Fearless Like Us (Like Us 9)

“WE DIDN’T INVITE YOU!” Kinney Hale yells next, safe beside her friend indoors.

“Come out and say it to our faces!” someone taunts.

“YEAH, COME OUT HERE!”

“WHY ARE YOU HIDING?!”

The cackling is fucking shrill.

Sulli tenses.

I zero in on the sliding glass door. “Your sister.”

Winona is inside. Safe. Except wrath is in her eyes. And she starts unlatching the lock from inside.

“No, Nona!” Sulli shouts.

We race toward the door with the puppy. I yell, “STAY INSIDE!”

These kids are hyenas. Waiting to bum-rush Winona and take the party inside the place they’re forbidden to go.

Right as we reach Winona, she slips outside. “Akara!” I shout. He’s right next to the stereo speakers some meters away. Unable to hear, so I yell in my mic. “AKARA!”

Quickly, he abandons whatever he was doing and jogs towards us.

“GET OUT!” Winona screams at the top of her lungs, launching herself towards the gathering crowds.

I grab onto Winona’s shirt while I use my other arm and body to block about ten guys from rushing into the house.

Sulli tries to restrain her sister. “Winona, Winona.”

Some shitbag goes for my fucking gun. I let go of Winona and twist his arm, putting him in a lock instantly.

He winces, “Fuck, dude.”

Shoving him hard, he stumbles away and into the pack of guys. And then I turn to the sliding glass door. Xander is on the other side.

Our eyes meet, and so much flashes through me. This kid I love and protected for years is at a high school party. This kid is safe inside. This kid is seventeen.

My gaze screams, lock the door, and before I can even say the words, Xander locks the latch.

I nod to him, grateful.

Ben appears in the living room behind Xander. He’s wearing a Dalton Hockey sweatshirt. “Is that Nona outside?”

“Stay inside, Ben!” I yell, shoving more kids away. They try to bang at the glass. It’s not safe for Sulli or Winona to stand around here.

Akara swoops in and protects the Meadows girls, moving them towards the stereo. “Banks, don’t let anyone out or in.”

“Copy that—back off!” I yell at two guys who try to deck me. I let them hit my arm and stifle a grimace. They’re too short to reach my face. With one free hand, I click my mic. “Watch your gun, Akara.”

“What’s going on?” Thatcher is in my ear.

“You need backup?” Donnelly.

“I’m in town.” Oscar.

I tune out SFO comms as Ben yells, “We can’t leave Winona outside with Tate!”

One of the T-Bags is here. Somewhere. I scan the drunken party. Security was given their photos. Tate is the tallest one.

Xander is about to fling the curtains closed over the glass door.

“Xander, no—” Ben stops him. “We have to go help Nona.”

Xander gapes. “Are you nuts? We can’t open that door!”

Ben tries to wrestle forward. He unlatches the door, and I pry it closed, letting this one fuckbag pound at my back with a fist.

“Move, man!”

Do not kick a kid.

Pain is background noise to what happens inside the house. Xander shoves Ben back. “STOP!” he screams at him. “Kinney is in here! Your sister is in here! Vada is in here! We’re not letting strangers into your house!”

“Winona is outside!” Ben screams back. “If your sister was out there, I’d be out there! You know what Tate told me he’d do to Nona—”

“No,” Xander pushes him back again. “No, I can’t let you out, man. Please. Stop.”

I shout to Ben, “Winona’s with Akara! She’s safe!”

“See,” Xander says. “Banks and Akara have everything under—”

“That’s him; that’s him!” Ben shouts in panic. He rushes forward to leave, but I physically force the door shut and try to spot Tate.

“Where is he?” I ask in a wince over the punches. Alright, I kick at the one fuckbag who thinks I’m a punching bag.

“Wrestle Bigfoot!” his friends goad.

Hell to the fucking no.

I drill the harshest glare. “You try, you’re getting kneed.”

He tries.

I knee him hard.

He topples backwards. Everyone laughs, and I shake my head, hating everything about this.

“He’s near the pool!” Ben shouts to me. “Let me out, Banks. I have to get out.”

“Stop!” Xander tears Ben away, and they wrestle each other and fall onto the Cobalt’s coffee table. Shattering the glass beneath their weight.

Fucking Christ!

“FIGHT! FIGHT!” People chant and bump closer, hoisting their phones to record the Xander Hale and Ben Cobalt fight.

Goddammit.

Tate—I catch sight of him and his Dalton Swim beanie near the edge of the pool, heat rising over the water in a steaming layer. A few other guys in lacrosse letterman jackets flank him. He’s not far from Winona.

I speak into my mic. “T-Bag at the pool.”

No response.

“T-Bag at the pool!”

No response.

My mic is fucked, I realize. The cord is ripped. “AKARA!” I yell as loud as I can while he’s working on the stereo. “POOL!”

Sulli is holding her sister backwards, and Akara quickly guards Winona.