Ride and Die (Ridgemore #1)

1 A Party Foul to End Them All

1

A Party Foul to End Them All

A s I tipped back my beer, I strained to hear what Layla was saying to that jackass Rich over the noise of the party and the crackling of the fire pit between us. It wasn’t as if Layla couldn’t take care of herself. The girl was a spitfire who had no reservations about speaking her mind. But she was like a sister, and Rich Connely was a grade A prick of the highest order. He’d been chasing Layla’s tail since the third grade. At least then he’d been better at taking no for an answer.

Wedging my beer bottle between the two cinder blocks I sat on, I stood just as “Uptown Funk” rang out of someone’s portable speaker. The construction debris around us distorted the sound. What had once been a hoity-toity dining room was now a charred ruin thanks to an endless number of nights like this one. Fischer House sat at the edge of town, abandoned decades before when the family that was building it got caught up in scandal and was run out of Ridgemore. Half swallowed up by the encroaching forest, with long-range views of the surrounding rolling hills, it had been party central for teenagers since our parents used to drink here.

A hand landed lightly on my shoulder, stopping me in my tracks. I’d recognize Griffin Conway’s touch underwater and blindfolded and didn’t turn to see who it was, keeping my attention on Rich instead. I didn’t appreciate the way he was smirking at Layla like he knew better than she did.

“She’s fine,” Griffin said in that deep bass that felt too much like a caress. “If he pushes her much more, she’ll kick him in the balls.”

Rich dipped his head to speak close to Layla’s ear and I stiffened.

“We’re not little kids anymore,” Griffin reminded me, leaning closer.

“I know,” I responded tersely. How could I forget when his touch all too often sent excited tingles rushing across my skin? But Griffin and I had grown up together too.

“I just don’t like it. Don’t like him,” I said. None of this was news.

Griffin peered through the crowd before taking a sip of his own beer. “No one really likes him unless they’re after the family money.”

I tipped my head, studying Rich, though I could describe his features from memory. That was the downside of living in a small town, population under four thousand. You knew most everyone, whether you wanted to or not.

“I thought he had a girlfriend now?”

Griffin took another swig of his beer. “Nope. They broke up a few hours ago.”

“So that’s why he’s sniffing after Layla like a hound dog with a boner.”

“Yup. And he’ll keep at it till he lands his next girlfriend. Like always.”

“You’d think they’d learn. He treats them all like shit.”

Griffin shrugged. “To each their own.”

“Yeah, fine. But not when he’s bugging Layla.”

As if she heard me, Layla turned her back to Rich, pushed her way through a group of jocks and cheerleaders, and headed toward the balcony. Rich walked off in the opposite direction.

Griffin draped his arm over my shoulders. “See? She sent him packing. All’s good.”

But Rich grabbed a handful of Jell-O shots before fist bumping the captain of the lacrosse team and sauntering toward the balcony.

“Shit,” Griffin grumbled when Brady, Layla’s actual brother, popped out of the shadows and trailed after Rich.

Griffin didn’t have to tell me to move; I was already in motion. Hunt Fletcher, the final member of our unofficial crew, stalked by us, apparently just as aware of what was going on as we were.

“Fight!” someone called out as Griffin, Hunt, and I converged outside the wide threshold of the veranda, designed for elegant French doors that were never installed.

“No fight,” Griffin snapped over his shoulder, loudly enough to be heard over the music. “Nothing’s going on. Just stay where you are.”

No one listened. As well as we knew Rich’s ways, so did everyone else. And they knew ours, too. Layla and Brady might be the only ones related by blood, but the five of us were family. If there was going to be a fight tonight, then we were all going to be in the thick of it.

By the time we got onto the balcony and shooed away the gawking, ready audience that had already been outside enjoying the warm night, Brady had Rich by the collar.

“Back the fuck off my sister, dude.” His muscles and ink bulged as he leaned into Rich.

The prick sighed theatrically and rolled his eyes, knocking Brady’s hands away before running his own through his hair, fixing it, as if a single strand could possibly break free of the thick gel he was sporting.

