A Whole New Crowd

by Tijan

  “You don’t have to. Let it go.” His eyes were cold, bearing down at me.

  “I still care.”

  “It doesn’t matter. We’re through. We were your family, but you got a new one.”

  I grimaced. “I wouldn’t say they’re a family.”

  “Whatever. A new crowd. It’s a new life. This is what you wanted. When I wouldn’t walk away, you argued for this. I’m giving it to you now.”

  “Yeah, but,” I gestured to his hand, “I know what you gave that guy. You’re dealing for Jace.”

  “I’m not—”

  “For Jace’s boss. Same thing.”

  “Stop.”

  I had stepped close to him and his hands came down on mine. I glanced down and was surprised to find my hands were under his, resting on his knees. I blinked and stepped back. When had I reached for him? Then Brian’s soft murmur distracted me as he said, “I’ll be fine. Nothing will happen to me. This,” he dangled a packet with white powder inside from his hands, “will give me that security. I don’t need to be a Panther or Jace Lanser’s little brother to make a name for myself. I’ll be fine, Taryn. I will. I have it all covered.”

  He didn’t. He so didn’t, and my heart hurt even more because of it. I shook my head. “You’re so stubborn. You always think you know what you’re doing.”

  He sat upright, straightening his back, and a cold wall fell over his face. “I’m taking care of my own back. That’s what you’re doing, right? You got handed a brand spanking new family. Do us all a favor and pretend you don’t know us anymore.”

  A harsh laugh rippled up from my throat. It was out before I realized I was even laughing. When it registered, I couldn’t stop it. A small note of hysteria mingled along with it. I couldn’t stop that either.

  Brian frowned. He looked ready to say something. Concern filtered in, but then he masked that too. “Just go, Taryn.”

  I jerked my head in a nod. My neck muscles were tight and I felt like I was breaking tendons as I nodded, but I tightened my jaw and forced my head up and down. I would be fine. Fuck him. He was going down the wrong path. Not me. He would be the one who got screwed in the end… I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t protect him anymore. That had been my job for so long. I turned, but I couldn’t stop myself from murmuring, “I wasn’t given a family. They were forced to take me in.” I began walking away. I didn’t stop, even as I got to Tray, I kept going.

  That was my last exchange with Brian. I knew it and it had gone horribly wrong. I didn’t stay at the party. When Tray offered to drive me back, I shook my head and asked for his keys. He wouldn’t let me drive alone so we compromised. He drove me home, but we didn’t talk the whole way. When he dropped me off, I didn’t ask if he was going back. I didn’t want to know, not at that moment. I wanted to sit and be alone. Brian was really gone from my life. I didn’t know how I knew for certain, but I did. After pulling Mandy’s suitcases down to the kitchen, I sat and waited for her. This was something I could do, someone that I could still protect.

  I waited until the morning. It was after six when she was dropped off. When she came inside, she looked haggard. She had bags under her eyes. Her dress was plastered against her. The smell of cold sweat clung to her, and her lips were swollen while her eyes were dilated. When she tossed her keys on the counter, she took one step, saw me, and stopped. Her eyebrows bunched together and she lifted a hand, scratching at her head and messing with her hair before she asked, “Taryn? You’re up?”

  “I made coffee.” I pointed to the coffee pot.

  “Oh.” She glanced over and frowned. “Okay. That’s a weird thing to say. Um,” she kept frowning, then shrugged, “I’m going to bed.”

  She started for the stairs, then saw the suitcases and stepped back. “Uh, Taryn? What’s with the luggage? You going somewhere?” She seemed to reassess me. “I heard you had words with your ex. Did something really bad happen between you? You think you’re in danger or something?”

  No, not me. “I’m not going to beat around the bush. I suck at that stuff.” I watched her. I wanted her to see me and see how serious I was. When she did, she kept frowning, but a small amount of fear filled her eyes. “I found your stash.”

  I let that hang in the air between us.

  When she realized what I meant, her eyes went wide and her shoulders stiffened. Her mouth fell open. “You had no right. You searched my room? Who do you think you are—”

  “You are eighteen.”

  She stopped, confused by what I said.

  I stood from the table. “You have a problem.” She opened her mouth. I knew there was an argument on the tip of her tongue, but I held a hand up. I kept going as she fell silent again. “I know you’re going to try and justify it. You’re going to tell me that your dad knows and he doesn’t care. Or you’ll tell me how it’s perfectly fine; you just use them when you need extra energy. I don’t care.”

  I felt dead inside. Mandy saw it and the façade fled away. She wasn’t going to deny it, but I saw the storm beginning to brew inside her.

  I added, “Those are your bags.”

  “Excuse me?” she asked, her voice low and deadly.

