Chapter Three

Tomás

Mad Dog meant to pull the car into a side path, drive the few miles to the edge of the mountain, shove me out of his car, and Sparta-kick me off the mountain after putting the bullet back into my head.

"Stop it," Mad Dog growled. "You're getting on my nerves."

I stopped bouncing my knee. A nervous twitch. "Are you going to kill me?"

"No," he growled out for the hundredth time.

"Because this would be the perfect place for it." We were in the mountains with nothing but trees.

"Are you trying to change my mind?"

I almost rolled my eyes. The knee bouncing started up again. "I need a blunt."

"We talked about that."

After I woke up at the hospital with a two-inch scar just above my left ear, he had talked. Talked about how I was an idiot. Talked about how I had two options facing me. One—do something stupid like I'd done to get us in the hospital and die, or two—do as he says and survive.

I'd never met anyone who wanted me alive so bad. Option two became my default setting.

Maddox Brennan had saved my life that day. He'd slammed into me and used his body to protect me from the bullets meant for me. Two bullets had been popped. One had sliced the side of my head just above my ear. That one had been aimed at my head, but when Maddox slammed into me, the bullet grazed me. The second bullet entered the back of his shoulder blade. I don't know what happened after that. I'd woken up a few days later in a hospital. Mad Dog in that same hospital mad as shit. Hence, the name I'd given him. But instead of torturing me and killing me in the traditional way, he spun some lie to his brothers about a hit. I'd been collateral damage. Just a kid in the way. And for some unknown reason, he felt responsible for me. Or he really wanted to kill me up in these mountains. I wasn't sure yet.

I ran my hand down my pants, jittery as fuck. "I'm eighteen, blunts are legal now." I had turned eighteen last month.

"You haven't officially graduated high school, makes you a minor."

We already had this convo too. After he took me to his condo instead of jail or a dirt bed, we'd fought more than talked. I hated him. I did. He killed my family. He locked me in a room to calm me down until I could listen to reason. That had been what he said. I wanted reason all right. I wanted to know why he killed my dad and brothers. But he didn't give me those reasons. After a few weeks, he told me he bought me from my moms. Just like that. Paid a good price for me too. Said she got the better end of the bargain.

He'd officially adopted me. Legally adopted me. He'd shown me the papers too. He'd backdated the documents to when I turned fourteen. Like a slap to the face, he'd even changed my name to Tomás Brennan. As if he'd wiped away my past. As if I was supposed to forget my family. The Moya blood inside me. And the worst part. For a few seconds I had been relieved. As if Mad Dog would protect me, take Daniel's place or some shit. And that made me hate myself, but hating him felt better so I clung to that.

Over several months, I thought about the many ways I could kill him. A kitchen knife to the throat. Rat poison in those fancy drinks he liked. A bullet to the head. I shook the thought away. Thoughts would get me nowhere. And right now, I was exactly there. No Where. "I could've graduated if you hadn't taken me out of school."

Mad Dog gave me his real pissed off look. Like the look he gave me when I woke up in the hospital, my head all twisted.

"My old school don't care about grades and shit. They just wanted me out."

"And then what? What would you have done?"

"Nothing," I said. "I had meant to eat dirt."

He growled again. Mad Dog growling was a scary thing too. "You're going to graduate in the summer, then attend Arcadia University in the fall. Get a real education."

I snorted. Stupid name for a stupid school. "I ain't gonna pass no test to get in."

"There is no test to get in. You're in."

A school with no test made no sense. "I'm not smart."

"Well, you're not stupid," he snapped. "I got your transcripts. You did well in math."

"I don't read good." Daniel helped me with that, but I didn't say that out loud. "I'm not smart like Nick. Nick was the smart one. Why don't you go help Nick?" My brother Nick was younger than me by two months and we were the only Moya boys alive now. Well, he was because I was a fucking Brennan. I clenched my hands until they hurt.

"Nick doesn't need the help. He's going to be fine. You're going to spend the summer catching up, graduate high school, and enter the university in the fall."

I never thought of going to college. That had been Nick's dream, not mine. "Your brothers are going to kill me for what I did."

He sighed. "They're not going to find out."

"But the guards—"

"Are lucky to still have jobs. They shot me. Not you."

I snorted a laugh. "That's fucked up."

After a moment, Mad Dog chuckled too. "Fucked up that a punk ass got the drop on me."

"I could've killed you."

"Yes, you could've."

"Bullets cost more than fifty cent now," I said laughing like an idiot. "You lucky I didn't have enough money for ‘em bullets or we both be dead."

We both started to laugh. It was the type of nervous laugh you do when you find out someone you care about got shot while cleaning his gun but will survive. Sort of relieved and confused at the same time.

I had told Mad Dog that I couldn't afford the bullets, but that had been a lie. I hated him, wanted him dead, but I knew I'd never be able to pull that trigger. I don't know why. I'd never killed anyone before. Maybe I had thought him knowing he killed another unarmed kid would keep him up at night. I hadn't expected him to take a bullet for me. No one done that before.

The laughing died down. Coldplay on the radio became the only sound in the car. The winding road seemed to go on forever. Nothing but mountains and trees. I'd never been out of Chicago. Indiana didn't count. "Where are we?"

"New York. This area is part of the Adirondack Mountains. The university is a private institution in these mountains."

I scratched my nose. "They're going to throw me out. I'm not smart. I don't learn like other kids."

"They have a small medical facility where you can get your meds. And they won't throw you out."

"How do you know?"

"Because no one gets thrown out."

