"Good." He claps his hands together. "Now can we actually ride? I didn't spend two hours arguing with that dickhead at the bike shop just to stand around crying about it."
We pour out of the RV into the cooling evening air. I swing my leg over my new bike, and it feels like flying. The chain doesn't skip, the brakes don't squeal, and the whole thing moves like it's been dipped in oil.
We ride through the trailer park in our usual formation with Kade in front because he has to lead everything, me in the middle with Tank riding slightly to my right like a massive guardian, and Cyrus and Jinx in the back. The wind whips my hair back, and for a moment, everything's perfect. No broken homes, no absent fathers, no Sheri and her crew of bullies. Just us, the way it's supposed to be.
The perfection lasts about ten minutes.
"What the hell is that?" Jinx slows his bike, pointing toward the cluster of sheds behind the Hendricks' trailer.
Reese Thomas and his crew of mouth-breathing assholes stand in a circle, throwing rocks at something in the weeds. Sheri sits on an overturned bucket nearby, reading a pop magazine like she's above it all but still choosing to witness whatever cruelty they're inflicting now.
"My territory, my problem," Kade mutters, already turning his bike toward them. He takes his self-appointed role as trailer park mob boss seriously, even if half the residents think he's just playing pretend. The other half pay him five bucks a week to keep their garden gnomes safe, so who's the real winner here?
"Stay put," he tells me as he climbs off his bike.
I roll my eyes and follow anyway. Like I'm going to miss whatever showdown's about to happen. The boy gives orders like I actually listen to them.
"Gentlemen," Kade calls out in that fake-friendly voice that means someone's about to get their ass kicked. "And Sheri, Wicked Bitch of the South End. What's the entertainment this evening?"
Reese turns, a rock still in his hand. He's gotten bigger over the years, bulky in that way that comes from genetics rather than actual work and has made him Sheri's favorite minion by default. That and the fact that his cousin is a cop. His hair's cut short, and his mean eyes narrow when he sees us. "None of your fucking business, fire boy."
"See, that's where you're wrong." Kade steps closer, and the rest of us fan out behind him like we've choreographed this. Which, honestly, we kind of have. "Everything that happens in this park is my business. That's what people pay me for."
"No one pays you shit," Reese sneers. "You're just a bunch of stupid kids playing?—"
The rest of his sentence dies as Tank suddenly explodes forward.
I've seen Tank fight before. Usually, it's controlled, purposeful. One punch to end things before they really start. This isn't that.
This is… brutal.
Tank's fist connects with Reese's face with a sound like raw meat hitting concrete. Reese goes down, but Tank doesn't stop. He drops to his knees, fists flying in a rhythm that's more machine than human. Blood sprays across the dirt, and Reese's friends scramble forward to help.
Tank backhands one without even looking, sending him sprawling. The other backs away, hands up, suddenly remembering he has somewhere else to be.
"Tank, stop!" Kade grabs his brother's shoulder, trying to pull him off. Tank shrugs him away like he weighs nothing.
Sheri's screaming now, magazine forgotten in the dirt. "You're gonna kill him, you giant freak! Stop!"
Cyrus and Jinx both try to grab Tank's arms, but he throws them off too. Reese isn't even fighting back anymore, just trying to cover his face as Tank's fists rain down like hammers.
"Tank!" I don't think, just move. My hand touches his arm, gentle as I can manage. "Tank, stop."
He whirls on me, fist drawn back, and for a heartbeat, I see what everyone else sees when they look at him. Not my gentle giant who builds bridges for ants. Not the boy who carried me when I was hurt and scared.
A monster.
His bloody fist hovers inches from my face, close enough that I can smell the copper, see the split skin across his knuckles. His eyes are wild, unfocused, like he's not even seeing me.
Then recognition returns, and the horror that replaces the rage is worse than the violence.
But I'm already looking past him, at the tiny bundle of feathers in the grass. A baby bird, probably pushed from its nest, one wing bent at an unnatural angle.
"Oh," I breathe, understanding flooding through me.
He's already backing away, hands shaking, blood dripping from his knuckles onto the dirt. Before any of us can say anything, he turns and runs, disappearing into the woods behind the trailers.
"Get the bird," I order the others, already moving to follow him. "Carefully. Don't touch its wings."
