Ride and Die (Ridgemore #1)

6 Us Against the World

6

Us Against the World

M y driveway was a half mile long, cutting through the forest that surrounded the house. I eased off the accelerator, enjoying the winding drive now that we’d left the reporters and their cameras behind. Our four families were the only ones who lived off this cul-de-sac, which was already far removed from the other houses that comprised the Periwinkle Hill neighborhood. If our parents shared one thing in common, it was their love of privacy, a fact we were particularly grateful for now that Brady was a person of interest.

Before I even got Clyde into neutral, Brady shoved open the door and was hopping out with the kind of athleticism he’d always had. He was like a damn cat, always landing on his feet, no matter what— except for that one time at Fischer House . Away from prying eyes, he strutted toward the others, who were hanging out around my Mustang.

Griffin’s head was under the hood, but when he emerged, his eyes landed on me first. Like always. They scanned me from head to toe before jumping to his car and Brady. I seized the opportunity to return the favor and check him out as well. He was in board shorts that rode low on his hips, a tank that gaped around the arms to reveal hints of the tattoo that wrapped around his side, and he was barefoot. I smiled at what I saw, careful as always to make sure it broadcast how platonically into him I was.

He trained his gaze on me again, smiling back with a devilish smirk.

Just friends, Joss , I reminded myself with renewed fervor. It was all any of us could ever be.

“Hey, guys,” I called as Hunt slid out from under my car. He lay flat on a creeper, his long legs folding in half to push himself up to his feet while he wiped his hands on a rag.

“What’s up?” he asked, then looked at Brady. “How’d it go?”

“Yeah.” Layla sat leaning against a tree trunk. With a chuckle, she set down her sketchpad and pencil and stood. “Did you rock the limp Mom begged you to do?”

Brady huffed. “Fuck no, I didn’t. Mom’s lost her damn mind. That doesn’t mean I have to be her stupid puppet.”

Layla groaned, flicking her choppy bangs out of her eyes. Her hair was currently blond, though I doubted it would last for long. She changed hair colors like most people changed shoes. “Then dinner tonight’s gonna be fun.”

Dinner at the Rafferty house was a daily ritual Celia had been insisting on since her kids were old enough to run off with us and not want to come back for a regular dinner appointment. When we were nine, we snuck machetes and saws to cut paths through the forest to connect our houses. When we were eleven, we built a large treehouse on my property—with some help from our parents. Coming inside on a timetable always sucked. But Celia was unbending when it came to dinnertime.

“Text your mom and tell her we’ll come too,” I offered. “That way you won’t need to deal alone.”

Layla slipped her phone out of her pocket while Brady said, “It’s not like she’s gonna hold back with you guys there.” But even so, he tipped his head at me in silent thanks.

“Mom’s really been off the chain, like for real,” Layla said, her fingers flying across her screen. “I get why, but still. She’s out of control.” She pocketed her phone again. “She actually tried to convince Brade to show up at the hospital in a wheelchair.”

Hunt whistled. “Damn. That’s messed up.”

“Sure is. She even had one delivered to the house before Brade lost his shit on her and made her send it back.”

Brady snorted. “Hell, she’s probably just hidden it from me somewhere, waiting to talk me into it.”

“Totally possible.”

Brady poked his head under the hood of my baby. “So, what’d you guys work on while I was wasting my fucking time playing a part for Mom?”

Hunt drew to his side, bending at the waist to examine our work. “We were just hooking up the V8 now that it’s finally in.”

“Yeah, looking good. Joss, you’re gonna have one sweet ride when we’re through with her.”

I grinned. “Don’t I know it.”

Not only was the shell of my baby an early gift, but my parents also offered to buy the parts, so long as I kept bringing home straight A’s for the entirety of my senior year. If I didn’t, they’d warned, I’d have to find a way to pay them back, but that last bit was hot air. School had always been easy for me—for the others too. We’d never had to work at it, but we had used “study groups” time and time again to excuse hanging out on school nights. My parents could afford the cost of the car, especially since we were putting in all the labor, so I accepted with a solemn promise to excel at my studies. It was a good thing none of the others had been there with me at the time or they might have busted out laughing, betraying how little effort I was going to have to put in to follow through.

