The passenger door opened.

“Get out!” I yelled.

Cross climbed in, shutting the door and glaring. “Not a fucking chance.”

“Leave, Cross!” She cracked. She let emotion ring out in my voice. “You heard our teacher. You can be someone. You can do things. Why are you here?” I shook my head. “You shouldn’t be. You shouldn’t be anywhere near me.”

“Stop it.” His jaw clenched.

“Get out.”

“No.”

“Cross!”

“No.”

He put his seatbelt on, and the doors in the back opened. Both Jordan and Zellman got inside.

Jordan leaned back. “Just drive, Bren. We’re with you whether you want us or not.”

I laughed hollowly, but I couldn’t make them leave.

I really had no option. I was easing back when someone rapped on my side window.

I braked. It was Alex. I lowered the window.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“What happened in there?”

“Walk, Ryerson.” A low warning came from Cross. He wasn’t messing around.

I began putting the window back up, but Alex clamped a hand over it. I would’ve cut his fingers if I kept going. That was tempting, but Channing had said later for Alex.

I stopped my window. “Leave me alone.”

“What happened in there?” He wasn’t moving.

“It’s none of your business—” Jordan began.

“I heard it had to do with the crews, not just yours. I want to know what it was about.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, briskly. He sounded frustrated. “Bren, you need to tell me. If it’s all crews, you have a duty.”

I felt her rallying in me. She didn’t want me to feel or think or care. She wanted me to be numb to the world.

But Alex was staring me in the face, and I was surrounded by my crew. Her hold was slipping. Feeling the darkness draw back down, I could almost see the firefly moving away.

“They want to fix us,” I said quietly.

A vein stuck out from the side of Alex’s neck. “Fix who? How?”

“Us. The troubled kids, the ones who are going to prison or underground. They want us to be better.”

“Say what?”

Cross cursed under his breath.

“What the fuck?” Jordan roared. “That’s what they said?”

“They want us to be mentored by convicts.” And the real kicker… “My dad is one of the ones in the program.”

“They want you to be in the program?” Cross asked.

“They wanted me to ask Channing to get all the crews involved.”

“You serious? We’re all troubled kids?” Alex barked.

That was the implication, yes. I let him figure it out.

He cursed, and I swore I saw an actual red glint in his eyes before he stepped away from my Jeep.

“Where are you going?” Cross called.

Jordan and Zellman had stood up in the back of my Jeep. They were quiet, watching whatever was going to unfold, but not Cross. He hopped out of my vehicle and darted in front of Alex, forcing him to stop.

“Think, Alex. Think first.”

Alex tried to go around him.

Cross moved too, still blocking him.

“Fucking hell, Cross. Get back. I mean it.”

That was enough for the rest of us. I slammed the Jeep into park and yanked the keys out. Jordan and Zellman scrambled out, coming up behind Alex. I was there a second later.

Cross put a hand up, holding us off.

“They’re wrong, Alex,” he coaxed. “We all know they’re wrong. We’re not worthless. We’re not the bullies. All those words are attached to the word troubled. We get that. They don’t. We’re not wrong.”

“They need to learn.” Alex growled in his throat, starting around Cross again.

This time, I hurried forward to stand side by side with Cross, adding to his wall.

“Really, Bren?”

I nodded. “Listen to him. He’s smarter than all of us.”

Cross glanced at me as he continued. “Alex, they’re the uneducated ones. They’re adults who don’t see grey. They only see black and white. You go in there and do what you’re going to do, you’re confirming their assumptions. They’ll put us all in the wrong category. We’re not wrong. We’re not worthless.”

“You’re not!” Alex shot back, that vein sticking out again. “They love you. Everyone loves you. You’re lethal as hell, but you get away with it because you’re smart, and you look like a pretty boy. You don’t get stereotyped like the rest of us.”

“You think that matters to me?”

Now Cross was pissed. His eyes narrowed.

A shiver wound down my spine.

“You’re talking to me like I’m not in the trenches with you,” Cross said softly. He looked to Jordan, Zellman, and me. “Like I don’t bleed when my crew bleeds.”

“You know what I mean,” Alex huffed.

Cross got in his face, forcing him to step back toward Jordan and Zellman.

“No, I don’t,” he said with a scary quiet that promised he was about to strike. “Why don’t you spell it out for me? I want to make sure you didn’t just insult me to my face.”

Alex swallowed, taking note of his surroundings. We’d attracted a crowd as soon as I left, and now it seemed to have doubled. A new wave of awareness rippled through them. It wasn’t a student-teacher fight like before. Word would spread that the Wolves were pushing around the Ryerson crew’s leader.

“You know what I meant.” Alex looked at the ground.

Cross didn’t let up. “Then don’t fuck up the rest of our crews,” he hissed. “You want to watch something burn, you wait until we can’t get in trouble for it. Going in there, starting whatever shit you want to start—that’s going to have effects for all of us. Not just you. They’re going to blame Bren for whatever you do.”

“So what do you want me to do?” Alex didn’t have it in him to stand down. But he was keeping it together. He was a bull being told not to leave the pen while the door was wide open. He was stomping on the ground, wanting to charge.

But he was listening.

“Wait.”

One word. That’s all Cross said.

“They insulted all of us,” he added after a moment. “They’ll be educated on their mistake. But wait until we figure it out.”

“Wait for what?”

“For me!” Cross snapped. “You wait until I tell you the plan.”

Alex nearly snarled, but he clamped his mouth shut and swung away from us. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he walked off.

It took a second of silence, but Cross glanced around. Everyone was staring at him.

“What?” he snarled. “What are you looking at?”

I’d always seen this side of Cross, but everyone else was seeing it now.

I looked to Jordan, and he lifted his head, pride raising his chin.

He said, “We’re staring at our leader.”

Around a bonfire pit behind Manny’s that night, we filled Channing in on everything. When I told him we needed to talk, he’d said the crowd would be less bloodthirsty in Fallen Crest than at his own bar.

“He called you troubled?” Channing asked, his nostrils flaring.

Cross, Jordan, and Zellman sat with me, and three of Channing’s own crew had come: Chad, Moose, and Congo.

I nodded. The words weren’t coming. I didn’t feel like speaking.

“They want all crews to do this program?”

I stopped interacting. It burned a hole each time I had to remember.

Cross sat on top of a picnic table beside me. “All crews. That’s what she said.”

Channing frowned, not saying anything for a moment. He shared looks with the rest of his crew before he nodded. “Okay. Thank you.”

“Wait.” Jordan pushed up from the wall he’d been leaning against. “That’s it? Just thank you?”

Channing lifted his hands. “What do you expect? We’re not in high school anymore.”

“But…” Jordan looked at Channing’s crew. “You guys are, like, the godfathers of crews. You’re the longest-running crew there is.” He turned to my brother. “You created the system. You have to help us.”

“Look.” Channing stepped toward him. “It’s an after-school program. There’s not much we can do except maybe help you start a petition so they don’t only target crew kids. Other than that, I’ll be honest. I’m not sure it’s a bad idea. You guys would be talking to convicts. I think every teenager should go through that. The more information you get, the better.”