Page 21 of Crew Princess
Channing cursed, then cursed some more. He paused, and another savage litany came out. “You’re fucking kidding me.”
I sighed into the phone. “What do you want me to say? That we’ve suddenly become different people? This is what we do. This is what we live—”
“Then maybe you shouldn’t live it anymore!”
I stopped. Six months ago, I would’ve taken those words a whole different way. Now, I just closed my eyes for a beat.
“Fine. Let’s play that game. You leave, I leave.”
“Fucking hell, Bren. Just—your crew did the cars? Is that what you’re saying?” His voice cracked, but he was calmer.
“Yeah.”
Another quiet curse under his breath. “Okay. One of those kids who tried to burn the school down, he’s saying Alex Ryerson put him up to it. Now…” He barked out that word before I could process what he’d just said, and he gentled his tone. “I don’t know if that’s true or not. What I do know is that if the kid is lying, he’s doing it intentionally. If he’s not lying—”
Now I cut him off, my hand almost breaking my phone. “If he’s not lying, Alex is going to be torn apart by everyone.” Including me.
Cross’ eyes narrowed to slits, like I knew they would at the mention of Alex’s name.
Channing spoke, quiet and calm now. “Tell me about Ryerson—Alex. He’s been in school again for a week, right?”
Channing knew Drake had handed his little brother over to us.
He also knew Alex had been in the hospital for a month to recover, and he came back to school without a crew and with a whole slew of people who hated him.
Besides trying to use his crew to beat up his cousin for family matters, not crew matters, he’d put Taz in the hospital when she got in the crossfire. Alex came back to school like a beaten dog.
I relayed all of that to Channing. “Yeah, he’s been back a week. There were a few fights, but that’s to be expected after what he did. No one who went after him like us, though. I think it was some of his old crew members pushing him around, maybe a couple jocks.”
“Okay.”
He didn’t sound okay. I hissed as I relaxed my hand.
There’d been peace. Almost four complete months of minor hiccups, and now this? Out of the blue?
Cross pushed off the wall. He strode over, his hand out, and a settled look on his face. “Give me the phone,” he murmured softly.
I handed it over. My gut was churning, but I couldn’t do anything here. I knew that.
Cross put the phone to his ear and said, “All due respect to you, Channing, but if there’s a town rivalry starting again, this isn’t your watch anymore.” His eyes held mine, fierce. “It’s our turn now.”
He was right.
Channing had run Roussou in his day. To an extent, he still did, but Cross was right. This was high school. This was ours.
I nodded, taking the phone back. I didn’t give my brother time to argue, saying over him, “We’ll let you know what happens.”
“Bren! Cross—”
I hung up.
I stood there, staring at Cross. We had to let the realization of what we’d just done wash over us. Fully. Because right now, right here, we were breaking away from everything we’d done before.
We’d always followed Channing.
He was the crew godfather, and his crew ran everything, but this was different. This wasn’t them pushing against a motorcycle club wanting to traffic drugs through town—that was their territory. This was ours.
This was right, what we’d just done.
