Pervert.
I stand up so abruptly the metal chair clatters to the ground, and for the first time, she looks a little unsettled. Guess I didn’t manage to hide my expression this time.
Well, at least she’s not as oblivious as I thought.
_
“Chuck that bag of chips, man,” Damien’s voice resonates in my ear. “You’re in the Oakley Crew. Let’s fucking go!”
“The Oakley Crew?” I roll my eyes. “Is that the new name this week?”
“Well, it beats what we were calling ourselves last week—the Oakley Ogres,” snorts Everest, running a hand through his blond hair.
Everest Grant has always been out of place in this town. It’s a good thing he’s under our wing, otherwise I’m pretty sure the idiot would have been murdered and left somewhere in a ditch by now.
“Well, now I’m really fucking hungry,” I grumble as I watch Damien toss my lunch into the overflowing trash bin. “I hope you have a plan.”
“I always have a plan,” says Damien grandly.
I exchange a smirk with Everest. Damien’s plans usually consist of him doing a whole lot of talking and not much else. But I have to give it to him, he’s a very good talker. Just a few minutes of being in his presence, and I grow as enthusiastic as him about the prospect of getting out of this shitty dump. Though the minute I’m by myself again, the rose-tinted glasses come right off.
No one ever leaves Oakley.
Right now, though, I’m not thinking of that as I follow him out of school with Everest. We head to a dirty street a few blocks away, and the only bar in town.
“Are you insane?” I hiss at Damien, trying to prevent him from sauntering in. To no avail. “That’s off-limits! That’s the Moretti family headquarters!”
If I know anything, it’s that you do not fuck with the Morettis. The mafia has a stronghold on all of Oakley. On much of the state too. But Damien doesn’t look scared as he walks in.
Everest hangs back nervously.
“I’ll wait for you here,” he mutters.
Coward. If anything could make me decide to follow Damien inside, it’s Everest’s fearful reaction. Breathing in and out slowly to calm my nerves, I hurry to catch up with Damien. He doesn’t even look back at me. As always, he does what he wants, without the least hesitation, and without the least speck of doubt that I’ll follow.
I always follow him.
“So your plan is to fucking order food in a mafia-controlled bar?” I growl in his ear.
“Not planning on ordering food.”
“Damien! You threw out my chips!”
“No one in the Oakley Crew eats chips,” he snorts. “Disgusting.”
“I’m fucking hungry,” I snap. “Thisis your plan? I thought we were going to eat!”
“Wearegoing to eat. We’re going to eat power.”
Despite my underlying anxiety, I can’t repress an eye roll as he sits down at a high table in one corner of the rundown place. I take the chair beside him, because he’s against the wall, and if I die, it’s not going to be with a fucking shot to the back of the head.
“I bet you don’t even have money anyway.”
“I don’t need money,” he insists. “Power comes first. Money after.”
“Yeah. Whatever.”
Another eye roll, which I end just in time to notice a guy a few years older than us walking in as coolly as Damien just did.