Page 162 of Crew
Another wait. It wasn't as long this time.
"I forgot how things work."
Did I need to refresh her again?
Cross did it for me. "Don't fuck with us."
Her head had been so high in the beginning. Now she looked like we'd taken her favorite toy away. The transformation was remarkable. She could go cry to someone, say I'd put my hands on her. I had. I shouldn't have, but I did. I knew what we'd done was bad.
We did it anyway.
The door opened behind us, and Jordan called, "We need your help with Race."
Cross and I moved at the same time, going for the house.
"They're hurting him?" Cross yelled.
"No." Jordan pushed the door wide for us. "It's the other way around. He's hurting them. It's all-out war out there."
We ran through the house and out onto the front lawn. He wasn't kidding.
The back half of the crowd was the jocks and their friends. The other half, their backs to the streets, was the Ryerson crew. I stopped to count them. Our crew went everywhere together, but Ryerson's crew was big--over thirty the last I knew--so they didn't always need everyone at a fight.
Tonight, however, I counted just under thirty, including the four on the ground.
Race stood in the middle of everything, throwing the crew members around. He wasn't letting them pin him down. That was his only saving grace. Once that happened, it would've been over. He was grabbing one and twisting his body around, evading and dodging, then hitting. It helped that the ones trying to grab him were a few of their older members, which was wrong in a whole other level. The high school guys should've waded in, but I saw some of them in the back.
Wait a minute.
They weren't just in the back. They were literally standing back, their hands in pockets, a few fisted at their sides, or their arms crossed over their chest.
They weren't okay with what they were doing.
They were actively stating it too, at least in crew language.
Alex, whether he realized it or not, was fucked. It was a matter of time.
Some of the jocks looked like they wanted in on the fight. A few waded in, but they pulled back if a Ryerson got too close. One threw a cup of something at them. It bounced off a Ryerson crew member like a fly.
Jordan moved through the crowd and gave the guy a look. "Nice," he sneered. "Real tough of you."
At the sound of his voice, everything changed.
The Ryersons all looked up, and the three surrounding Race fell back a couple feet. All eyes went to Jordan, then the rest of us. When the jocks realized Jordan was there, they moved aside. A path opened, and as one, we walked to stand in the center of it all.
Race's shirt had been torn off. Blood caked one side of him, and his chest heaved as he tried to catch his breath. His eyes were wild, panicked, and as he realized no one was advancing, he swung around. He almost raised a hand to Jordan, but caught himself.
His gaze jumped to me.
Alex moved forward, half his face bruised and his lip swollen. He wiped a hand over his face, smearing blood. He didn't notice, or he didn't care.
"What are you doing here?" he snarled at us. "He's not your crew."
Jordan looked to Cross, who stepped forward. "This is his house."
Alex's eyes narrowed. "Race isn't your crew."
Cross went rigid, then relaxed into a fighting stance. He was ready, and Alex knew all the signs. "This is my house."
