Chapter Six

Cash

“Y eah, you make a good point.” Trick replies.

“I better get going before she hears the truck and comes out here,” I say.

“I love how you are more afraid of your mom than you are of your dad,” Riot chuckles.

“Dude, mom will kick my ass,” I reply.

She wouldn’t really, and they know that, but having her yell at you in Italian is a whole new level of ‘shit, I’m in trouble’.

“Yeah, she scares the shit out of me to be honest,” Trick admits.

I chuckle, “I remember Jenny used to get Mom to yell for you in Italian if you weren’t listening.”

Trick shudders while everyone else laughs, “Yeah, you fuckers laughed then as well. Ever was the only one that tried to make me feel better.”

The mention of Ever has us all smiling, but my heart squeezes too. When I really stop to think about it, I find it crazy that we can still miss someone as much as we miss Ever, after all this time we still miss her just as much as we did when she first left. Ever, wasn’t just anyone though, she was special. I don’t think any of us will be satisfied until we have found her.

I don’t say anything as I hop out of the truck, and Rafe hands me my keys before he climbs in.

“Message to let us know if you got in without incident and let us know when we can come over tomorrow,” Trick says.

“Got it,” I reply, “wish me luck.”

“Good luck,” Jensen replies with a happy grin.

I head toward the house as quickly and as quietly as I can. I’ve been sneaking in and out of this house for years now, and fortunately, that means that I know every floorboard that creaks and every door that makes a noise.

Moving silently through the house requires a lot more stealth than my aching body wants to do at the moment, but the alternative isn’t worth it, so I grit my teeth and bear it. I finally make it to my room, and just as I’m closing the door behind me, I hear my parent’s door open down the hall.

“Shit,” I curse aloud.

I look around my room, my eyes landing on my bed, there is no way they are going to believe that I’ve gone to sleep that fucking quickly, and then that would make them suspicious and would definitely end up with me getting into trouble.

The shower it is then.

I quickly rush over to the door that leads to my ensuite and turn the shower on. I don’t bother getting in yet, though.

“Cash?” Mom calls.

“In the shower, what’s up?” I call back.

“We were supposed to have dinner tonight,” she replies, still in English, which is a good sign.

I decide that my best bet is to plead ignorance, “Shoot, was that tonight? I’m really sorry mom.”

Her sigh is so big that I can hear it through the door, “I’ve left the food on your desk.”

“Thank you,” I reply, feeling shitty.

“No problem. We are probably going to be gone by the time you wake up in the morning. Remember the rules, no parties, and if you need anything, go to Rob and Jenny’s place, they have said you are quite welcome to stay there while we are away anyway.”

“Okay mom, I’ll head over there if I need to,” I reply, “are the guys allowed to come and stay here while you are gone?” I ask.

She’s silent for a moment before she replies, “Yes, but only the guys.”

“Got it, thanks mom.”

“You’re welcome. Eat your food and get some rest. It’s late.”

“I will. I really am sorry I missed dinner. When you get back, we’ll go out for dinner, I promise,” I say earnestly.

She chuckles, “I’m going to hold you to that.”

“Deal.”

“Night baby,” she says in Italian, “love you.”

“Love you too, mom.”

As soon as she’s gone, I let out a breath of relief and then let my head fall against the door, jarring my face. I hate lying to my mom, but the guys were right earlier, it’s not like I could just tell them what really happened, and how it's not really a big deal because it’s happened multiple times before, and I’m pretty much used to it happening now.

I don’t imagine that any parent wants to hear that.

Mom will want to make a police report, and then they are likely to pick up on some things between me and the cops at the station. Who really should have informed my parents of many things but never have. She would then get the guy's parents involved, and it would turn into a whole thing that would blow up massively.

I shake my head; there’s no point dwelling on something that I can’t change, so instead, I strip off, step under the shower, letting the warmth wash away the blood and grime from the fight, and relax my muscles before I step out. I decide to forgo a shirt since I don’t have any sleep shirts that do up and they all have to be pulled over my head. Grabbing some painkillers from the cabinet, I then head back out into my room somewhat cautiously in case my mom is still hanging around somewhere.

If she comes into my room in the morning, she could catch sight of the bruises covering me since I tend to kick the covers off, so, figuring being hot is better than getting in trouble, I pull a zip-up hoody out of my closet and pull that on instead, doing it right up so that the only thing left exposed is my face. I really want to fall into bed, but my stomach growling loudly makes me change my plans, and instead, I grab my remote and the plate of food that my mom brought up, putting something on my TV and getting as comfortable as I can.

I really hope that, for once, I’m not going to feel worse in the morning after a fight because right now, I feel like absolute shit. Billy and Lucky attacking me like that surprised me. We have had a kind of hate/mild dislike for each other for a while, where we will tolerate one another and work together when something big happens to stop it escalating. We had to after the Pit went down and didn’t really have much choice. Fights were breaking out so regularly, and if we didn’t work together, then there would have been a lot more kids ending up in the hospital or in juvie.

We were already in enough trouble. So, we had to sort of get along, the understanding being that if a fight broke out, we sorted our own sides and broke it up, instead of joining in ourselves or even starting them, which is how we used to run things. It was an adjustment for sure, but in the end, it worked out quite well. Until they stopped doing their fucking job properly. They had sorted their shit in the last few months, and everything was back to our new normal.

Putting Boyd in juvie and making sure that he took the fall for the shit that he was doing has clearly fucked all of that up. I mean, I get it. I really do. If they had put one of us away, there is no chance in hell that the others would have tolerated it and let them get away with it. We wouldn’t have attacked them two to one though. That’s a fucking shitty thing to do, and I really thought they were better than that.

It looks like any mild camaraderie that we had with them has now gone, and I don’t know how that’s going to affect everyone else and the fights that are still happening, although thankfully, not so regularly. If Billy and his guys jump in, then we’re going to have to as well. We can’t leave our people fighting by themselves but that means that a fight that we used to break up becomes a brawl and something that the cops get called to.

I really don’t want to disappoint the parents any more than we already have. Getting the cops involved with the Pit was bad enough.

I would like to stick to them thinking we are behaving properly and knowing nothing about what is really going on.

If we are lucky, what happened tonight will have made Billy think twice about coming for us and our people and he’ll stay away. We need things to stay quiet. We’ve got one year left, and then we’re all out of here. Surely, we can keep it relatively peaceful between now and then.

I guess we will just have to wait and see what happens.