Lost Boys (Slateview High 1)

“I don’t think we need to have Flint around her like that…”

I rolled my eyes. “Come on. I won’t be a bother. I won’t even speak. I’ll stay out of the way.”

Bishop looked skeptical. “I don’t know…”

“Come on, just tell him to come on over.” Misael rested one hand on my knee while the other lifted his beer to his lips. “He hates being kept waiting, and it means that we’ll have to make one less trip around town tonight. Maybe it’s not even a job that needs doing tonight. Then we can par-tay.”

He waggled his eyebrows at me on the last word, and I snorted a giggle.

Bishop still looked unhappy, but nodded. He sent a message, and a few moments later, another one came in.

“Says he’ll be here in about ten minutes,” he reported. “Cora, when he comes, we’re gonna talk to him out front. Stay here. You don’t have to be quiet, but don’t make it obvious you’re around either.”

I raised a brow. “Is this Flint person a bad guy?”

Bishop deadpanned me. “What kinda question is that.”

“I know he’s a ‘bad guy’ but is he a bad guy?” I tilted my head. “You know. Do I like… worry about him being creepy, or something?”

“I dunno.” Bish ran a hand through his hair, his relaxed demeanor from earlier shifting to a sort of tense agitation. “He’s fine. I mean, I don’t trust him farther than I can throw him, but I’d say the same about a lot of people. I just don’t want him to know you’re here and tell Nathaniel or anything. So just… keep your head down, alright?”

I had so many questions, but Bishop’s tone signaled that now wasn’t the time for them. That was fine. I could see the tension blanketing over him, an uncomfortable shroud. He didn’t like whatever this situation was going to be, and instead of being a nuisance, I decided to follow orders.

Besides.

Bishop never said I couldn’t listen in.

Twenty-Six

True to my word, I stayed in the “inside” space of the warehouse when Flint showed up. Bishop, Kace, and Misael went out front. The warehouse walls had damage to them, some places where the bricks had been knocked down and others where the glass of the windows was broken. Their voices weren’t loud, but I could still hear as Bishop spoke to Misael and Kace outside.

“I don’t like this.” He spoke low. I had to strain to hear him properly, and I got up from the couch to move a little closer to the wall. I chose each of my steps carefully, not wanting to give away that I was listening, let alone that I had gotten up from the spot Bishop had commanded me to stay, deeming it a “safe space”.

“Yeah, well, it was either meet here or go somewhere else, and I didn’t want my whole night taken up with this shit,” Misael said. “The princess will be fine. You worry too much.”

I was inclined to agree with the easy-going boy on that one, though I couldn’t help the feeling of butterflies in my stomach at the fact that Bishop seemed genuinely worried, and despite his nonchalant tone and words, even Misael seemed cautious.

“Hey. He’s here.” Kace spoke up, his voice slightly louder than the other two. “Let’s go.”

But to my dismay, they moved away from the immediate front of the warehouse as they went to meet Flint. I peeked out one of the broken windows, watching as they walked over to the same black car with the tinted windows that I’d seen the first time I’d been brought around for one of their jobs. I squinted through the hole in the wall, trying to get a good look at the man named Flint, but their bodies blocked my view.

“Oh, goddamn it,” I muttered.

I huffed a frustrated breath but stayed where I was, intent on listening in. Snooping wasn’t usually my MO, but this was the first time that they had actively tried to keep me out of the things they got themselves into, and I was beyond curious. Bishop and I hadn’t revisited our conversation in his room the day I’d slapped him, but I hadn’t forgotten it. I knew Flint was higher up on the food chain in this underground hierarchy than the Lost Boys were, and he seemed to be the guy who doled out jobs to others at the behest of Nathaniel Ward.

From the way the guys talked, I got the sense they’d met Nathaniel in person at least a few times, but I’d probably never have a reason or opportunity to meet that man, which was fine by me. Bish had said he was pretty ruthless and powerful—and if he was the criminal underground equivalent of men like my father and his business associates, I was sure he was absolutely terrifying.

Everything about this world scared me a little, but it filled me with a dark, morbid curiosity too. And it was that curiosity that had me pressing myself closer to the wall, turning my head to angle my ear toward the sounds of low voices.

I picked up things here and there as they spoke to each other in hushed tones. Flint greeted them with some throwaway comment about the guys being hard to track down lately. A flare of regret burned through me; I knew they’d turned down a couple of jobs while they were staying with me after Mom’s accident. Had it caused a lot of problems for them?

“Had a little emergency,” Bishop explained smoothly. “No big deal.”

A wheezing laugh followed. “No big deal. Uh huh. Don’t tell me you’ve got your heads all wrapped up in some piece a’ pussy these days, eh?”

Silence.

There was another wheezing laugh. From where I peeked, it looked like this Flint person clapped Bishop on the shoulder—a display of playfulness and camaraderie that didn’t seem to match the tone of the situation at all.