The boys looked at each other again, then to Jag, and theskinny one, who Jag was tagging as the leader of their two-man crew, said, “Youcan’t lock us in here.”
“Choice one,” Jag retorted, ignoring what the kid said.“Youclean this shit up.Choice two, you leave and me and my brothers will findsomething you care about and we’ll mess that up so you’ll get how it feels.Yougot five seconds to make that choice.One…”
The skinny one spoke up again.
“No Chaos bro is gonna mess with a twelve-year-old.”
“Two…”
“Let us out man.”
“Three…”
“Fuck you!Let us out!”
“Four…”
The heavy one nudged the skinny one and said low, “Aaron.”
“Shut up,” Aaron hissed back.
“Five.”Jag shook his head.“Wrong choice, boys,” hefinished, turned on his boot, went back to the door and unlocked it.
But since he stood in front of it with his arms crossed,when both boys raced to him, they had to stop and skim by him to get out.
“I hear any word my boy Mal here has trouble with you twofucks, the shit you just bought escalates, do you get me?”he said as they slidby.
The heavy one looked away.
Aaron held his gaze before he took off.
Yeah, Aaron was trouble.
Shit.
Jag turned his head to watch them race down the sidewalk.
When he turned it back, Archie was in his space.
“Let me guess, the Harris brothers?”he asked.
Making a noise he liked a lot, because it was frustrated,but it was cute, she dug into the crook of his elbow to grab his hand, forcedhim to uncross his arms and then started dragging him.
“Dude, that was bad…ass,” Mal said as Archie pulledhim abreast of Mal.
It was then, Jag saw others accumulating, all of them aroundthe same age as Mal, boys and girls, different races, maybe a half dozen ofthem, all staring at him like an explosion happened in S.I.L.on the Hill andhe’d formed like a god from the force of the blast.
“Help her out, bud, startpickin’this shit up, yeah?”Jagger asked.
“Yeah!”Mal cried, like that was his most fervent wish, thenhe jumped to it.
“You know him?”one of the other boys asked Mal.
“Sure,” Mal replied casually.
Archie had no comment on any of this, mostly because she wasfully involved in continuing to drag him.
Jagger let himself be dragged and he took the place in whilehe did.
