Page 202 of Five Brothers
Wise.
“So, what are we doing, then?” I ask.
She looks at me, grins, and then …
She leaps to her feet, the others following, all of them holding their hands in the air, howling from the top of their lungs.
What the hell? I crane my neck to see them sprint at top speed across the burial grounds. Toward the invaders.
The beams from the flashlights jerk in our direction, and I catch site of a blond ponytail whipping as some girl runs.
I shoot off, racing after Aracely and sucking in breath after breath.This is dumb.Someone’s going to get hurt. Or arrested.
We charge through the rain, Aracely throwing her arms behind her head, getting ready to smash someone’s face in.
Some teenager—I think he still goes to Marymount, actually—scurries backward, holding out his hands. “No, no, no, no!”
Aracely swings the bat down, and I watch in horror as she smashes down on the hood of the dude’s Tesla. A dent sits like a crater in the middle.
“Oh my God!” Emaline Truax drops a shovel, coated in the dirt they disturbed. She swings the sledgehammer they brought with them, but I’m on her before she attacks. I shove her, the hammer dropping into a puddle, but then I hear someone growl and spin around. A guy is behind Aracely, trying to pry the bat out of her hands. I race over, leaping onto his back.
“Ah!” he growls.
I wrap my body around him, putting him in a headlock, which is pretty much all I know from wrestling with my siblings.
He throws me off, and I crash to the ground, the spikes of my knuckles sinking into the mud.
Car doors slam, headlights glow bright, and tires spin as the intruders escape. A truck, and then another one, speeds in as they peel off.
Aracely looks over at me. I smile, watching them turn tail and run. She grins, too. Liv and Clay would be proud of me.
Trace jumps out of his truck. “You got rid of them?” he asks Aracely.
I rise to my feet, about to walk over, but Aracely pulls me out of the way. “Careful.”
I look down, seeing the pathetic start of a hole they tried to dig. I read the headstone.El … des … a … fio? El desafio.Challenge? Dare? Duel? I should ask Paisleigh. She knows more Spanish than me now.
“Thanks,” I tell Aracely.
But someone takes my shoulders and twists me forward. “Are you okay?”
I look up, meeting Army’s eyes.
But Aracely speaks up. “Yeah, I’m fine,” she tells him, starting to walk away. “In case you ever wonder. Ever.”
I watch her pick up her bat and start to leave the cemetery, the spark of pain on her face clear as day. He didn’t see it, though. The twitch in her eyes when he brushed past her like she wasn’t here.
I don’t have a chance to go after her. Macon strolls up, his jaw clenched and his eyes hard on me. “I told you to stay at Mariette’s. What did you think you would accomplish?”
Army drops his hands, but I don’t think Macon even noticed him. He’s looking at me like he looks at Trace sometimes.
I swallow. “Getting rid of them before you showed up.”
“Am I in the habit of doing stupid things that I need to be protected from myself?” he chastises. “They could’ve hurt you. Taken you. I can suffer a few lost headstones—some holes in the ground—” He gestures to the earth underneath us. “Because it’s all about the long game, and not a single person in my fucking house understands that!”
I startle, his growl piercing my ear. I don’t think my parents have yelled at me like that. Ever.
I don’t think it would hurt like it does with him, though.