Fallen Crest Campout by Tijan

Crew

Chapter One

You aren’t supposed to want to die.

I know that’s isn’t what society wanted to hear. It isn’t supposed to be felt or thought about. It’s supposed to be ignored, but I was standing here. I was watching my crew beat the crap out of a guy, and all I wanted was to trade places with the guy.

I knew that sounded morbid. I did, and I’m not talking about the off-the-cuff comment like you bombed your history exam and it’s the “kill me now,” or your boyfriend dumped you and “Gurrrrl, I just wanna dieeee! WTF?!”

No. I was talking about the dark kind where it’s in the back of your mind, where it’s a small little door that you wanted to open and disappear through . . .

Some days, it was hard to suppress and harder to ignore, so I wasn’t doing either of those.

“You’re not going to touch my sister again,” Jordan growled before delivering probably his fourth punch already. “Got it, asshole?”

It was my face getting bloodied. Not that guy. That’s what was going on in my head, but not anyone else. Not Jordan, who straightened to sneer at the guy laying at his feet.

Jordan Pitts.

He was the self-proclaimed leader of our crew. Note here: self-proclaimed. As in, he announced it one day. No one took objection and off he went, embracing his cocky swagger thinking he speaks for our group of four. The truth was that he did, but only when we didn’t have a problem with what he was saying.

Our group wasn’t a dicktatorship, whether he believed that or not.

Jordan bent down, his long, six-feet-two self, grabbed a hold of the guy’s shirt and lifted him in the air. He shook him, growling again in his face, but the guy couldn’t answer. His face was broken. Literally. Either Cross or Jordan had punched his cheek so hard it looked busted. His whole face was a mess of blood and bruises. I would’ve felt sorry except for two things: he tried to rape Jordan’s sister, and when Jordan asked him to report himself, he added a curse word, his middle finger, and he spat on Jordan’s shoes.

Apparently this guy didn’t know the reputation of either us, or Jordan himself. If he had, he would’ve ran the other way when he met Mallory Pitts. You had to give the guy some props. Instead of lying, he was honest. He told Jordan exactly what he thought of that suggestion. And anyway, if he’d lied, we would’ve followed up, and if he didn’t report himself, this whole beat-down would’ve happened anyway.

This was my crew.

After Jordan, but there were two others besides myself. Cross Shaw, Zellman Greenly.

My name is Bren Monroe and even though I’m in the middle of this whole dark diatribe, and even though we’re looking like the bad guys right now, things aren’t always as they seem.

Jordan slammed the guy back down to the ground, then bent over him to issue more threats.

Cross stepped back, and I felt his gaze on me even before I looked up. Yes, there it was. His tawny hazel eyes that so many girls loved. We were family—and not that kind of family. But I’d have to be blind, and even then I probably would’ve still understood why so many girls at Roussou High salivated over him.

Six one. Lean, but built. He had a strong square jawline, one that he would clench at times. A face that was almost prettier than mine. He was one of those types of guys. He would be gorgeous even if he was a girl, a fact I loved to tease him about. But teasing aside, the facts were simply put: Cross got the girls. He could just show up somewhere, and ten would be at his side. He could nod at a girl, and she’d go to his side for the night, usually be down for anything he wanted. Cross was the quiet, nice guy….except he wasn’t really either of those at all. I mean, he was, but he wasn’t. He was generally quiet, but he talked to me. And he was nice, but he could be lethal. Piss him off, and you’d never see him coming. He wasn’t like Jordan with the growling and throwing people around. He’d come right up to you, and then you’d be waking up in the hospital a couple days later.

And while I loved Jordan and Zellman, they weren’t Cross.

They weren’t my best friend, the guy whose closet I’d crawl into so many nights when I needed a sanctuary from my own hell called home.

I met his eyes as he came toward me. His golden hair and tanned skin made him every pretty boy’s nightmare. When would he wake up and realize he had more potential than all of us? He could go to New York and be a model, or go to Hollywood and be a teen actor. Why he stayed in Roussou was beyond me.

He wasn’t messed up like the rest of us. He wasn’t messed up like me.

“You got the look,” he said, coming to stand next to me.

Yeah.I knew what he was referencing, but I didn’t respond.

“Okay, fuckhead,” Jordan announced. “We’re going to leave you now, and if you think you’d like to turn any of us in, don’t forget what we have on you. Got it? Nod your head, dickwad.”

Jordan was the intellectual here. He was smrt.