  I stepped closer and lowered mine to the same pitch. “Those are your bags. They’re packed because I’m taking you to a rehab facility. Unlike your parents, I give a shit. You’re lying to yourself every time you take a pill and you know it. You’re so full of lies, I don’t think you know what’s right anymore. It’s right to leave a boyfriend when he cheats on you. It’s right to be angry when he cheated on you with your friend. It’s right to demand better friends, better relationships, better parents who give a damn. Those are the right things to do.” Jeezus. I stopped and forced myself to calm down. Anger was coursing through me, setting me on edge. I wanted to rip into someone and bleed them dry. I realized that I was saying those words to myself as well, to the little girl in me. The one who wanted to be loved, who wanted a mother like all the other girls had in their lives, who wanted a regular home and didn’t have to be locked inside her room since she was a flight risk.

  I had been lying to myself too.

  Closing my eyes, I turned away. I hung my head and forced myself to see the truth. I wanted that so much that I hadn’t acknowledged the truth. Shelly and Kevin were never home. They were polite, but that was it. They didn’t care. They didn’t want me there. They weren’t the family I thought I had been gifted. Gritting my teeth, knowing this was all a lie forced on me, I whipped my head back up.

  Mandy fell back a step. The color drained from her face.

  “I love you,” I said, forcing my tone to soften. “Because of that, I’m taking you to a facility. None of your bullshit will work on me. I’ve gone this route too many times with Brian. I won’t go through it again. Because you’re not fighting as much, I know you’re early in the process. You can be helped, and you have to be helped. Mandy, you have to be.” She was my family. “With this fucked-up situation, you became my sister. So I’m here and I’m fighting for you. Take the bags, Mandy.” Please. I mentally prayed. She needed to go of her own choice. I couldn’t force her to go so I pleaded. “I’ll drive you and I’ll help you.”

  “Taryn?”

  Her voice cracked and a tear fell down her cheek. I saw the shame. It flared over her face and then she hung her head.

  That was when I knew she wasn’t going to fight it. I stood there, shocked. Brian always fought. He denied. He yelled. He threw things. Then he would cry and he would plead and he would beg me not to leave him. Mandy did none of this. She went straight to crying, and she crumbled on a chair by the table.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I was still in shock at how easy it had been to convince Mandy to go to rehab. She didn’t say much on the car ride there. She sat, slumped down, and cried most of the way. As we filled out the paperwork and sat in the lobby, she still didn’t say much. The counselor came out for her assessment and she followed him into the office without a backward look to me. After th
at, she was admitted. As they led her through a back hallway, I could still see where they were searching her bags. That was when she looked up and I saw a frightened little girl staring back at me.

  The counselor spoke her name, but Mandy looked haunted. I narrowed my eyes, wondering if she was more scared of herself than of going into rehab. Then he touched her arm and she looked away. The small window she had given me to see inside of her closed up. Taking her bag, she followed him and I couldn’t see them anymore.

  When I left, with a doctor’s note to give to the high school administration, a ball of emotion was in the bottom of my stomach. It wouldn’t move. How I drove home, I had no idea. I was on autopilot and I stayed like that for the rest of the day. Tray texted to see if things were fine. I told him to expect Austin and me that night. I waited for my little brother to get back from his tournament. When he did, I picked him up. When he saw my face through the car’s window, he stopped walking. He was dressed in low-riding, baggy athletic pants and a large jersey with his earbuds in his ears. Someone yelled goodbye and he lifted his hand, but it was an absent-minded farewell. As he came closer and got inside, he didn’t say anything for a moment. He tugged his earbuds down and then asked, “Where’s Mandy?”

  I studied him before I replied. He was fourteen. I could tell he was popular. He was athletic. His friends were good-looking and wealthy. He was jaded. He didn’t have the innocence most others did at his age. Weighing all of those factors together, I knew Austin wasn’t dumb. “I took Mandy to an in-house treatment facility.”

  His eyes narrowed. “What does that mean?”

  I didn’t hold back with my answer. “Your sister has a drug problem.”

  “How do you know?”

  I hid a grin. He wasn’t fighting me. I heard what he hadn’t said. “My ex used to be a drug addict. I just know.”

  He jerked his head in a nod. “She’s at some place getting help?”

  “As long as she stays.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She signed herself in. She can sign herself out.”

  “She can do that?” He snorted and leaned back in his seat, plopping his head back against the headrest. “She’ll be out by tonight.”

  “Maybe.” I hoped not. “If she does, they’ll call. You can still talk to her.”

  He rolled his eyes. “It won’t matter. This shit’s been going on forever.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Mom and Dad took her in last summer. It didn’t do anything. She came out and was popping pills on the drive home. It was a joke.”

  I frowned. His words rocked me. They had known? “The bottles I saw were prescribed from your dad. Why would he continue to do that?”

  “He doesn’t. He cut her off a long time ago. I bet she just uses them to store the pills in there.”

  She got the pills somewhere else…that information seared through me. She had another drug dealer, and her family was forced to take me in. I didn’t think those two items were random. In my life, I learned there weren’t many coincidences. As I drove home, I knew that I would have to go see Jace. He didn’t want me there, but I didn’t care. I was going to find out some answers. When we headed inside, I told Austin to pack a bag.

  “Why?”