"That's stupid. So if I punch a kid in the face for no damn reason, they won't throw me out?"

"No. But don't go starting trouble either."

"So it's like a prison."

Mad Dog got all silent. The way he got when he was pissed and thinking. "Listen," he finally said. "This is your only option right now unless you want to go back to your mom."

"As a fucking Brennan?" I spat out. "You made it impossible for me to go back, you asshole."

Mads didn't say anything. I just breathed, looked out the window. I hated the trees. A minute of silence passed. More than a minute. "She won't give you the money back," I whispered. She probably shot it up her veins already. I didn't mention that part. "Why you'd do something so stupid like that?" I said to the window.

"The why doesn't matter. And I don't care about the money. Do you want to go back?"

When Mad Dog had said he bought me I thought he was going to do things to me. Bad things. But he hadn't. He kept his distance. He said he bought me so that he'd be able to help me get out, do something productive with my life. I don't mind handouts. In the fight between pride and survival, survival usually won out. But I thought he was going to force me to be a soldier. I told him I'd never work for the people who killed my family. Then I thought he'd force me to do something else, something involving sex. I wasn't stupid. I knew powerful men like him who had everything used kids like me for other things. Things I didn't want to think about anymore. But he never tried anything. He said that school had been his idea, and having the Brennan name would keep me safe in this school. Although I hated him, I didn't want to go back to my moms. I didn't want to know what she'd do to me when Daniel wasn't there.

"The only thing you're good at is having a pretty face," Mom had said.

"She's better off without me," I mumbled.

Mad Dog made a frustrated sound calling out my bullshit. "Yeah, let's play that bullshit card right now. Don't lie to me, Tomás," he said. "I know she hurt you in a bad way."

I didn't say anything.

"You'll be safe here," he finally said.

I snorted.

"Just don't fuck this up," Mads added.

I was an inbred fuck up by nature. I never got anything right. "Got it," I snapped.

"You better think—"

"I said I got it!"

I hated this. My brain getting all full of thoughts I couldn't make proper sense of right now. It was like filling your glass with soda to the rim thinking you have enough space in the glass, but that foam part makes its way over the edge anyway. That was my brain. Too full of foam running over the edge.

Mad Dog breathed. Everyone around me needed some breathing room.

Good for nothing. Not even school.

My mom's voice always filled the foam part.

"I gotta piss."

"Jesus, you went already."

"I gotta go again."

Frustrated, Mad Dog pulled over and I jumped out even before he fully stopped. I walked straight into the trees. If he was going to leave my ass, then this was the moment it'd happen. He could shoot me from the car. My body eaten by bears or wolves, or some shit that lived in the woods. I'd gone out to piss three times already and he hadn't done it yet, but each time I waited for it anyway.

I didn't need to piss. I needed to breathe.

I stopped walking when the trees thickened. I was in the jungle. I snorted. Nick and I had wanted to be explorers one time. The closest we came was camping at home. Nick and I decided to sleep out in Dad's backyard in a tent. Nick had started reading a story from this book he loved, Goosebumps, and some guy who had robbed the convenience store at the corner of our block had jumped our fence into our yard while the cops were chasing him. He'd cut across our yard, and they busted his ass at the alley near the garbage cans. He'd had a gun too.

Dad had gone apeshit. The cops threatened to arrest him too. He eventually sent Nick back into the house and had me and Miguel tear down the tent. Miguel had cussed Nick out for it, but I had stayed quiet. I was afraid of Miguel. My brother had a reputation of being insane. I was lucky being on his side, though I didn't know what side he was on.

And now I was alone.

My brother Nick hadn't reached out. I didn't blame him. I punched him in the face once and we never really bonded after that. It'd been my fault. After our older brothers died during a gang war, Nick had been crying. I told him crying didn't do anything. He said hurting people didn't do anything. I punched him in the face and told him he was wrong. Hurting him had made me feel better. But that had been a lie. I threw up in the bathroom after I hit him. I wanted to tell him sorry. But what for? Nick wasn't like us. He was soft and smart. The only one who had a chance of getting out. Whatever getting out meant.

Nick should be going to college in California this fall.

Though we were the same age, I'd never been smart enough to think about college. Nick loved books, studied all the time, got into a fancy high school. He didn't go to the funeral. Mom said it was because his mother thought she was better than all of them. I thought that maybe Mom was right. Nick was lucky to have her. She cared enough for him not to let him go to Dad's funeral.

Everyone hated Nick for being Dad's favorite. At one time, I had hated him too. I wasn't the youngest, Nick was. I wasn't the bravest, Daniel was. I wasn't the oldest, Miguel was, and I wasn't the most loyal, Cruz was. There really wasn't anything I was good for. I'd even botched up the easiest thing in the world. Suicide by bodyguard. I thought that would've gone down as easily as suicide by cop. Not.

Mom was right. The only way I'd survive was by using my pretty face. Thinking about being used that way made me want to go back in time and go with the suicide by cop option. I couldn't go back to her. Maddox promised that I'd be safe here. He promised that we'd figure it out. Although I didn't have any reason to believe Maddox Brennan, I had no choice. I wouldn't survive otherwise.

I made like I pissed, rubbed my palms on my jeans, and headed back to the car.

Maddox wasn't looking at me, but I knew he saw me. Mad Dog saw everything.

I hopped into the car.

"You good?" he asked.

"Yeah," I said. "I decided to give this school a go."

He started to drive. "Good."

"So, are there any fine ladies there?"

Mad Dog glanced at me and started to laugh.