Page 153 of Crew
"They wanted me to ask Channing to get all the crews involved."
"You serious? We're all troubled kids?" Alex barked.
That was the implication, yes. I let him figure it out.
He cursed, and I swore I saw an actual red glint in his eyes before he stepped away from my Jeep.
"Where are you going?" Cross called.
Jordan and Zellman had stood up in the back of my Jeep. They were quiet, watching whatever was going to unfold, but not Cross. He hopped out of my vehicle and darted in front of Alex, forcing him to stop.
"Think, Alex. Think first."
Alex tried to go around him.
Cross moved too, still blocking him.
"Fucking hell, Cross. Get back. I mean it."
That was enough for the rest of us. I slammed the Jeep into park and yanked the keys out. Jordan and Zellman scrambled out, coming up behind Alex. I was there a second later.
Cross put a hand up, holding us off.
"They're wrong, Alex," he coaxed. "We all know they're wrong. We're not worthless. We're not the bullies. All those words are attached to the word troubled. We get that. They don't. We're not wrong."
"They need to learn." Alex growled in his throat, starting around Cross again.
This time, I hurried forward to stand side by side with Cross, adding to his wall.
"Really, Bren?"
I nodded. "Listen to him. He's smarter than all of us."
Cross glanced at me as he continued. "Alex, they're the uneducated ones. They're adults who don't see grey. They only see black and white. You go in there and do what you're going to do, you're confirming their assumptions. They'll put us all in the wrong category. We're not wrong. We're not worthless."
"You're not!" Alex shot back, that vein sticking out again. "They love you. Everyone loves you. You're lethal as hell, but you get away with it because you're smart, and you look like a pretty boy. You don't get stereotyped like the rest of us."
"You think that matters to me?"
Now Cross was pissed. His eyes narrowed.
A shiver wound down my spine.
"You're talking to me like I'm not in the trenches with you," Cross said softly. He looked to Jordan, Zellman, and me. "Like I don't bleed when my crew bleeds."
"You know what I mean," Alex huffed.
Cross got in his face, forcing him to step back toward Jordan and Zellman.
"No, I don't," he said with a scary quiet that promised he was about to strike. "Why don't you spell it out for me? I want to make sure you didn't just insult me to my face."
Alex swallowed, taking note of his surroundings. We'd attracted a crowd as soon as I left, and now it seemed to have doubled. A new wave of awareness rippled through them. It wasn't a student-teacher fight like before. Word would spread that the Wolves were pushing around the Ryerson crew's leader.
"You know what I meant." Alex looked at the ground.
Cross didn't let up. "Then don't fuck up the rest of our crews," he hissed. "You want to watch something burn, you wait until we can't get in trouble for it. Going in there, starting whatever shit you want to start--that's going to have effects for all of us. Not just you. They're going to blame Bren for whatever you do."
"So what do you want me to do?" Alex didn't have it in him to stand down. But he was keeping it together. He was a bull being told not to leave the pen while the door was wide open. He was stomping on the ground, wanting to charge.
