Page 6 of The Thief
I’d made him happy.
Why did seeing that do something to me too?
“I think you and I could be friends.” He grinned. “Eventually.” He took a seat at the desk adjacent to my own and said, “My name’s Adam, by the way. Adam Noble.” He nodded to the guy behind and added, “And that’s Devon.”
I tipped my chin up, playing it cool.
“I’m Tyler.”
“Nice to meet you, Tyler,” he stated as the teacher walkedthrough the door. “Welcome to hell’s waiting room. Or as we like to call it, Brinton Manor.”
Chapter Two
IT TAKES A THIEF TO CATCH A THIEF
Tyler
Later that day
“You should come with us,” Adam said as we headed out of the unit after a day of pointless lessons that no one paid any attention to. “Learn a real lesson today.”
“Come where?” I asked, feeling more than a little intrigued.
I was starting to like Adam and Devon. They took no shit, and no one gave them any because everyone in the unit was shit scared of them. They must’ve done some messed up stuff before I’d joined to have everyone avoiding them, heading the other way when they saw them coming, and behaving like they were in awe, but at the same time desperate not to be on their radar.
“The park,” Adam replied.
I didn’t mean to make my lip curl mockingly, but it did.
“You don’t have to look like that,” he sneered back at me. “It’s not as lame as it sounds. We’re meeting some friends there. We have a few scores to settle.”
Devon was quiet as he walked beside us, listening, taking it all in.
“What kind of scores?” I asked.
“Why don’t you come and find out?” Adam challenged. I was beginning to realise that Adam knew how to play with my head and get me to agree to stuff before I’d even had a chance to think it over. He was like a mind charmer. I’d never met anyone like him.
“Unless you haven’t got what it takes,” Devon muttered under his breath, giving me the extra push he thought I needed, as he pushed past me, through the door and into the car park. Thing was, it worked. The pair of them were fucking mind charmers.
“Okay,” I acquiesced. “But it better be worth my while.”
“Oh, it will be,” Adam stated, striding forward with purpose, his eyes glazing over as he stared straight ahead.
It took us a few minutes to walk to the local park. As we did, Adam used it as an opportunity to tell me about his plans for the future, and what he wanted to do for Brinton Manor. It all sounded a bit far-fetched to me. I think he’d watched too many gangster movies. Brinton Manor didn’t need vigilantes; it needed a nuclear bomb to wipe it off the face of the earth. But I humoured him, humming along and agreeing in the appropriate places.
At one point, we crossed paths with the kids from my old school, making their way home. I noticed a familiar blondeponytail in the crowd walking past us and saw Alfie Porter’s daughter scowling at me as she marched past. She was clutching a book to her chest as she tried to blend into the crowd, but she seemed to be all alone. I smiled and held my head high, and she scowled harder. Seeing that made me laugh out loud. She was so easy to wind up.
When we eventually walked through the park gates, I saw two lads up ahead, loitering by the trees, smoking cigarettes.
“Is that who you need to settle a score with?” I asked, nodding to them.
“No,” Adam replied. “They’re our friends, Colton and Will. You would’ve met them today if they weren’t bunking off. They attend the unit too.”
The two lads hadn’t noticed us yet, and as we got closer, some little kid holding a balloon charged over to them and glared smugly up at them as he said, “Smoking is bad for you, you know.”
The dark-haired one of the two smirked back with an evil glint in his eye. “So is talking to strangers,” he shot back, taking his cigarette and using it to pop the boy’s balloon.
The boy gasped as it dropped to the grass, his cocky confidence from moments ago snuffed out as fast as it’d taken the balloon to deflate. He started snivelling, and then turned and ran off with the limp balloon trailing behind him. And as he got further away, we could hear him wailing to his mum about the mean boys who’d hurt him.
