Page 22 of Crooked Crows (Boys of Briar Hall 1)

If we didn’t do this now—for Rook—then we’d have to leave him behind. I hated that idea almost as much as the idea of bringing him with us when he was like this.

“What are we waiting for? Let’s fucking go,” Rook gritted out, his tatted hand poised on the door handle in the backseat.

“Hold it. We need to scope it out. Julia said the kid usually leaves around this time to sleep out with a friend. We got to make sure he’s gone.”

A muscle in Grey’s jaw twitched and Rook kicked the back of the seat, cursing.

I’d already gotten everything else into place, this was the one moving piece that I wasn’t sure of, and it made my fucking skin itch.

“Stay here,” I said, slipping out of the car and around the side of the house, skirting the hedges. It was a quiet rural street, and all the lights in the neighboring houses were out. Silent as the grave.

Except this house.

Around back there was a light on in the kitchen and the radio playing on low inside.

I crept to the sliding door and peered within, finding the whitewashed kitchen empty save for the row of empty brown bottles by the sink.

Soft footsteps drummed down the steps after two minutes of waiting and I lowered myself next to the door, crouching to be hidden by the deck’s banister.

A boy, no more than eleven, rushed into the kitchen on quick, quiet feet, his runners in his hands. A fresh shiner bloated the flesh around his left eye and what looked like a fresh cigarette burn sat angry and red just below his jaw. I’d seen enough just like it on Rook, though his asshat of a step-uncle preferred cigars. His new tatts hid the scars well unless you knew where to look for them.

The boy’s name was Thomas.

He’d called the number on our flier three times in the last six months after calling the cops did nothing to help him. Twice, we’d given his joke of a father very straight forward warnings about what would happen to him if he didn’t stop. But apparently a broken arm and five cracked ribs weren’t enough.

First warning, we scared them. Told them what would happen if they didn’t comply.

Second warning got them at least five broken bones. A burned appendage. Maybe some missing fingernails. Depended what kind of mood Rook was in.

But three strikes…

He’s out.

The same rule didn’t apply to child molesters though. They didn’t get second chances.

Better no parents at all than ones like Thomas’.

We knew from the helpline that Thomas had an aunt he could live with, who’d been trying to get custody of him. But the ones who had no one else...we saw to it that they had the right connections in the system. That they weren’t hurt anymore.

We weren’t heroes.

We were just boogiemen who developed a taste for the flesh of villains. Someone had to sate that need. Who better than pieces of shit like Frank?

I vanished into the shadows beneath the deck as Thomas eased the patio door open and pushed through, his breaths coming quick. His shoulders up to his ears. Inside, a loud thud made him jump and gasp before he took off like a shot into the dark, sprinting through neighboring backyards until he disappeared over a low fence and was gone.

No better time than the present.

I walked back to the side of the house and nodded to my brothers in the old Camry before tugging the ski mask from my back pocket and pulling it over my face.

Rook’s breath clouded in the cool night air as he came around the back of the house, his chest wide and heaving.

I nodded.

“We take him,” I ordered before setting him loose. “I don’t want to clean up a crime scene here.”

“Fine.”

“No blood.”

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