Layla heaved a sigh that sounded wistful as she stared up at the trees. “I still can’t believe school’s about to start back up. I’m so not ready. I need at least another month of just this.”

“Tell me about it,” I said, wondering if I could get away with doing a little sanding on my car’s exterior with everyone there. I wouldn’t be able to hear what they were saying, and I hadn’t forgotten Brady’s nightmares.

“Rich’d better not start shit, or I’m gonna make him pay for what he did to Brady,” Griffin warned as he folded his arms over his chest, making his biceps look bulkier than they were. Griffin, just like the rest of the guys, had lean muscles and was stronger than he looked. So were Layla and I.

After we built our treehouse, we added on a large wooden platform behind it, fancying ourselves martial artists in training. With no one to teach us, and our parents off working all day, every day, even over the summers, we fashioned our own idea of badass ninja training. It began as an insane amount of push-ups, sit-ups, jumping jacks, running the trails we’d carved out behind our houses, but it quickly evolved into something fairly sophisticated—and all our own. We never talked about it with others, not even our parents when they asked specifically about what we were getting up to.

After many years of training together several times a week, if not daily, I had no doubt Griffin could take down Rich in an instant. But then there’d be more questions, more attention leading back to the incident with Brady.

“No fighting,” I said. “No more. Not after what happened at Fischer House.”

“That was just a fluke,” Brady started before I cut him off.

“Granted. But no more risking something like that happening.”

“You mean, a random collapse of a fucking balcony—that looked perfectly sturdy, by the way, before I walked out onto it?” He raised his brows, emphasizing how unlikely the scenario was to repeat itself.

“No, I mean, we don’t put our fates in the hands of others. Never again. We don’t do anything that could lead to shit that bad happening. Rich is a prick. We know that. The douchebag himself probably knows it. That’s what all his bluster’s about while he struts around with his chest pushed out like a damn cartoon.”

“I bet he’s got a little dick,” Layla added. “It would explain a lot. Otherwise, he’s good enough looking, richer than gods, has everything he wants. It’s gotta be the little dick.”

“Well, the little dick’d better not get on my case about anything,” Brady snarled, “or I’m joining Griff in beating the ever-loving shit out of him.”

Hunt grunted, his way of saying there was no way he’d let his bros fight without him at their sides. Like any of us would stay out of it if it came to that.

Brady leaned back against the side of my car. “I swear, if a single one of those idiots calls me Miracle Kid, I’m gonna punch him in the nuts.”

I nodded. “Fair enough. But at least try to give them a warning first before you make them sterile for life.”

He shrugged, and I knew I was going to have to stick to him like glue once classes started.

“Just picture Kitty Blanche’s face pasted over theirs,” I tried.

“The fuck?”

“If Kitty susses out that you’re fighting at school instead of gimping around like you’re supposed to, our parents will morph into fucking fire-breathing dragons. They’ll probably all start working from home to keep an eye on us twenty-four seven.”

After Layla and Hunt groaned, I added, “And Kitty’s got her ways, you know that. She’s found out about stuff already that she shouldn’t have. Like, who the fuck told her I checked Brady’s pulse again right before he went in the ambulance and that he still had none?”

“Or that we used ‘our feminine wiles’ to get the EMTs to blast him one more time,” Layla said, adding in air quotes while batting her eyelashes exaggeratedly.

“That’s right.” I scowled, annoyed once more at the headlining story that denounced Layla and me as hussies instead of devoted family willing to do whatever it took to save one of ours. “The woman’s got eyes and ears where she shouldn’t.”

Hunt’s grunt this time was a we’ll figure it out reassurance. Griffin and Brady nodded their silent agreement.

“That reminds me.” I pinned my attention on Brady, and he frowned at me, anticipating what I was going to say. “We’ve gotta talk. Or Brady does, anyway. He’s got something to tell us.”

“It’s no big deal,” he piped up, too quickly, and I stiffened, feeling the others do the same around me.

Layla picked up her sketchbook and pencil, tucking them under her arm. “Let’s grab some drinks and head to the treehouse.”

“Guys, I’m for real,” Brady said. “It’s no big deal. No need for a treehouse meeting. It’s just some nightmares, that’s all.”

The four of us waited. We knew him too well.

