I had witnessed Elijah fight many times. I hadn’t known the real reason behind half of those fights, and maybe they were like this—over drugs and drug territory— but it didn’t matter. Elijah was a fighter. He was easygoing, full of crude jokes, but when that flip was switched, he was dangerous. Tall and lanky, a lot of people underestimated him, but Elijah’s reputation was solid. He wasn’t one to be messed with. If he fought, he usually won. In the back of his mind, I knew he was willing to go down swinging, even against thirty people. He would take as many of them out as possible, and all while Emerson was high as a fucking kite on the sidelines. I glanced back to my cousin. He wasn’t even watching the fight. He had wandered to a tree and was trying to catch the leaves off the branches.

I snorted. What a piece of shit.

Then I realized my mistake.

People turned around and started to notice me. As more and more saw me, they began to back away so a small circle had formed around me.

Well. I took a breath. Oops.

Then Brute walked to me and nodded behind me. He asked the leech, “Yours?”

“No way.” The leech was spineless now. He held up his hands and stepped back, away from me in an exaggerated motion. “She came here looking for Turner, said she was a customer.”

Brute swung back to Elijah. “Yours?”

Repressed frustration flared in Eli’s eyes, but he glanced to Luke who moved forward. Luke said in a quiet growl, “She’s mine.”

A girl piped up from the crowd, “She’s Turner’s ex.”

There was complete silence for a full minute as everyone digested that information. When it had, Brute skirted between Luke to Elijah. Then he smiled. “Well, if this isn’t awkward…for you guys.”

Luke started for me, but I shook my head. He stopped as Elijah shifted, holding a hand out to stop him.

Then I saw the headlights behind the fence. Kelly was there. She was supposed to open the door and keep the car running. I waited another minute, but then Emerson moved to the back of the fence. The light from her car had attracted his attention. This couldn’t get any better.

I looked at Luke and motioned to the fence. He turned, seeing Emerson. He frowned slightly, but lifted a shoulder. I wasn’t sure what that meant, but I hoped he would follow my lead. Then I looked up at Brute, standing right in front of me. He reached out to grab my arm.

My first instinct was to evade, but I didn’t. I squashed that sensation and gritted my teeth as his meaty hand wrapped around my arm. He dragged me forward and shoved me ahead of him.

“Who does this bitch belong to?”

Well, that pissed me off.

Elijah started laughing, but he pointed to Luke. “Not sure how she’s going to handle being called that, but she belongs to Pretty Boy here.”

Luke threw him a dark look, moving forward so he was standing slightly in front of Elijah. “She belongs to me.”

Brute dragged me to face him again. He breathed on me, his face too close now. “Is that true? You’re a pretty thing.” His free hand touched my cheek.

I held still, ignoring the growing need to kick this guy in the nuts. It was clawing inside me, crawling to the surface, and I started to concentrate on keeping my calm. I could feel Luke’s anger mounting at the same time. Glancing at him through the corner of my eyes, he was like a statue. His hands were loose at his sides, but his head was lowered like he was getting ready to charge. Luke didn’t have the explosive burst of energy like Elijah did, but he was just as dangerous. Luke thought out his moves. Each punch he threw was precise and delivered to weaken his opponent. If he had a knife, I would’ve started to worry. He would’ve gone for Brute’s jugular, and that would be a whole other set of problems. As it was, I finally spied a knife. There was a girl right behind Brute who held one. It was dangling from her fingers, right next to her leg, and judging from the alarm in her eyes, I didn’t think she knew how to use it.

Luke said from behind me, “Let her go.” His voice was calm and low, but a shiver went down my spine. He was close to making his move. I looked back at him. Elijah had moved to stand next to him and watched him carefully, too. When Brute heard the new threat, his head went back up.

He narrowed his eyes, and his hand dropped from my face. “Or what, Pretty Boy? I don’t know you, but you’d look more comfortable being in some fancy magazine than here with the big boys.”

Then I heard something click at the back of the fence. I turned my head, narrowly missing clocking Brute square in the face. There was a door to the yard and Kelly stuck a hand through it, waving at me. That was her signal. I hadn’t asked for her to find a door, but I had hoped there would be one. She just saved us a lot of time. And Emerson was right there.

It was time.

Brute was breathing down on me, still gripping my arm firmly. He lifted me, making me stretch to stand on my tiptoes. I looked right at Luke, then Elijah. Both saw the change in me and narrowed their eyes. They shared a questioning look, but I didn’t care. I hoped they would follow my lead. I closed my eyes, remembering the times I fought with Braden.

“You have such a hard head!” he had shouted one time after I head-butted him. He’d been right. I did. Not much could hurt my skull. I had laughed then, sticking my tongue out at him.

“And I’ll do it every time you wrestle me. Get ready for headaches, Braden!”

He had yelled back, but ran off, yelling for our mom.

“Here’s one for my brother.” I reared back and brought my forehead back as hard as possible into Brute’s face.

Crying out, he dropped me instantly as he bent forward and cupped his head with both of his hands. No one moved for a second. They were all shocked, but I wasn’t. I darted forward, plucked the knife from the girl’s fingers and immediately started backing up. I was in front of Luke before anyone thought to run after us, but I kept backing into him.

I yelled to Elijah, “Grab Emerson. There’s a car for us back there!”

Then everything happened at once. Everyone realized what had happened. Luke’s hands gripped my sides, but he switched our positions immediately. He took the knife from me and blocked me instead, moving backwards. Then we both darted for the fence.

Elijah had grabbed Emerson. He had a firm hold on his arm, and he dragged him to the fence, but Emerson was still dazed. He didn’t know what was going on, so Luke went to him and grabbed the other side. Both of them hoisted Emerson in the air. They half-dragged and half-carried him the entire way. I held open the fence door. As soon as they were through, I slammed it shut, but I couldn’t lock it.