“Thanks,” I said, and although I was pretty sure he didn’t want to kill me, I was still skeptical of anyone who was willing to do you favors in jail. Favors never came without a price.

“I’m Miller,” the stranger said. “A mutual friend asked me to look out for you.”

“Friend? Well that narrows it down then, because it seems like I don’t got much of those these days,” I admitted.

Miller straddled the bench of the plastic table and it bowed under his weight.

“It’s important to have friends in a place like this. Word is a bunch of bikers caught a bullshit misdemeanor case and are on their way in. Our friend figures that reason is you.” His voice was so deep it almost echoed when he spoke. He took a long drag of his cigarette. “Our mutual friend helped me out when I was in Georgia State, and I owe him one. Shit, I owe that motherfucker twenty at the very least. Figured that preventing a bunch of white boy Beach Bunnies, or whatever the fuck ya’ll call yourselves, from carving you up ain’t shit compared to what he did for me.”

“I don’t think I gotta guess who this friend of ours is anymore,” I said taking one last drag of my cigarette and putting it out on the tabletop. King had done his three years up at Georgia State. He stood up and the bench kept the Miller shaped indent.

He stubbed his smoke out on the table. “He gave me a message for you.”

“What would that be?”

Miller shielded his eyes from the sun. “He said not to get yourself killed and that the girl is safe.”

Thank fuck. That meant King had her at the grove and that the protection I’d set up was with her. Ti staying at King’s was not an option. Even though I was the easier target in jail, Ti could still be at risk and without me there to protect her, King’s family was more at risk then ever. Although I told King he was taking her back home because it didn’t look good for my confession if the DA could link us in any way. If King recognized differently I knew he’d insist that she stay, and I couldn’t do that to him after he’d done so much for me.

“Guess I’m just in time,” Miller said, tipping his chin to the fence on the other side of the yard. I stood and turned around just in time to see the gate slide open and three men enter the yard.

Three of my former brothers.

CHAPTER FOUR

Thia

Ten years old…

IT TOOK ME two whole hours to convince Bucky to bike with me the twelve miles to the pawnshop. After kicking rocks around with his shoe for five minutes, I told him I’d give him my best rod and reel, and he finally agreed.

“How much will you give me for it?” I asked the tall scraggly man with ears that stuck out sideways. I stood on my tippy-toes so I could lean across the scratched glass display case that doubled as a counter and gave the man my best “I mean serious business” face. The man behind the cage on top of the counter wore a nametag that said TROY. Troy looked down at me with one eyebrow cocked like he’d never seen a ten-year-old walk into a pawnshop and try to negotiate before.

“What the heck are you doing, Thia?” Bucky asked, leaving the display of model cars he’d been ogling to join me at the counter. When I roped him into riding his bike to Logan’s Beach with me, I forgot to mention the real reason why I wanted to go so badly. Bucky’s eyes widened in horror as they darted to the object I’d plunked down on the counter. “That’s your Donnie Mcraw buckle, Thia! You can’t sell that!”

“It’s mine, so I can do what I want with it,” I argued. I’d won the buckle when I’d gone to the rodeo in LaBelle with Bucky and his dad last year. Well, not so much WON, seeing as I was the only eight-year-old even willing to try and ride the sheep, but they gave me a prize anyway.

“So?” I turned back to Troy who held the buckle in his hands. He turned it over and banged it against the counter.

“It’s hollow,” Troy pointed out. Grabbing a small glass tube he closed one eye and held up the buckle, examining it through the tube.

“I don’t need cash. Just a trade,” I said. “For that.” I pointed to a chain in the display case. Troy didn’t look to where I was pointing.

“This thing’s silver coated. Ain’t worth much. Sorry, nothing I can do for you,” Troy said, taking the toothpick out of his mouth, pointing it as me as he spoke.

“What the heck do you even need that chain for?” Bucky asked.

I sighed, growing annoyed with his questions. “I got something I wanted to put on it, is all.” I shrank back down onto flat feet and Troy slid my buckle back across to me, adding yet another scratch to the top of the glass case.

“What do you want to put on it?” Bucky asked.

“It’s nothing,” I said, my shoulders falling in defeat. I eyeballed the silver chain through the glass for the last time before turning back around to Bucky.

“Tell Me!” Bucky demanded.

I reached into my back pocket and produced the skull ring and held it up for him to see, but only briefly because I didn’t want to lose it. I placed it back into my pocket, patting it to make sure it was in there.

“Where did you get that?” Troy asked suddenly, squeezing his lanky frame through the hatch in the cage as far as he could, his waist resting on top of the counter.

“Can’t tell you that,” I said, considering sticking my tongue out at him. “Come on, Bucky.” I grabbed his arm and we turned to leave.

“Wait!” Troy called out. “I was being hasty. You seem like nice kids. The buckle for the chain is a fair deal.”

“You didn’t even see which one I was pointing to,” I said, crossing my arms.

Troy shook his head. “Doesn’t matter, actually, keep the buckle. We have too many chains anyway, now show me which one it was again.” Troy slid open the case and grabbed the chain I pointed to. He tossed it through the cage as if I was going to bite off his hand. It hit the floor by my feet. I bent over to pick it up, dusting it off. “Are you sure?”

“I’m totally sure,” Troy said, waiving us off. “Now run along and make sure that if anyone asks you that you tell them Troy at Premier Pawn was good to you, okay? You gonna tell them that, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, although I didn’t really think that anyone was going to ask me to rate my recent trip to the pawnshop anytime soon.

Troy nodded so hard I thought his head might fall off. “Good. Now off you go,” He waved us off, snaking back down through the hatch in the cage, slamming it shut.

We left and Bucky was close on my heels as we rounded the building to where we’d left our bikes leaning up against the alley wall.

I took the skull ring from my pocket and slid it onto my new stainless steel chain, securing it around my neck. I popped the ring into my Future Farmers of America T-shirt.

“You gonna tell me what that is?” Bucky asked as we picked up our bikes.

“That’s my secret,” I said with a sly smile. The truth was that I had been dying to tell Bucky ever since Bear and his biker friends visited the Stop-N-Shop, but I wanted to wait until I was sure we were out of range of the ears of the small town gossips.

Which in Jessep, was pretty much everyone.

“I can keep a secret,” Bucky said, keeping pace beside me as we walked our bikes toward the street.