“Okay, fine,” he relented quickly, aware of how ridiculously slow we were to give up. “They’re creepy as fuck, totally weirding me out. They’re of us when we’re kids, and we’re locked up in some facility we can’t escape. Mega dystopian vibes.”

“I still think I need a drink for this.” Layla headed through the garage to enter the house. “You guys coming?”

We were already behind her. Once we were sprawled out on the couches in my family room with our own chilled bottles of beer—something our parents allowed so long as we didn’t drive afterward—Brady didn’t wait for us to prompt him.

“All of us are there. I’d say we’re like five or six, I don’t know—maybe four … it’s hard to tell. But we’ve all got shaved heads, buzz cuts, and we’re wearing identical blue jumpsuits. Almost like mechanic’s coveralls, that’s what they remind me of. And there are other kids there too, but I didn’t recognize any of them. But in the dream, I know who they are, and they know us.”

“Shit, that is creepy,” Hunt said.

“Dude, you have no idea. They stick us in these white-walled rooms that all look the same. One bed and nothing else inside it. We have to use a call button to be let out and accompanied to the bathroom, that kind of deal. Staff watching our every fucking move on cameras, or through windows in the doors to our rooms.”

I leaned my elbows onto my thighs and slid forward, mostly to put more room between Griffin and me so I could focus on what Brady was telling us. “So what are we doing there?”

“Not sure, really, but I get the feeling they’re experimenting on us … like we’re lab rats, and there were, like, dozens of us kids being led around like mindless little zombies.” He shuddered and took a drink of his beer.

“Weird as fuck, dude, but at least it’s not real,” Hunt said.

“Yeah, that’s the only good thing about any of it. No way can it be real. We were already here in Ridgemore then, just a few years out from building the treehouse and all that. But…”

“But what?” I asked.

“But … damn if it doesn’t feel real.”

“Dreams are like that,” Griffin said in his rational voice.

Brady tsk ed at him. “I know what dreams feel like, man, come on. I just mean … it feels as real as my normal memories, ya know? Like this really happened to us, but then so did us growing up here since we were really little. Our parents moved us all here when we were three, remember?”

The four of us watched him closely. Could trauma from dying affect his perception of reality? If so, would telling our already paranoid parents about this help or hinder? Maybe Brady needed a shrink.

“Great, thanks,” Brady said with a huff, sinking heavily back into the couch. “You’re all looking at me like I’m a brewski short of a six-pack.” He took another sip. “I knew I shouldn’t’ve told you.”

Layla did her own tsk ing. “Don’t be an ass, Brade. We tell each other everything. Just ’cause we’re processing doesn’t mean we think you’re crazy.”

I drank to cover up what I was sure was guilt scrawled across my face. The four of them could read me like a damn book.

Brady snorted, eyes on me. “Yeah, right. None of you are thinking I’ve lost my mind.” He grunted. “They’re just dreams, guys. No biggie. Just forget I said anything about it.”

Trying to redeem myself, I said, “They aren’t just dreams, Brade, they’re fucking awful nightmares, and we’re gonna figure out how to stop them, all of us together. Just like always.” I took a moment to make eye contact with each of them. “It’s been us against the world forever. Nothing’s changed.”

“Yeah, except for me fucking dying,” Brady added with every ounce of sullenness he possessed.

“A big deal, admittedly, but that doesn’t change the fact that we’ve got your back through thick and thin. No matter what. Even if that means we’re gonna crawl into your motherfucking nightmares and stop them from messing with you.”

“That’s fucking right,” Griffin whipped out, a damn promise.

Hunt’s brows rose. “I don’t gotta say it. You know I’m always here for you, man.”

“And I can’t escape you even if I tried,” Layla said on a chuckle, but we knew she didn’t mean it. “My room’s right next to yours.”

Staring at us, taking our measure over his beer bottle as he drank more, Brady finally said, “Appreciate that, but these are my dreams . There’s nothing any of you can do to help.”

“I’m not so sure—” Hunt started, but froze, staring at something over my shoulder. He placed his beer on the coffee table, then jumped to his feet, already running.

Without understanding what was happening, we followed his lead, and when he slid open the sliding glass doors that led to the backyard—too fast, too hard—we ran out after him.

A mechanical whir drew my attention to a zooming dot, doing its damnedest to fade away quickly.

“Somebody tell me that’s not a motherfucking drone ,” I barked.

No one did.