Page 11 of The Job

If she comes into my room in the morning, she could catch sight of the bruises covering me since I tend to kick the covers off, so, figuring being hot is better than getting in trouble, I pull a zip-up hoody out of my closet and pull that on instead, doing it right up so that the only thing left exposed is my face. I really want to fall into bed, but my stomach growling loudly makes me change my plans, and instead, I grab my remote and the plate of food that my mom brought up, putting something on my TV and getting as comfortable as I can.

I really hope that, for once, I’m not going to feel worse in the morning after a fight because right now, I feel like absolute shit. Billy and Lucky attacking me like that surprised me. We have had a kind of hate/mild dislike for each other for a while, where we will tolerate one another and work together when something big happens to stop it escalating. We had to after the Pit went down and didn’t really have much choice. Fights were breaking out so regularly, and if we didn’t work together, then there would have been a lot more kids ending up in the hospital or in juvie.

We were already in enough trouble. So, we had to sort of get along, the understanding being that if a fight broke out, we sorted our own sides and broke it up, instead of joining in ourselves or even starting them, which is how we used to run things. It was an adjustment for sure, but in the end, it worked out quite well. Until they stopped doing their fucking job properly. They had sorted their shit in the last few months, and everything was back to our new normal.

Putting Boyd in juvie and making sure that he took the fall for the shit that he was doing has clearly fucked all of that up. I mean, I get it. I really do. If they had put one of us away, there is no chance in hell that the others would have tolerated it and let them get away with it. We wouldn’t have attacked them two to one though. That’s a fucking shitty thing to do, and I really thought they were better than that.

It looks like any mild camaraderie that we had with them has now gone, and I don’t know how that’s going to affect everyone else and the fights that are still happening, although thankfully, not so regularly. If Billy and his guys jump in, then we’re going to have to as well. We can’t leave our people fighting by themselves but that means that a fight that we used to break up becomes a brawl and something that the cops get called to.

I really don’t want to disappoint the parents any more than we already have. Getting the cops involved with the Pit was bad enough.

I would like to stick to them thinking we are behaving properly and knowing nothing about what is really going on.

If we are lucky, what happened tonight will have made Billy think twice about coming for us and our people and he’ll stay away. We need things to stay quiet. We’ve got one year left, and then we’re all out of here. Surely, we can keep it relatively peaceful between now and then.

I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.

Chapter Seven

Trick

It has been a few days since Billy and Lucky attacked Cash, and he’s doing a lot better now. He is managing to move around normally; his ribs were bruised and not broken, which is a relief all around. Unfortunately, his face hasn’t fared nearly as well, and he looks fucking terrible. Something that the rest of us take great pleasure in telling him regularly.

We didn’t have anything to do today, everything has been relatively quiet, and Billy and the others haven’t caused any more shit for us since Cash beat them to a pulp.

I am hoping that seeing Cash lose his shit as he did, and witnessing that scary darkness take him over, has made Billy and Lucky think twice before they try anything else, and that they will tell the rest of their guys to back the fuck off too. IfI’m being completely honest with myself, seeing Cash in all his scary glory would make me think twice, and he is one of my best friends.

We decided that since we didn’t have anything to do today, we would go to Knox’s place and check on him. After we dealt with the drug problem, we expected Knox’s parties to start up again almost immediately, and they haven’t. It has been a couple of months now, and we realized that no one had actually told him that the situation had been dealt with. We all just assumed that he would know since he knew so much when we went to talk to him, and warn him about the drug issue the first time. Maybe that was a one-off, though.

He uses the parties to distract himself from some pretty horrific things that have happened in his past, and that’s why we’re worried that he hasn’t started them back up yet. It's concerning. It’s for that reason that we decided to drive up to his place today and tell him in person. Of course, there is a secondary reason, and that is that we found out some really interesting stuff about him and, among other things, that his family founded the town. Which was something that none of us knew and we should have known since we were taught about the town's history in school. It piqued all of our interest, and we all want to know more about it and why it’s not widely known. We are also hoping that he will tell us and hopefully fill us in on why we’re not taught about it.

“That entrance wows me every fucking time that we drive under it,” Jensen mutters, referring to the carved wooden archway. There’s almost something magical about it; there really is.

As weird as it is, there is something different about the place, but I can’t quite put my finger on what it is.

“I don’t see his truck parked anywhere,” Jensen comments as we get out of the vehicle and head up the steps to the front door.

“Maybe he’s in town?” I suggest, although come to think of it, I can’t remember the last time I actually saw him in town.

“His security camera is still up,” Jensen mutters as he moves further down the porch and looks through one of the windows. “I can’t see fuck all.”

“Considering that this guy is most likely dangerous, is it a wise idea to be looking through his windows?” Cash asks with his arms crossed over his chest, and his eyebrow raised questioningly.

“He has a point,” Luc agrees, looking around somewhat nervously, “I mean, we are in the middle of nowhere; he could kill us and bury the bodies, and no one would ever find us.”

We stare at him for a moment before it clicks, and I sigh, “Did you watch one of those unsolved murder things last night?”

Luc’s cheeks tint slightly pink, and he clears his throat, “Erm, maybe.”

We all burst out laughing, and Cash says, “Dude, you have to stop doing that. It just freaks you out.”

“You’re the one that said Knox was dangerous,” Luc replies indignantly.

“We’re dangerous,” Jensen retorts this time, rolling his eyes like we’re all being ridiculous.

“Alright, we’ve gotten distracted,” Riot says, amusement dancing in his eyes as he glances at Luc and says, “Maybe that’s his plan to distract us all before he makes his move. Quick, check that the tires haven’t been slashed.”

“Haha, you’re so fucking funny,” Luc retorts, “douche-canoe.”

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