Good Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

“They’re all bark, no bite.”
    “Don’t be like that,” she insisted.
“Come with me, even if it’s only to the next station.”
    He thought he had seen a couple of the
guys around before. This was his neighborhood, his subway station. He wasn’t
going to be run off by a pack of goons. Now he had to defend his right to be
here, and that’s not what he wanted. There was always a cost to not fitting in.
But he had never fit in. He had always been the new kid, moving around as his
dad changed trucking jobs. He knew how to watch what was going on around him
and react the right way, so he wasn’t noticed.
    So how did this situation get so out of
hand? There was Kali, her eyes fastened on him. His deep down spinal reflex was
to jump those mother fuckers and see how many he could take down, scaring off
the others while doing it.
    He wiped his hand across his face. What
is wrong with me?
    With a squeal of brakes, the subway
train pulled in. Hunter was already walking forward with Kali, still watching
them so he knew it almost before they did. Several of them leaped forward,
going for the turnstiles.
    “They’re jumping,” he told Kali,
hustling her inside the subway car and down to the end.
    The conductor tried to close the doors
when he saw several guys come flying over the turnstiles, but the doors had to
open all the way to close again, and three of them managed to wiggle into their
car.
    “Oh, no…” Kali breathed.
    Hunter put his arm around her and could
feel she was trembling. With a lurch, the car started. “It’s okay,” he said.
“Come on.”
    The guys were laughing at their success
at the back end, while Hunter and Kali passed through the front door onto the
rocking platform outside the car. Kali looked through the window behind them.
“They’re coming after us.”
    “Let’s get to the conductor car.”
    The subway going into the city was
fairly empty this time of evening, while trains passing the other direction
were packed full. They passed through two more cars until they reached the
conductor’s box blocking the doorway at that end. There wasn’t a window on the
inside, but Hunter knew he could rap on the metal door to alert the conductor
if things went really crazy.
    He took up position in front of the
door. Kali looked scared, and he took a moment to assure her, “It’ll be fine
now. They won’t do anything with the conductor right here.” He was stroking her
arm. “Now get behind me. If anything happens, bang on that door until he comes
out.”
    He shifted her so she was standing
behind him, her hands trembling on his back. He was ready to do whatever it took
to keep them from getting to her.
    The scattered people in the car knew
that something was wrong even before the homeboys arrived. Hunter’s adrenaline
was pumping. He would have backed away from any guy as hopped up as he was
right now.
    It was a bad moment when the guys came
into the car. Hunter lifted his fist to pound on the door if they made another
move. They knew conductors, and this conductor had just seen three guys jump
the train.
    They stayed at the back end of the car,
talking and cursing loudly, making arm motions to punctuate their words.
Everyone was watching them intently, with a few of those closest getting up and
moving away. At the next station, almost everyone poured off, and he could see
the passengers getting back onto cars on either side of them. Someone called
out a warning to the conductor that he better watch out, but nothing happened.
A couple of the passengers stayed, obviously eager to see a fight.
    Hunter half-turned towards Kali, more to
try to defuse the situation than anything else. She looked up at him
imploringly. “Why are they doing this, Hunter?”
    He felt a deep pang. It was his own
fault. But he couldn’t admit it. She would have been fine if she had walked to
the subway on her own. Oh, they probably would have made comments about the
“fine little mama” as she passed by, but that