Monsters' Crew (Crude Hill High 1)

“If you want to waste your time.”

“A guy’s got to do what a guy’s got to do.”

“This is fucking ridiculous. There’s no way I’m paying for this kind of shit.” Drake was having another one of his fits. He sounded like a child, and not for the first time, I had to wonder if he even realized it.

“I’m sorry, sir,” the waitress said.

She was supposed to be serving us, not this child.

He shoved her hard, forcing her to the floor.

“You’re only good for servicing dick, not bringing me my food.” He stood and started at his belt, as if he was going to get the woman to suck him off right here, right now. His level of disrespect pissed me off.

Getting to my feet, I stepped in front of him.

I didn’t like Drake. Hated him on sight.

Not because of his parentage. To some, that made him scum, not to me. His attitude pissed me off in a big way. We all got that he was pissed at his parents and despised the world. Hello, look where we all were. None of us liked our life, apart from the Monsters, of course. Many a day went by when I thought about ending his miserable life. It would be so much fun to do it. Just a simple blade across the throat. He’d deserve it. I’d watch him bleed out. There were parts of the neck you could slice and it wouldn’t kill a person.

“Leave her alone,” I said.

Drake smirked.

Gael, Caleb, and Vadik were at my back. The girl scurried away. She was too young and didn’t deserve to deal with him.

With my blade in my hand, the threat was there. Drake laughed. “Seriously, you want to threaten me? Do you really have the guts?”

“You’re stupid, as well as a fucking moron.” I placed the blade against his neck, right near his pulse. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited to do this to you? Every single day of high school, you do something that makes me want to end you.”

“My dad…” Perspiration dotted his brow. His face turned a delightful shade of red.

“Let’s face it, Drake, your dad wouldn’t care. I’d probably get a reward for doing him a favor. You’re a piece of shit, and what’s more, everyone knows it, yourself included.” I pressed just a little harder, seeing a pearl of blood leak out of the tip.

So pretty. Blood turned monsters into men. Into plain old mortals. They didn’t have a higher power. I knew how fragile our lives were. The right cut of a blade, the correct mark of a bullet. All of us would be dead. There was no doubt about it in my mind.

We were fragile.

“You continue to fuck around like this, make a scene, ruin the chances of us finishing high school, then I will make you dig your own grave and push you right inside.” I withdrew my blade and slapped his face. “Think about that.”

****

Gael

“We should have killed him. It would have been more fun,” I said.

“And it would have caused trouble for our dads. Just because Drake is unwanted doesn’t mean he doesn’t have the ability to piss us off,” Caleb said.

He was right, I knew he was right. River was thirsting for blood and I had to give it to the guy. I had a whole load of respect for him.

I’d seen what those bastards who took him had done to him. The scars were clearly visible, but we never talked about it. River never wanted to. Personally, I wanted to go back two years and have a lot of fun with them myself. That was never going to happen. I did keep thinking of building a time machine, but what did I know about science? The guilt was what I couldn’t stand. Out of all of us, River was the nicest. No doubt about it. He was a good guy. All four of us had been trained to kill, to torture. We knew what our paths meant, the journey we were going to have to take to be in our fathers’ places. I wanted it badly.

My first kill was at nine years old. She’d been my nanny. She’d snuck into my family’s house, pretending to care for me as if she was a mother. I adored her. She kept the charade up for a year when I discovered her intention to kill my parents and then me. What our little nanny hadn’t known was there were secret passages in the walls. One led right to her room, and I’d watched her plan. When she wasn’t in her room, I snuck in, saw everything. I had a knack for remembering what a room looked like and I always made sure to put it back. It was the fine details. Like a file pointing left, rather than right, but it also being three inches off the table, rather than one.