The guy made a gurgling sound and managed to move his head a bit.

It sufficed for Jordan, and he nodded. “Good.” He turned, his long legs crossing the ground toward us.

I leaned against the back bed of his truck, Cross still next to me, as Jordan opened the driver’s side door.

Zellman had been standing nearby at the ready. That’s what he tended to do any day of the week—always behind Jordan and waiting. Since Jordan had come over to us now, so did Zellman. He launched himself up to the opened truck bed behind us.

I heard the cooler open, and he tossed a beer Jordan’s way. “Bren? Cross?” he called.

Cross shook his head.

I turned around to look at the guys. “I’m good. Thanks.”

“You sure?” Zellman extended a beer.

“I am.”

Jordan’s eyes flicked upwards—his response to a lot of the things I did. We had each other’s backs, but to Jordan that meant doing everything he wanted. Sometimes we disagreed, and every time I didn’t do what he did, he took it that I was disagreeing with him.

Family doesn’t work that way.

I watched him, just for a moment.

One day we would battle.

One day it would be me against him.

One day his disapproval would make me snap, or one day he wouldn’t just be a jerk because I wasn’t doing what he wanted. He would go too far and that would be the day I’d meet him halfway.

I already knew how the lines would shift in our group. Cross would back me up. Zellman would probably back-up Jordan. It’d be two against two so when that day would happen, I hoped to be in a really piss-ass poor mood because even though I was the only girl in the group, one of the two only girls in the entire system, I could handle my own and I wanted to enjoy lighting into Jordan on that day. But that day wasn’t today, and I hoped it would take a long time to come. I did care for Jordan like a brother, though he wasn’t my actual blood.

“So.” Jordan slammed the door shut again, the force rocking his truck for a second. He propped up a leg on the truck’s gutter. “What’s the plan for tonight?”

It was the last night before our senior year started.

Sunday night. People had been to church this morning, and we’d beaten someone bloody this evening. There was irony in there somewhere. I was just too tired to find it.

“Ryerson has a party tonight,” Zellman offered. “I say we go.” His shaggy curls bounced around as his blue eyes darted between all of us.

“Yeah?” Jordan’s eyes lit up.

Zellman nodded. “I’m down to go. I think Sunday Barnes got new boobs this summer.” He grinned. “I’m hoping to check ‘em out personally.”

Jordan laughed. “I’m good with that.” He tipped his head back, finishing his beer, and then tossed the bottle into the trees behind us. “Bren, Cross, what about you guys?”

Cross would wait for me, so I said, “I’m good for the night.”

“No party?”

“I’m gonna head home.”

Jordan’s disapproval settled in the air over us, but no one said a word.

“Think I’m down with you guys for the party,” Cross added after a moment.

Zellman thrust a fist in the air. “Hell yeah. Take it.” He offered his half-emptied beer.

Cross laughed, but shook his head. “I’ll wait for the good liquor there. Ryerson always has something.”

“Yeah! That’s what it’s about.” Zellman finished his beer, and reached into the cooler for a second one. “Jordan?”

“I gotta drive.” He glanced to me. “Ride home?”

I looked over to where the guy still lay on the ground. He hadn’t moved.

I shook my head. “Think I’ll walk. I can cut through the trees.”

“You sure?”

Cross moved around us, clapping Jordan on the shoulder. “Let’s go. Bren can take care of herself.” He glanced back to me, circling around the front of the truck to get into the passenger side. He knew I wanted to be on my own tonight. He knew it because he could feel it. Just like I could almost hear his thoughts now.

She always has.

I finished in my own head, Always will.

Cross’ statement seemed to settle the other guys, and Jordan started the truck. He circled around me, kicking up a cloud of dust, and zoomed back down the way we’d come. He saluted me with a finger as he passed by. Zellman had settled in the bed, sitting by the cooler, and he held up his beer as his goodbye.

I shook my head, the smallest hint of a smile tugging at my mouth, but that was all the reaction they got out of me.

Once they were gone, it was just me, the bloodied guy, and the same dark quiet I’d felt earlier.

It came out of nowhere at times, swallowing me whole. Some days it would vanish just as quick, others like tonight, it lingered.

It used to scare me. I now missed it at times when it wasn’t there, but I always knew it would move on. It was like a firefly slipping away into the night. When that happened, I was left with the feeling that I let something slip from my fingers.

This night, that firefly remained. It warmed me.

Make sure to grab Crew!