If you're looking for an adventure in the morally grey, and a crash course of the human condition, this is the story for you! What is good and evil? Where is that line drawn, and who decides that? Packed with humor, danger, feels, and awkward relati...
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"Rachel, I'm fine, really," Tim said, standing over where she was sitting on the ground in the alleyway. Everyone else was playing basketball, but she couldn't bring herself to join them, not when Tim couldn't.
She couldn't even look at Tim. Seeing him once with his arm in a sling had been enough for the rest of her life. That wasn't even mentioning that on occasion he groaned from the pain in his ribs. He was okay to walk around finally, but his rib was going to be a slow healing process that still made breathing unbearable, let alone fighting with their gang.
"Rach, kids beat me up worse in grade school. I got my front teeth kicked out by some fat ass girl named Lupe, and I looked like a freak for a year."
All her facial muscles tightened in refusal to laugh. Tim and she had been the best of friends since she could remember, and because of that, she couldn't trust that he wasn't making it up so that she'd feel better.
"I think I deserved it," Tim continued. "I asked her friend where she'd gotten the cow and if she was for sale because I could use something fat to block out her face."
"Tim, stop!" Rachel pulled her head up to shove his shin, and he stumbled as they shared a tepid laugh.
Both of them were shaky after what had happened, but her friend was doing a better job of putting on a face for the rest of the guys. Everyone knew what had happened, but not one of them blamed her. No one was pointing the fingers when they should be, and it ate at her insides.
A flash of gold in the corner of her eye dragged her gaze to Tim as it rolled in the light behind him. Tim spun around with a knife faster than she could find Tanner's eyes, and her gang leader did a poor job of hiding his cringe. Not a moment later, he gasped for breath from clenching his chest around his bruised rib.
"I'm not here to fight with you, kid," Tanner said in a low chill of voice that said more than the words. It certainly didn't sound that way.
"If you're here for Rachel again, you'll have to kill me first." Tim growled but coughed not a moment later. It shook him, and he dropped the knife as his body contracted painfully.
"I just want to talk to her. Can you please tell him I'm not going to harm you before he ends up in the hospital again?" Tanner turned to her, sounding bothered by Tim's condition. A sympathetic frown crept onto his features as he met her eyes.
"Tim, just give us a minute," Rachel said, and Tim met her eyes with dark circles under his own. It didn't take much imagination as to what horrors were playing out behind them.
"Rachel, you don't have to subject yourself to Oliver's shithead men because you're worried about me."
"Tanner is from the pen," Rachel said, and Tim tightened his disgusted expression.
"I will repeat myself." It seemed Tim knew more about Tanner's connection to Oliver than she had, and she rubbed her temple. Oliver had said that Tanner belonged to the family, but she hadn't figured out if that meant they owned him or he was one of them. That distinction likely mattered little to Tim.
