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“You need to think this through, kid.” The older man’s eyes flashed with anger. “What you’re doing right now isn’t sanctioned by Luke Carmine, I know that much. And you’re not important enough to him for him to back you up. If he decides he doesn’t want a war with Nathaniel Ward, he’ll throw you to the wolves so fast you’ll think you got sucked into a time warp.”
“That’s—”
“It is true. And if you don’t know that by now, you’re dumber than you look.” He shook his head, holding Eli’s gaze. “Now take a fucking breath and get the hell out of here.”
Eli glared at Mr. Tyson. I knew he didn’t want to get the hell out of anywhere, particularly not because a teacher had told him to. I knew the look on his face. It was a look that demanded retribution, and I had no doubt in my mind that Eli had the means to try to enact it.
But the older man’s words finally seemed to sink into Eli’s brain, and I could see his express
ion shift as he realized Mr. Tyson was right.
Hocking a large, bloody wad of spit onto the ground, Eli turned and stormed off. A sinking feeling in my gut told me this wouldn’t be the last altercation we had with Eli, and it probably wouldn’t be the least bloody either.
But right now, we had another problem to deal with.
“You didn’t need to step in on this, Tyson,” Bishop said, wiping the back of his hand over his mouth, where a line of blood trailed from his lower lip. “This wasn’t your business—”
Mr. Tyson held his hand up, his expression unchanged from when he’d been talking to Eli. If anything, now that the other boy was gone, he looked more tense.
“You, stop fucking talking. You’re in deeper shit than you understand.”
With those words, he reached into the back pocket of his slacks and pulled out his phone. My heart thudded hard in my chest.
Fuck. Is he really about to call the police on them?
No teacher at Slateview, and least of all Mr. Tyson, ever got involved in anything the Lost Boys did. They barely even got involved in general fights. There was no point.
“Mr. Tyson—”
I started to speak up, but he leveled a look at me and I fell silent.
He’d thrown us all off balance, and none of the Lost Boys moved to stop him either as he dialed a number on his phone and pressed it to his ear.
“Nathaniel? It’s me. Yeah. I think I finally have a lead on your Flint problem.” A pause. “Let’s just say it involves a couple of boys and a pretty little school girl.” Another pause. “Yeah. No problem. Be there soon.”
He slid his phone into his pocket and looked to Bishop.
“Nathaniel wants to see you. All of you. Now.”
Bishop, Kace, and Misael all straightened, their bodies going tense as they stared at him in disbelief.
“How the fuck do you know Nathaniel?” Bish asked in a low voice. “And why the fuck should we go anywhere with you?”
“The answer to your first question is irrelevant right now,” Mr. Tyson said simply. His voice was still calm, but his expression was hard. “You’re not the only people in this school with connections to him. And as to why? Well, you answered that yourself when you decided it would be a good idea to get into a brawl with one of Luke’s guys and run your mouth off about shit you shouldn’t have done. Now Nathaniel wants to see you, and I don’t think I have to explain to you that not doing what that man says when he says it is a very bad idea.”
His words landed hard, the truth of them hanging in the air.
Shit. How much did he hear? When did he show up?
From the sound of it, he’d heard them mention Flint’s name, and that possibility made my stomach turn to ice. It was dangerous enough for Bishop to have spoken it out loud at all, for him to have mentioned it in front of Eli, who could possibly use it against them.
But I hadn’t expected anyone else at this school to know Flint’s name. To understand what the mention of him meant.
None of us had.
But we’d all been wrong.
We were quiet for a long moment before Bishop spoke up again. He was still breathing heavily, and he didn’t take his eyes off our teacher as he spoke.
