“Where do you think everyone else is?” Cindy asked.
“Dunno.”
“What happened to Meadow?”
“Dunno. Sounded like someone dragged him off.”
“How about Sara and Laneesha? And Georgia? And what about Martin?”
“Don’t do no good to speculate on what we don’t know. They either all okay, or they ain’t. We find out when we find out.”
“Wassup, bitches?”
Tyrone turned toward Sara’s tent, and saw Tom posing there. What Tom was holding made Tyrone’s neck muscles bunch up.
Where did he get a gun?
The first time Tyrone ever held a piece was at age thirteen. An old Saturday night special, thirty-eight caliber, with a history going back dozens of crimes. It was put in his hands by Stony, a cold-as-ice muthafucker who ran the local club like it was the Marines. To Stony, guns weren’t toys to play with or bling to flash. They were tools. Like any tool, it was only as good as the person who held it.
Tyrone learned to shoot in a slumhouse basement, blinking empty soda cans propped onto a stacked pile of dead sod from fifty feet away. There wasn’t no gangsta-style double gun shooting, and certainly no holding a weapon sideways, like Tom was doing now.
Aiming right at Tyrone.
“You never point a weapon at somethin’ you don’ intend to kill,” Tyrone said, keeping his voice even.
Tom laughed. “What’s wrong, brutha? Making you nervous?”
“Tom! Put that down!”
“You gonna make me, skank?”
Tyrone gave Cindy’s hand a tight squeeze, told her under his breath to be cool, then gave her a little shove to the side and took a step toward Tom. Tom switched his aim to Cindy, which wasn’t Tyrone’s intent. He wanted Cindy out of the line of fire.
“Tommy boy, put that shit down before you hurt yourself.”
Tom swung back to Tyrone. “You think you’re so badass, Tyrone. You and Meadow. Bangin’ and jackin’ and doin’ drive-bys and shit. Don’t look so tough now.”
Tyrone took another step forward. Tom’s aim was twitching back and forth. That sideways grip looked cool in the movies, but unless you were point blank it was real tough to hit anything. It was tough enough to hit anything with both hands on the weapon and a steady target. Aiming a gun was a lot harder than it looked. Tyrone had been in one firefight, him and a brother named Maurice against two boppers from a rival outfit. It went down in an alley, and they were twenty yards away from each other with no cover. Sixteen shots fired, no one hitting anything except for bricks and asphalt before both cliques ran off.
Still, Tyrone didn’t want to get ventilated by a lucky shot, and having a gun pointed anywhere close to him was a sobering situation. Time was moving so slow that Tyrone felt like he could sense each blood cell inchworming through his veins. He desperately wanted to get his life back on track, to live up to his potential, to make his mama and grandmamma proud. Dying out in the woods because some loony kid was off his meds was not the way he wanted to go out.
“You ever shot a gun before, Tom?”
Tom sneered. “Plenty of times.”
He was lying. Tyrone was good at spotting lies, but with Tom it was easy. Every third thing out of that kid’s mouth was BS.
“I bet you a ten-spot you can’t hit that log Martin been sittin’ on.”
Tom glanced sideways. “I can hit that, no problem.”
Tyrone put his hands in his pockets, all cool and casual, and walked two steps closer. He was fifteen feet away from Tom. As soon as the kid gave him a chance, he was going to bum rush the fool. No use trying to talk down a head case.
“I give you three tries to nail it.”
“You really don’t think I can hit that log?”
Tyrone took another step. “I’m puttin’ my money on it.”
“Log’s too easy.” Tom grinned, his eyes glinting in the firelight, and then he switched his aim. “How about I try for Cindy instead?”
Georgia walked alongside Lester, through the woods, barely able to see because of the darkness. The tall man had his hand under her armpit, gripping her biceps, and his fingers were so long they completely encircled her arm. It wasn’t a powerful hold, and Georgia probably could have twisted away, but to what end? She had nowhere to run to.
Besides, even though he was trying to be all scary, she sort of liked the guy.
He was all scary, no doubt. In a lot of ways, he reminded Georgia of her old nanny, the one who used to do those things to her and make her swear she’d never tell. Lester had the same powerful vibe, the kind that was ready to go full-blown sadistic when given the chance.
“Where are we going?”
“Lester is taking the girl to his playroom.”
“It sounds fun.” Actually, it didn’t sound fun at all. Georgia felt her whole body shudder, conjuring up images of what horrible things this man had in his playroom.
“It is fun. For Lester.”
“Maybe I’ll have fun too.”
He stopped and looked down at her. The moon peeked through the trees, silhouetting his massive form.
“No, the girl won’t. No one ever does. The girl will beg to die, like all the others.”
Georgia didn’t hesitate. She reached up her free hand and put it behind Lester’s neck—it was like hanging onto a tree—and then she leaned up and kissed him.
She’d never kissed a boy before, let alone a man, let alone a maniac. But she knew everything in life was about control. So far, he’d been calling the shots. But maybe she could confuse him a little bit.
Lester did seem confused, and when her mouth locked on his he pulled slightly back, lifting her up off her feet, her body pressing into his.
Georgia held on for a moment, couldn’t sustain her own weight, then dropped to the ground.
The rejection was almost as painful as the thought of what this psycho was going to do to her. She knew she wasn’t attractive. And even though she was seventeen, a year past the age of consent in Michigan, she often wondered if she’d die a virgin. Georgia preferred to remain asexual, and her fantasies were more about hurting others than getting laid.
But, still, her first kiss, and the creep pulled away.
“Don’t you like me?” she asked, trying to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
Lester didn’t reply.
“I like you.” Georgia reached for his pants, her hand brushing against him. When she touched his fly she lit up. He was hard.
Were men really that easy to manipulate?
“You do like me. So why can’t you kiss me?”
Lester bent down again. “Lester can kiss. But he might chew on the girl’s lips and bite off the girl’s pretty little tongue.”
“The girl’s name is Georgia,” she said, tilting up her chin and kissing him again before she lost her nerve. At first, his mouth was closed, his lips cool and still. Then he opened his mouth, just a bit, and she probed inside with her tongue.
His teeth were sharp, sharp enough to draw blood if she pressed against them too hard. If he actually tried to bite he could probably tear off her lower jaw.
She forced her tongue in deeper, touching his, poking against it. Lester’s tongue was wet and slimy like raw liver, but not unpleasant. Then his mouth closed a bit, the pointy teeth trapping her, exerting just enough pressure for it to just begin to hurt, for blood just to begin flowing.
Georgia didn’t pull away. Instead, she stuck her hand down the front of Lester’s pants.
Lester’s whole body went rigid, and Georgia thought she’d screwed up, that he was going to munch on her with those terrible teeth, gnaw every bit of flesh off of her face.
And then, unexpectedly, he moaned.
I actually made a man moan.