling into her face, the blue chunks vibrant like she just redid them. Technically, she’s one of those little Pirate shits—a resident of Shelburne Falls, that clean, picturesque, All-American, CW lobotomy, seven miles away that loves to rub their money, cars, and Jared Trent in our faces, because he is their only bragging right, as far as I’m concerned.
But for some reason, they didn’t want this girl, so she came over here to Weston to find people who did. I shove her toward the Jeep. “Get in the goddamn car.”
I round the rear of the old navy-blue vehicle, the remnants of a My Kid Is an Honor Student at Charles A. Arthur Middle School bumper sticker hanging on for dear life on the bottom of the back windshield. Who knows how many owners ago that was, and I have no idea where Charles A. Arthur Middle School is.
I climb into the car and slam the door. “Tommy, right?” I ask. She’s only been hanging out at the garage for a few weeks, and we’ve never spoken until now.
She throws me a look but doesn’t answer.
I start the car. “So, what’s up, Tommy? You got a family to support? Drughead parents? Are you starving?”
“No.”
I shift the car into Drive and glance at her. “Are you abused at home?”
She turns her scowl on me, her eyebrows pinched together.
Yeah, didn’t think so. “Then you should keep your ass there,” I tell her. “It’s so easy to slum when you have the security of knowing you don’t really have to be here, isn’t it? You get to leave anytime. You’ll never be us.”
She grabs the handle, about to throw her shoulder into the door to scurry out, but I click the locks just in time.
She glares at me. “You want me to go, but you won’t let me leave!”
“Just shut up.”
I take off, speeding out of the deserted parking lot, overgrown weeds spilling through the chain-link fence that separates the property from the field behind it. The August humidity makes the heat worse, and I jack up the A/C, desperate to remove my coat and hoodie, but a night of crime is kind of like riding a motorcycle. It’s best to cover as much of you as possible.
“I get fifty percent of your twenty,” she points out.
I turn left, watching the road. “Or you can get a hundred percent of a fat lip. How about that?”
Little punk actually thinks I want her tagging along tonight. No clue that I just saved her ass, and I’m damn-well not sharing my take on top of it.
I pull up in front of Lafferty’s Liquor, park on the curb across the street, and leave the engine ru
I look over at Tommy. “Stay here,” I tell her. “Keep the engine ru
She furrows her brow.
I continue. “Don’t stutter when you talk to anyone. And if you leave with this car, I will prank call 911 and tell them your dad is beating on me at your house. I think they know the address, Dietrich.”