The Battle for Jericho Read Online Free PDF Page A

sofa, carefully leaning his head against the backrest. He folded his hands across his chest and looked at me. “So. You want me to call the sheriff?”
    That wiped the edge off the pleasant buzz the coffee had given me. I nodded and said, “I’m ready to turn myself in.” I took another sip from the mug to steel myself.
    Dylan seemed amazed. “You really mean that. Wow.” He laughed again. “Well, forget it. I never reported you.”
    “You didn’t?” Now it was my turn to be amazed. “Why not?”
    “Sheriff Chandler and I don’t see eye to eye on most things. I’ve had people vandalizing my house and my car for months. I filed reports, but the sheriff can’t stand me and never did a thing to help.”
    “But… how could he get away with that?”
    “Easily. He’d go through the motions, open a file, take my statements, and make pictures of the damage. But that was just to cover his ass. He never lifted a finger to track down the perpetrators. In his opinion, I got what I deserved. So I stopped reporting anything to him.”
    “But… that’s not fair.”
    Dylan gave a short, bitter grunt of a laugh. “Tell me about it.”
    “What we—what I did to you was wrong. I feel really bad about it.”
    “Yeah, I got that much, kid. What’s your name?”
    “Jericho Jiles.”
    “Well, I’m glad you have a conscience, Jericho. That kind of thing seems to be in short supply these days.”
    “So what happens now, Mr. Cussler? You gonna take me in?”
    He shook his head. “No. And you can call me Dylan.”
    “But I hurt you—”
    “Yes, you did a real number on me. It took five staples to close the gash in my head. My doctor just took them out yesterday. You also broke the glass in my kitchen door, trashed a hundred dollars’ worth of food, wrote lots of nasty comments on the walls of my bedroom, cracked one of my cabinets, and smashed a set of dishes my mother left me.”
    The graffiti on the bedroom walls must have been Mac’s doing. Still, each offense he ticked off was like a jab to my head. I slouched down in the chair, clamping my free hand over my eyes. “Oh God. Okay, just shoot me now.”
    Total silence. I lifted my hand from my face.
    Dylan was leaning forward on the sofa, staring at me, annoyed. “Look, if you came here just to make yourself feel better—”
    “No, it’s not about that,” I said quickly, sitting up in the chair again. “I know what I did was wrong, and I should be punished.”
    “Then tell your parents. Let them punish you.”
    I would have rather faced the sheriff than my parents. The sheriff would just throw me in jail. My folks would do something far worse. They’d give me this wounded, disappointed stare that makes me feel as if I’ve cut out their souls. I could take being handcuffed, perp-walked before all my friends, locked in a cell with muscle-swollen guys who’d make me wash their dirty drawers by hand, but I couldn’t take that look from my parents. Yet I knew Dylan was right. “Yeah, okay,” I said. “I’ll tell them. They’ll turn me in.”
    “To the sheriff?”
    I nodded.
    Dylan gave a frustrated grunt. “I don’t want that. I don’t want to have anything to do with Chandler.” He actually grimaced, as if just the thought of the sheriff caused him pain. “Besides, you seem like a nice kid. Do you realize that if I press charges, you could wind up in some juvie facility until you’re eighteen? And then you’ll have a record floating over your head. Is that what you want?” He settled back against the sofa again.
    “No. But there’s a consequence to every action. That’s what my folks always tell me.”
    “Well, I’ll let you work that out with your folks. You can let them know that I won’t be pressing charges.”
    This was providence. I should have downed the rest of the coffee, thanked Dylan for his understanding, apologized profusely, and walked out the door to resume my happy, uncomplicated life. And that was fully what I intended to