The Original Crowd (A Whole New Crowd 0.50)

It was mass chaos when we walked in.

Karen quickly vanished down the hallway and I told Austin to hang out while I put my bag in the pool-house.

When I got back to the main house, there were three agents in the kitchen, talking quietly. They shut up the second I entered, but I passed ‘em by, in search of Austin and Tray.

I found Austin in a back room. It looked like a smaller media room and he had already hooked up the PlayStation.

“You okay in here?”

“Yeah,” Austin mumbled, not meeting my eyes. But that was okay. He was a fourteen year old boy. A lot had happened, but his cool image needed to be protected. He’d earned some ‘escape’ time.

“I’m going to go find Tray, so if you need something just ask. Okay?”

He shrugged.

Tray was in the library with his brother and two other agents. Karen was talking to Chance in a back corner.

“Hey,” I greeted, moving to Tray’s side.

“Hey.” He sighed, curling an arm around my waist. He pulled me down to his lap.

“How are things here?”

“Jace turned evidence on Galverson and Broozer. Everything’s out in the open and the Feds are moving in. Chance told me that they’ve been monitoring Galverson and have enough with everything that we have on him too.”

“He’s dead. What good is it to turn evidence on him?”

“Jace will get out and Galverson’s entire empire is going to get destroyed. All his men, everything. They’ll either scatter and head to the hills, or they’ll be prosecuted and sent to prison. It’s over. Everything’s over. And Broozer will get prosecuted too. Chance said that was why Jace was waiting as long as he did. He wanted to take down Broozer with Galverson.”

“What’ll happen to Jace?”

“I don’t know. Right now, Chance said that he’s being protected. But he won’t be protected forever. Probably Witness Protection or something.”

Jace was going to away.

I tucked that away with everything else. It could be processed later.

“What about your dad?”

Tray shrugged. “He’ll probably run and hide.”

“So they’ll want to prosecute him too?”

“Yeah.”

I sighed and burrowed against his shoulder.

I was exhausted, drained, but at the same time, I felt free.

“What about your brother? You and him?”

“I don’t know.” Tray sounded just as exhausted as I was.

“You and me?”

Tray tucked his chin on my head and held me tighter. “We’ll be just fine.”

It was enough.