  “It doesn’t seem right to stay here, not after I took Mandy in without your parents’ permission.”

  He frowned. “Oh. Wait a minute, if they don’t know, how are you paying for this?”

  I had no idea, but I wasn’t going to admit that to a fourteen-year-old. I shrugged. “I’ll figure something out. Go pack a bag.”

  “What about nosy neighbor?” He gestured to the house next door. “I think Mom was going to have her stay with us a couple nights, you know, to ‘check’ on us.” He laughed. “We could just leave a note. She doesn’t care anyway.”

  “Oh.” He was right. “The neighbor is the least of our problems. Go get your bag.”

  He started up the stairs, but paused again. “Where are we going?”

  “We’re staying at Tray’s.”

  “At Tray Evans’?” He smiled widely, blinding me. He added, “That’s awesome. We’re staying till Mom and Dad get home?”

  “Or if Mandy leaves rehab.”

  The smile fell right away. “Oh. Yeah.” He darted to his room, and I heard him shoving things into a bag.

  As I waited for him to finish, I pulled out my phone and dialed Tray’s. When he answered, I asked, “Is it still okay if Austin and I stay at your place?”

  “You already asked and yes.” He paused. I could hear his hesitation before he asked, “Are you okay?”

  “I will be.” I was angry. I was more than angry, but my voice was tight and controlled as I gripped the phone. My hand clenched around it. “I have to run an errand tonight.”

  He didn’t say anything at first. “Should I ask what the errand is?”

  “No.”

  “Taryn, I don’t like it.”

  I didn’t care. “Tray, someone messed with my life. I have questions that I need answered, and I will get them.” At any cost.

  “Just be safe.”

  Hearing Austin’s door slam and him barreling down the stairs, I said into the phone, “I gave you a second chance to back out. Too late. We’re heading over right now.”

  “Sounds good.”

  “Okay.” I moved to end the call when I heard him say, “Taryn?” I pressed the phone back to my ear. “Yeah?”

  “Be careful.”

  My heart skipped a beat. Those two words were spoken with intensity and tenderness, but it was the raw emotion in them that had that alien feeling blossom again in my chest. It was another one of those moments when he spoke and his words went right into me. He could do that, more and more lately with just a look or a touch or a word.

  That, in itself, was a whole other issue that I didn’t want to tackle at that moment. Instead of feeling vulnerable and stripped open, I was going to take on a fight that I could handle. Jace Lanser.

  I drove Austin to Tray’s, dropped him off, and then left. Tray waved from the door, and Austin didn’t seem to care if I went inside with him or not. He was happy. I still didn’t know why, but I wasn’t going to question it. Then I drove towards Pedlam.

  I wasn’t going to call Jace. I wasn’t even going to walk across the alley and try to get through the guards. For this conversation, I wanted to surprise him and if he wasn’t around, maybe that was even better. I could snoop around for my answers.

  *

  Jace had been kicked out of the house when he joined the Panthers. When their dad died, he moved back in to watch over Brian and me, since I was there so much, but I knew he still had his own house. Knowing that, I debated if I should head to his house first or gamble and try my luck with his office at the Seven8 first.

  I decided to gamble.

  Standing across the back alley, down the block from the nightclub, I saw it was another busy night for the establishment. The security guards were busy and as I was watching, two guys began fighting near the door. This was my shot. Knowing I only had a couple seconds, I sprinted down the alley and then pressed against the wall of the opposite building. I could hear shouts from around the corner. A crowd formed and more guards rushed from the side alley, running around the corner. They ran right past me, and after the last one shoved open the door, I jerked forward. I slipped through the opened door and immediately stepped behind the door. Two more guards rushed out, passing by where I was hiding. When they were gone, I heard shouts from inside—more guards were heading my way. I heard a voice yell over a radio, “Three fights! Get it under control!”

  From farther down the hallway, someone answered, “On it, boss. Six more were dispatched.”

  “We do not want the cops called.”

  “On it.” Then static came over the radio and it grew in volume; they were getting closer. The hallways were lit up. The lights were bright. I had nowhere to hide. The door closed. I couldn’t open it or they would
be suspicious so I hurried to the light switch. When they were right around the corner, about to turn towards the door, I plunged the hallway into darkness.

  I had a small window again, and I sprinted for them, keeping on my toes to be silent. As they stopped and cursed, I pressed against the wall, moving past the first one’s elbow as he reached for his belt. A flashlight switched on and I melted backwards, keeping to the darkness.

  Jace didn’t like when we were in his territory, but I’d been in his office a few times. Going to the back exit doors, I knew they weren’t alarmed like the others. His office was at the top corner. When I got there, the floor was in the dark. Good. That meant Jace wasn’t there. There were two doors on the whole floor. One was a large set of doors and the other was further down. It led to a small back room. I headed to the latter. Jace liked having his office next to the stairs that led to the roof. It was a better exit, if necessary.

  The room was locked, but I pulled out two pins from my pocket and bent down to work on it. It didn’t take me long to unlock the door. I knelt down and blew under the door. He could have another