“I’m not doing anything, asshole. Layla and me, we’re just talking…”

None of us needed the fresh reminder of how much more he was constantly pushing for.

Brady growled and reached for him again. Layla tsk ed and put a hand on her brother’s bicep, exposed by one of the countless sleeveless t-shirts he lived in during the summer.

“Come on, Brade. I’m fine. He didn’t do anything.”

“Not yet he didn’t,” Brady snarled. “But he wants to.”

Rich took a step back from Brady and pressed up against the railing. His stance was casual, one foot braced against a balustrade as if Brady were a puny freshman instead of six-feet-plus of angry muscle.

Rich shrugged, his traditionally handsome features twisting into feigned boredom. “You can’t blame me for trying. Layla’s beautiful.”

Though his admiration was sincere, I pondered whether I could get away with punching him in the mouth. Yes, my friend was beautiful, but why was that the reason he pursued her like a hyena after a vulnerable gazelle? Layla kicked ass in a thousand ways that had nothing to do with her looks.

As if he could feel the intensity of my thoughts, Rich glanced my way. “I’d go after foxy Joss-y too—the more hotties the merrier—but I don’t have a death wish.” Chuckling, he flicked a look at Griffin, which I ignored as Griffin stepped closer to me so that there was no space between us.

“Watch it, Rich,” Griffin said evenly. Not even Rich was stupid enough to miss the threat embedded in that simple statement.

“You okay there, buddy?” asked another voice from behind us. Ridgemore High’s starting wide receiver. A nice enough guy but with poor taste in friends.

I glanced his way as several more members of the football team popped their heads out behind him.

“Totally fine,” Rich said with a cocky smile that I was two seconds away from wiping off his smug mug. “We’re just having a little chat, aren’t we, Brady?”

Rich shot an arched-brow look at Brady, but Brady didn’t respond beyond a murderous glare.

“Are we gonna have a problem here?” Rich pressed. “Because if so, maybe we should take this downstairs. I’m sure my friends wouldn’t mind joining me in a little… exercise.”

“Hell no, we wouldn’t,” a moron by the name of Pike Bills shouted too loudly. He flexed his muscles and cracked his knuckles like he was an extra in some gangster movie, proving our working theory that it wasn’t the asshole’s fault his momma had dropped him on his head as a baby.

After popping his neck to either side, he added, “I ain’t had a good fight in ages.”

Rich snickered. “You beat John B. to a pulp two days ago.”

Pike grinned, exposing a broken tooth from said fight. “Yeah, I did.”

I huffed and ran a hand over my face. “This has got nothing to do with the rest of you. We’re just out here having a nice talk with our friend Rich about his manners.”

Rich snorted, and a few of the members of his backup echoed the sentiment. “Joss Bryson. Teaching about manners.”

I slammed a hand to one hip. “That’s right, dickwad. Manners. You’d better get some or you’re gonna wind up with my boot up your ass.”

He waggled his brows. “Kinky. Me like-y.” Then he shrugged. “Hey, if you’re into the weird shit, for you, baby, I’d go there.” He made a show of eyeing me up and down.

Griffin took a step toward him and I shot a hand out to stop him.

“He’s not worth it,” I said, even as I calculated how much room there was to jump him and pin him down on the crowded veranda.

“He’s definitely not worth shit,” Griffin bit out.

Rich smiled, a predatory glint in his gaze. “Jealousy doesn’t suit you, my man.”

“And what exactly would I be jealous of? The fact that your daddy would rather pay you off than spend time with you?”

That was a low blow, even for Griffin, which meant he was closer than I was to smashing Rich’s pretty face in.

Rich lunged at Griffin, but Brady was in his way. Rich threw a wild punch. Brady dodged it, slipping behind Rich to lock his arms around him. Rich roared like he was some wild beast, straining to rip his arms free. Brady didn’t let go, but he did stumble backward into the railing.

“Let me go right this fucking second,” Rich snarled, his pretty-boy face screwed up as if he were a savage animal.

