Monsters' Crew (Crude Hill High 1)

She was good and pure.

The kill she made, that was the anomaly.

My dad had ordered me to shoot that woman, but he’d waited hours between commands. Her husband watched her bleed out. Listened to her sobs and her begs until it finally ended.

“What’s wrong with you?”

“Nothing.”

“You don’t seem to be yourself.”

“I’m just not feeling any of this.” I shrug.

“You mean the ball?”

“Yeah, the ball, whatever.”

Caleb looked around. “You know you can’t have these feelings, Vadik. If you do, and they find out, they’ll make sure you suffer more. They’ll train you more.”

I turned to look at one of my best friends. This was why my feelings were so odd. When it came to protecting my boys, I was all over it. No one could hurt them. I guessed when it came to innocents, I wasn’t as much of a monster as I thought I was.

“Dude, I’m sitting on a bench keeping out of the fucking way. There’s a seamstress waiting to keg me out in a tux. Believe me, I’ve got no fucking problem with the shit that went down. I’m keeping a low profile.” The lies spilled from my lips so easily.

“Wow, sorry.”

“You should be. I don’t know what the fuck your problem is, but it’s got nothing to do with me.” I ran my hands down my thighs and stood. “What do you think of this ball?”

“It’s our way for our dads to feel out Crane’s position.”

“You got any more word than the deal he’s made for Emily’s cherry?” I asked.

“Not a one.” Caleb ran his fingers through his hair, looking up toward my dad’s big house.

I hated the monstrosity. It wasn’t a home.

“What is it?” I asked.

I’d noticed for the past couple of days that Caleb had been acting weird and for me to see it, well, something had to be bothering him.

“Do you know anything about babies?”

“You knock someone up?”

“No.”

“Then, no, not a clue.”

He reached into his jacket pocket. Anyone else, I’d have snapped his neck from the threat. This wasn’t anyone else. This was my best friend. He pulled out a folded-up photo and handed it to me.

I’d seen this many times.

“It’s a picture of us when we were kids. What’s the problem?” I asked, about to hand it back.

Caleb put his hand against mine and pushed it toward me. “Look at it. I mean really look at it.”

Taking a deep breath, I opened my eyes wide and stared at the photograph. Like always, all four of us were together.

“Damn it, Vadik, look at the back.”

I flipped the picture over, seeing that this was supposedly taken a few days after we were born.

I looked again at the kid that I knew to be Caleb, and now I wondered. “Why the fuck are you sitting up?” I tilted the picture back to see if he was rested against something, but he wasn’t. He was actually sitting up with no support while looking at the three of us.

“Yeah, you tell me how a newborn baby can sit up. I checked it online, it takes months for a newborn to sit up without support.”

“What are you getting at?” I asked.

“Something stinks about Dad, about everything.” He looked up toward the house.

“My dad has better things to do than to spy on me.”

“Oh really, you think he doesn’t have a maid or a guard?”

I grabbed Caleb’s arm, turned away from the house, and started walking. We left the grounds. I always had a weapon in close reach so no one could stop us or question where we were going.

What we needed was some privacy. I didn’t know how far we had to walk to get it, but I kept on moving. We walked down the street and I was accustomed to people crossing the road to get as far away from us as possible. This was what people did. They tried to leave or avoid us.

When we’d put a good distance between my house and any prying eyes, I turned toward him.

“Tell me.”

“My dad warned me about Emily. He told me that the four of us couldn’t share her, not indefinitely. Our natural instinct would be to compete for her affection. For one of us to want her more than the others. A jealousy.”

Shoving my hands in my pockets, I looked at him. I didn’t feel jealous that Gael had touched her pussy first, or River had tasted her. I didn’t even care that Caleb took her lips either. When it came to Emily, all I cared about was what I’d gotten, and the kiss we’d shared in the bathroom had replayed in my head several times over the past few weeks.

I’d never been jealous of my friends. I didn’t care that Gael seemed to find humor in anything, or River’s obsession with knives along with his skills. Nor Caleb’s natural ability to lead.