Take Me There Read Online Free PDF Page B

would die beforehe’d let the BSB invade what he had built.
    “No?” said Eight Ball.
    I felt perspiration trickling down my back and wondered if he was planning to kill me. “We’re on probation. So are a couple of the other guys. We never know when the cops are gonna roll by.” Cops had never come by to check on us, but it was possible.
    “I don’t think you ’preciate the situation,” Eight Ball said, running a finger across the side of the Range Rover. “’Splain it to him, Ajax.”
    Ajax walked around Wade and me, circling us just like the DA had done. “You two done proved yourself to be stand-up—this time—and we appreciate that.” He stopped in front of us. His arms were massive, and I considered how easy it would be for him to kill me with his bare hands. “But what about next time?” he asked me.
    “We got a major operation to protect,” Eight Ball explained.
    “You kept your mouths shut,” Ajax continued, “but all you were looking at was some weak-ass time in juvie.”
    Weak time! We almost got killed in juvie. All because of him. I bit my lip to keep the rage from pouring out.
    “What happens next time?” asked Spider. “When you’re lookin’ at two to ten in County and the DA says ‘plea bargain.’ You suddenly remember you got the four-one-one on a hit-and-run in your back pocket.”
    “There won’t be a next time,” I said, thinking that if I played it cool maybe they wouldn’t kill us, just beat the crap out of us to scare us into keeping quiet.
    “There’s always a next time,” said Ajax. “Besides, we can offer you protection if you tatt up.” He pointed to the BSB tattoo, and itsuddenly dawned on me why they were here. They hadn’t come to kill us. They wanted us to join their gang—which was worse.
    “Protection?” Wade said, suddenly smiling. He’d talked about protection constantly when we were in juvie, especially after what happened to him. Kept wanting us to run with the white supremacists because he thought they’d watch our backs, even though he knew they were the ones who’d almost killed him. He rationalized that they were just trying to warn us what could happen if we didn’t join the Brand. That’s what they called themselves.
    I saw what happened to their “soldiers.” The grunts forced to do the dirty work. The ones most likely to get caught and have additional charges added to their sentence. One guy got sent up at sixteen to serve a year for breaking and entering, but he didn’t get out till he was twenty-one because he kept getting re-offended for stuff the Aryans made him do.
    Ajax was circling us again. “You get protection, and we know you gon keep your mouths shut. It’s a mutually beneficial arrangement.”
    “No.”
    Spider got in my face. “What did you say?”
    “Dylan, are you crazy?” whispered Wade. “I can’t go back to jail. Come on. They can watch our backs.”
    I’d seen how they took care of people. I knew I was walking a dangerous line, but I also knew that if I didn’t stand my ground right now they would own me forever.
    “We’re goin’ legit. There won’t be a next time,” I said to Spider. “We did right by you, now you do right by us.”
    Spider’s hand was instantly around my throat, closing off my airway so I couldn’t breathe. I tried to cough, but nothinghappened. Just as my head started to spin, Eight Ball put a hand on Spider’s shoulder. “Kid’s right. Let him go.”
    “What?” Spider said.
    “Dylan knows he’s dead if he talks. Let him go. They got our backs.”
    Spider loosed his grip on my throat and stormed out of the garage. “Go chill outside with Spider,” Eight Ball told Ajax and Two Tone. They glared at him but did what he said. Ajax turned and gave me a look of warning before heading out.
    “Go find somethin’ to tear apart,” Eight Ball ordered Wade. My friend looked at me and shook his head, as if to say,
I warned you
. Then he disappeared out the back door that Kip