Page 103 of Falling in Reverse

“Call him,” Juice orders softly, seizing my attention to my left, always the softie out of the two and, as much as I appreciate it, I’m not in the mood to be coddled.

I’m also not in the mood to have this conversation with Levi.

“Why? He’s right—” I point, but Juice shakes his head, causing me to pluck my cell phone out of my jeans and dial up my best friend who’s literally maybe twenty yards from me.

“Hey,” he greets on the first ring.

“What are you doing?” I coax, my excitement rising in my chest that he’s here. “And why am I standing here?”

“To stay away from you,” he deadpans.

My brows knit as I catch Juice’s stare. Paranoia and guilt replace the once enthusiasm that I had that he was safe. But there’s an elephant in the room that he and I are about to fight about.

And the bitch is heavy.

“Until I get this bomb off, I obviously need to stay away from everyone, but I wanted to see you.” I glance up to see him facing me. His wide shoulders filling a black tee and his legs widened as he stands there, looking back at me. My heart flutters that he’s within my sight.

That he’s alright.

“Are you hurt?”

“No.” I open my mouth, but he cuts into my evading with the cold hard facts. “Heard you stormed the sports store the other night.”

I steer to Hot Rod because he obviously ratted. He only shrugs, not giving a shit when I respond with, “Needed to make something move.”

“I better not find you doing that shit again,” my best friend barks. “There’s no?—”

“Speaking of shit,” I harp out, looking back to the asshole who’s only been lying to me for how long now? “You lied to me. So start vocalizing your piece, Levi, because I’m hella pissed that I had to do this.”

“Bay—”

“You promised, Lev. You promised no gangs. That was the deal. It wasn’t that hard of a thing to follow. I didn’t ask you to go build me a plane.”

“I’m not roped into this shit for life, Bay. It’s temporary.”

“Bullshit. We were thinking about leaving. We were going to bring these two idiots along with us, too.”

“We’ll leave if you still want to.” He says it with confidence, but I don’t buy into it.

I also don’t even know if I want to leave yet.

South Shore is home. However, the same home isn’t the best place to raise Ellie and Mae.

“Why didn’t you just tell me?” I hear the defeat ricocheting off my tone as I squeeze my cell tighter. “You’re the leader of The Nameless. And mama bear over here”—I jerk a thumb over to Hot Rod—“told me there’s more. So get to talkin’.”

“The plan is still to get out, Bay.”

“You said we weren’t going to do this. That we weren’t going to link ourselves in that world. That we would remain free.”

“Stop,” he grounds out, about to take a step forward but stops. “You’re pissed, but I’m not lying.”

“Oh”—I throw my hands up in the air—“now you’re not lying. Okay, well in that case…” I begin to pace, but Juice is immediately in my way, so I bark out, “Move, butthead.”

He promptly does, allowing me the line I need to calm myself down.

I haven’t thought about Levi and his associations since Hot Rod told me because I didn’t want to allow it access to my brain. I didn’t want us held down by a powerful name and no means to get the hell out of here.

“How did you get me out, Bay?” The suspicion in his voice is intransigent, and I can feel it crawl up my spine from yards away.

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