15. Bay
FIFTEEN
bay
“Houston, we have a problem.” My body is jerked softly, but I keep my wearisome head firmly planted in my palm. My eyes are so heavy that it’ll take a crane to open them. “Bay, you might want to be conscious for this.”
“Nooo,” I groan, wishing Nessa would just fuck off with needing to tell me every fucking cute guy she sees in this dumbass school.
I was almost half asleep, wanting to spend the only fifteen minutes I have without teachers blabbing on and on about whatever the hell because I'm getting zero sleep at home. Every creak or sound the house makes, I believe is someone breaking in and Emilio holding true to what he said last week at the bar.
I've touched that damn shotgun in my room so many times that I'm relatively embarrassed to say the amount.
" Bay ." The urgency in Nessa's voice has me cracking my eyes open, immediately blinded by the color of bright red.
“The fuck?” I shadow my vision with my hand against the cafeteria lighting and whatever the hell is blaring me in the face.
Slowly, I glance up at a slim frame with even brighter lips and a darker scowl.
"Oh, hey, Layla. What gives us the pleasure of your presence today? Shouldn’t you be bent over a desk or fuming off some threats to some lowly college freshmen?”
"You hit my brother, bitch," she leers, ignoring my other pretty serious questions and stapling me with a set of shit-brown eyes and overly done eyeshadow of browns and pinks.
I can't help but notice how her cat-like eyeliner is also crooked on her left eye. Maybe she was already angled over something earlier.
I yawn, not bothering to stop it because why would I for my archenemy? Layla and I have been going at this piddly-ass crap since my sophomore year of high school. "Who?"
"Davis, hoe. My brother, Davis. "
I lift my shoulders. “I don’t know who that is, dude.”
“Saint Augustine…” Layla still glowers at me. “He said you went all crazy and hit him for no reason.”
Um, no.
But I’m not going to correct her. Plus, I didn’t know she had siblings, never cared to either.
"Huh. Small world."
Nessa nudges me in the bicep. Layla has three girls flanking both of her sides and Nessa over here is riding off a suspension right now. One more and she's going to get expelled for—you may have guessed it—fighting.
"He's younger than you," Layla continues, disgust laced in her tone, as if I'm a monster. "What's wrong with you?"
“Aren’t we too old to be doing this?” I ping-pong my index finger between us. Is she really going to start a fight in the middle of a community school cafeteria? “I graduated high school, Layla. I know you barely did, but…”
“Do you think this shit is funny?” she sneers, her teeth baring with how livid she is.
Shit’s scary, lemme tell ya.
“Why is your brother fighting girls, Layla? I don't ask for IDs when someone grabs my ass and starts running their mouth. That's not my problem."
"It doesn't matter why he was there.” She points an accusing black-painted fingernail at me. “The problem is why you touched him."
I shrug, already bored of this conversation and how I’m confident of the ending. "He put his hands on me first." Layla lunches forward, but one of her friends with half a brain halts her by placing a hand on her chest. I perk a brow. "What are you going to do about it?"
"Bay," Nessa mutters. "I'm on probation, girl."
I snort through my nose. Layla knows what I can do. I only beat her ass senior year of high school for slamming a girl's skull into a locker because she wanted her cheap-ass necklace. I won't stand for that bullying bullshit. It's unnecessary, and when you're ganged up on—yeah, no.
Layla doesn’t heed my warning or the recollection of the last time she and I threw hands. “You think because you got me alone, you can—" I rise from my chair, shoving it back and hearing the ear-screeching scraping against the dirty tiled floors .
"Yeah, I can ,” I retort sharply. “And, what, I get you alone, one on one, and that's unfair? The fuck?"
"I didn't go beating up on your sisters."
"Get over it." I plop back down, because she isn't going to touch me in front of all these kids, and I'm tired. I have a race tonight, and I require a nap. With not being able to run anymore through The Landings for a minute, I'm getting low on cash. I need to pay Dad’s caregiver by the end of the week, or she's not going to show up again to help out.
"Keep your eyes peeled," Layla threatens, like it's going to hang over me like a cloud for days. "You pissed me off and you're dead."
I rub my sleepy irises that she just mentioned. "Feeling like it." I wave her away like the bitch she is. "Enjoy the rest of your day, girl."
She mutters something I don't hear, then saunters away in her short skirt, with her little minions faithfully following behind her.
"Why are you taunting her?” Nessa chuckles, pulling her long golden blonde hair off her chest and throwing it over her shoulder. "You know I can't get into it with her when I'm on school property."
“Then maybe you shouldn’t have beat up a Karen at Walmart earlier this year and you wouldn’t be on the radar.” I pluck Nessa’s can of Coke off the lunch table and take a long swig.
“Layla is desperate to fight you again, girl.”
I shrug. “She ain't gonna do anything but run her mouth."
“Speaking of runs…” And here we go… “I’m gonna beat Levi’s ass for having you work with The Nameless when we said?—”
“Leave it alone,” I drone, long and worn out. “I’ve told you over a million times, I’m not working for them. I do it for the extra, needed cash. They don’t try to recruit me, and I’m not going to get a big tattoo with their gang name on my ass.”
“I don’t trust them.”
“But Levi does.” And, honestly, that’s enough for me. “They’re elusive because they have to be. They’re constantly under Sheriff Muncy’s radar, and you know his dick gets hard when he thinks he’s on to nailing one of us.”