Brady grunted from the effort of holding on while Rich thrashed.

So many things happened at once that they distilled into separate actions, registering in slow motion.

Duncan, Pike, and several others shoved through our small audience to rush Brady. Griffin stepped between them and me, lining himself up so none of the guys could get to me or Layla without going through him. Layla and I shared an exasperated look and went to move around Griffin while Hunt squared up next to Brady, facing down the approaching football team.

Then a horrendous clap sliced through the caveman-like shouting and posturing. Spinning in place, I searched for its source, already gesturing and ushering the idiots standing around gawking to run inside.

“It’s too much weight,” I yelled, without being sure that was the problem—but it had to be, especially when construction on the house was never completed. Gripping Griffin and Layla, I dragged them toward the doorway, planning to snatch Hunt and Brady next. Then another clap split the humid air.

The floor tipped toward Brady, Hunt, and Rich. Instinctively, I released Griffin and Layla and reached for the others.

A crack raced across the balcony, cleaving it in two. The fissure widened until a third of the veranda detached from the rest and dropped fast. The chunk of terrace pitched until it was nearly vertical, then slid downward, taking Brady with it, Rich falling above him.

Arms outstretched, Hunt leaped for them, shouting at us, “Grab my legs,” trusting that we’d catch him before he fell too.

Griffin, Layla, and I scrambled to grip Hunt’s legs, and Duncan, Slater, and a few others grabbed us, holding on to our waists, thighs, and ankles.

“I got ’em,” Hunt grunted, the veins in his neck popping. He was long and lean, but strong as a bull. “Hold me, hold me,” he mumbled in a rush as he slid.

Brady probably weighed more than one-eighty, and Rich was about the same. I held on to Hunt like it was my life that hung in the balance, my thoughts suddenly still.

The balcony beneath us moaned and slipped farther, and a cacophony of shouts blended eerily as Eminem’s “Lose Yourself” started playing, carrying from the house’s open interior.

More grunts from below. Hunt screamed unintelligibly, before a nauseating crash and snap resounded from somewhere beneath us.

His breath hitched with a strangled sob that was utterly unlike my stoic friend. My heart stopped beating entirely for a few seconds.

Hunt twisted to the left, reaching both arms in one direction.

One direction. Not two.

I could only pull in thick breaths that felt wrong. My pulse thumped in my ears.

Suddenly, everything felt wrong, like a limb had just been hacked off with a dull kitchen knife.

High-pitched screams that reminded me of a rape whistle rose from below, chilling me to the bone.

Hunt, breathing hard, heaved Rich up, swinging him toward the threshold behind us. The second Rich’s friends grabbed him, Hunt army-crawled backward across the incline, then barked at us, “Go, go, go!”

His eyes, usually animated, were flat, dead. Even his voice sounded off, like it wasn’t really his.

“Where’s Brady?” Layla asked, the question garbled in her panic.

Shaking my head in a daze, I pitched inside, found my feet, and ran stumbling, jumping over a haphazard collection of cinder block seats, bottles, kindling, and camping chairs. I dodged people and the fire, blindly elbowing some girl out of the way before I slammed down onto the thick padding of decomposing leaves that covered the ground outside.

“Holy fucking shit,” someone wheezed from the other side of the house, their stunned falsetto voice carrying. “Brady Rafferty, he’s … he’s … fuck, he’s dead.”

One thought consumed my mind and hung on my lips— no, no, no, no, no .

I circled the house, my fingers skimming brick to keep me upright, until I saw a crowd gathered.

I pushed my way through them, stopping short and gasping, hand over my mouth. Griffin ran into me, Layla piling up behind him. A second later, I shot off to the side, thinking I was going to empty my stomach, my arm trembling against the tree that held me up. I sank against it.

Brady and I had been tight since we were in diapers.

Now my friend was impaled on exposed rebar several inches thick. Stabbed straight through the chest.

No one could survive that. No one.

Not even Brady Rafferty, who’d always seemed larger than life, capable of living forever.

But he hadn’t.

Brady was dead.