AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Another notification rolls in for him. He ignores it. “We have everything you need,” he finally says.
Calvin shoots him a look like Farrow’s veered off plan, and I study them both.What’s going on?
Farrow’s phone lights up again. He plucks it out of the stand and throws it in a cup holder.
I tense. They don’t have everything I need.
Like my underwear?
Farrow keeps going, though. Into town, up a road of broken concrete, and deep into the hills. Any remaining lights of Shelburne Falls on the other side of the river disappear.
I sigh. “So will I be able to get some sleep before the hazing starts?”
Farrow looks out his side window, flashing his Green Street tattoo in the rearview mirror—the word RIVER inked vertically, starting behind the earlobe and running down to nearly the base of his neck. A line strikes through the middle of the letters, from top to bottom.
Green Street is a gang, and I’m not sure if Farrow works for them yet, but that tattoo means he will. I don’t see one on Calvin, and I don’t want to turn my head to study Coral or Mace’s necks, because they’ll know I’m staring.
My cousin Hawke has the tattoo, but only because Aro, his girlfriend, is from here. She was Green Street property. If he wanted what was theirs, he had to get branded.
I look down at my phone again, still not seeing a response from Hunter.
The truck swerves, and I glance at Farrow, trying to type on his phone as he drives.
“Everything okay up there?” I ask him.
Someone is burning up his phone.
But he keeps typing. “Don’t worry.”
We wind through a neighborhood, left and then right, orange, red, and brown leaves kicking up under the tires and flying into the air. Abandoned storefronts and dark apartment buildings sit on both sides of the street, and I spot a small park, shrouded under a canopy of leaves. I can just make out a playset with a slide through a hole in the trees.
Farrow blows through a red light, cruising past a bar with one light outside the door and no windows, and I watch as he takes another left, not signaling.
“So, who am I staying with?” I ask them.
“I doubt any of our places will be up to your standards,” Mace says.
“Try me.”
“No Starbucks,” Coral chimes in. “No little shopping districts. No city landscaping.”
“No traffic laws either, it appears,” I add, feeling Farrow speed way above the limit. “What do you all want out of this?”
They won’t let me go home, not even to collect my belongings.
They won’t tell me who I’m staying with.
“I won’t run away screaming,” I warn them.
Farrow slows, pulling up alongside the curb in front of a row of townhouses. “But we’re certainly going to piss you off,” he says.
A snort goes off somewhere in the truck, and then everyone pops open their doors and climbs out. Peering beyond the windows, I see others loitering in the street and on the sidewalk, music vibrating under the tires. I only hesitate a moment before I follow.
Groups of people sit in tiered positions on porch stairs, while others stand around burnt-out street lamps and cars that look like they haven’t moved in a decade. An ’80s, two-door green Dodge that looks like it weighs more than my house sits lopsided on two flat tires, a young guy with dark hair and a leather jacket, fisting a plastic cup, leans against it.
I slam the door to the truck, Farrow and his crew waiting for me. Turning, they lead me like we’re on parade, everyone’s eyes following me as I float past.
They still haven’t told me where I’m sleeping. I cast my gaze around, seeing both sides of the street lined with the same style brownstone townhouses, but for whatever reason—either age, wear, or damage—they’re close to looking black. They might’ve been impressive once.