She stabs a crouton in her salad but holds her unwieldy gaze. “Your dad is going to get pissed if he finds out.”
Speaking of dads…I’m getting another DNA test.
Travis is having a second one done for me. It’s obviously an extra precaution so that Emilio couldn’t possibly touch it and have it altered to read what he wants it to say.
And until then, I’m keeping my mouth shut to everyone.
“It’s dangerous shit, Bay,” my best friend claims, as if I don’t already know.
“So is stealing,” I retort flatly to her personal hobby of choice. “It’s jail time.”
“Not if you suck the security guard's dick.”
I rub my eyes, honestly not fazed by her comment, because there’s no way she’d get on her knees for some middle-aged man who carries around a baton to get out of trouble. “You’re an idiot.”
She chuckles at that before it quickly fades. Nessa’s not done yet. The worry she’s feeling has been building up for weeks now since Dad stroked out.
What sucks is that she knows I need to run shit for The Nameless.
That, no matter what happens, it’s the only option besides working at The Stowaway that I have. While The Landings has the perfect placement to distribute their crap, we’re trapped. The moment a large semi roams through South Shore and past that gray line that enters enemy territory, we’re ambushed. So, vans, cars, and beat-up trucks are what we try to use to go unnoticed.
Lately, it’s been dirt bikes through the woods, but I haven’t learned the routes yet.
“You gonna find a new way?”
“Gonna have to,” I answer. “I’m not looking to catch a murder case if I have to pop a cap into Torin Wildes’s ass.”
“You hear anything back from Trav yet?”
It takes everything in me to keep my eyes from bulging from my head, paranoia immediately filling my brain that he told her. “For what?”
“Connect Four night.”
Right.
“Uh, yeah, Thursday. The girls can go to bed a little later, since they only have one more day of school and I don’t have to work.”
I feel her studying me then, conscious again that she may be able to read right through me. “You good?”
“Yeah, I’m just really tired.”
“Levi said you met Ramsey Wildes. Is he as fuckin’ crazy as people say he is?”
“No idea, but the gun pointed at me kinda gave it away.”
“And you realize what he does?” I avert my gaze from her because I don’t desire to be lectured right now. We’ve been through this twice already in a week span.
Ramsey Oliver Wildes.
Oldest stepson of Emilio Wildes.
Tyrant of the newly organized gang, The Void.
He’s been known to rip fingers off people’s hands, bludgeon folks with heavy objects, and has been also known to kill small children.
“What will you have me do, Nessa?” I argue. “Pray to God a few Benjamins land in my front yard?”
My main focus is Emilio, not investing in manifesting money, and how those two dudes in my house were a warning, a means to scare the shit out of me.
It worked.
Men love to flex their power and what better way than going at the throat and hovering their most loved possession over their head? Then add on this whole daughter bullshit and you have my current status.
“Listen, there’s no point in being stupid about this, Bay. Those guys the other night could've hurt you." I crane my head and look at her, attempting to keep my piqued irritation from lashing out.
They could've, I'm not denying that fact. However, I can’t control reminiscing about the what-ifs.
My cell vibrates off the table, and I quickly scoop it up to see if I’ve heard anything from Trav.
UNKNOWN: I want to meet.
Emilio.
"I'm fine,” I force from my lips, powering down my nerves and my brain on that problem. “And I'm gonna run a few different avenues through The Landings.”
"How?" Her bedroom eyes of mixed browns hold a curious and apprehensive look. I could be up to anything, she knows that. My family is my number one priority and has been forever.
I smirk against her unease. "I'll take a picture and show you the next time. You'll love it."
Nessa heaves a brow. "What did you do?" I laugh, which makes Nessa chuckle along with me. “You’re bad as hell.”
“Says the bitch who smashed Karen with a display toaster.”
My best friend lifts a dismissive shoulder. “She didn’t like my shirt.”
“You mean lack of?”
“Free country, baby.” She smiles wide, and then bites down on her mauve-colored lip. "Sooo…is there anything else you wanna tell me?”
“Like?”
“There’s a guy who’s been watching you this whole time with a knife sitting on the table.”
“What?” I don’t peer around, only because that’s the stupid thing to do. If someone is observing me, I definitely don’t want him to know we found him out.
“Sitting at one of the lunch tables by the wall.” She flicks her brown eyes at me like we’re talking about regular girl shit. “Black hoodie, looks like he has tattoos along his neck.”
“Did you say a knife on the table?”
“I did,” Nessa says matter-of-factly, with a bob of her head. “Dude appears like he’s about to murder you.”
“Does he look like a pretty boy?” I press, because if that little prick is at my school, I’m going to be the first one to introduce him to a South Shore lunch while slamming a chair over his head for dessert.
“Mhm, no. I think he looks like he’s the kinda guy who would take that knife, hold it up against your throat, and fuck you hard against a wall.”
“Geezus fucking Christ,” I groan, tucking my chin into my chest.
“Who is he?”
“How the fuck should I know?”
“Interesting…well, maybe you should make your intentions known.” I flick my eyes to Nessa, who’s wearing a shit-eating smile. “You know, that you don’t need a shadow accompanying you around anywhere.”
“If I find him following me, I will.” The alarm on my phone rings, announcing lunch is over for me and so is my mini time frame for a nap.
Nessa and I leave the cafeteria to get to our next classes and I take the opportunity to turn around to find a mysterious man in a black hoodie.
But there’s no one.
If Emilio believes himself to be sneaky, he’s never fucked with a South Shore bitch before.