Page 28 of Her Crew

The woman clutches her neck and burns me with her gaze.

“Oh no, not him,” Tegan says. “He didn’t do this to me. We’re both from the shelter. His bruises are where no one can see them.”

My mouth drops open. I don’t even mean for it to. While I’m guilty of using the abused-kid claim to weasel money out of these people, it seems incredibly wrong and callous to claim I’m a victim of DV. Then again, I am a victim of DV. And so is Tegan. That bruise didn’t come from her mother, but the bruises we have are invisible anyway.

But I’m also so proud of her. It’s as if finding out people care about her has given her the confidence I couldn’t bring her on my own. She’s taking an unfortunate bruise and turning it into an opportunity. Just like I taught her. I certainly can’t get upset with her for that.

“Oh, you sweet babies.” The woman clutches the metaphorical pearls at her neckline. “Come in, come in.” She steps aside and lets us in, and I throw Tegan a proud smile.

Even though I feel terrible for being proud.

“What are you selling?”

“Magazines. We’re trying to earn enough to get our own apartment. Aren’t we, Melissa?”

Tegan nods. “We really want to get out of the shelter and be together.”

Ah, young love. Nothing pulls at the heartstrings quite like that.

“Give me that book,” the woman says to me, her smile beaming, and I hand it to her.

Tegan slips her backpack off and pulls out her order book. Ballsy move. Sometimes throwing two order books into their face can snap them out of their sympathetic haze as they realize they’re being scammed. But I relax when the woman smiles and takes the book from Tegan without a second thought.

“I’ll do ten orders . . . each. I don’t care what magazines you put down, just pick any of them for me. I’ll be donating them anyway.”

And now I feel worse. This woman seems kind. Giving. And we’re steaming piles of shit in her walkway right now.

But twenty orders? From one house? Those numbers are spectacular. Out of this world for Tegan’s first real score of her own. That gives us plenty of orders to give to Stacks—and some money to squirrel away for when I leave the crew. I have to let go of my guilt and focus on my end goal, which is securing a real future for myself. For Tye, too, if he wants. Maybe even for Tegan.

I just have to focus on what I’m doing this for, which is to leave Stacks and his rules behind. To live a healthier, more normal life. To run a crew that respects its members and hasn’t left them in the middle of nowhere to figure it out or die. I’m doing this so that I can have a better life than this. Hustling my ass off to give most of my hard-earned money to someone who doesn’t give a shit about me has gotten old.

Yeah, I need to focus on that. Because this isn’t the glamorous life I’ve led Tegan to believe. It’s a pit of sludge formed by our cumulative trauma, and we’re all trapped inside. It’s better than the hell we came from, but it’s nowhere near where I want us to be. I just need to remember that we have to do disgusting things if we want to escape this life.

We leave the house with twenty orders between us and an extra hundred dollars each. With this much cash, we can stop for the day, so we walk down the street, back toward the van. I grab her hand and stop her before we reach it, though.

“I’m proud of you, pup. I hate using DV as a cover because it hits so close to home, but you did good. You’re a good little liar. Just like I thought you’d be.”

“Thanks . . . I think.”

I mess with her hair, and we head to the designated pickup spot. Once we open the back door, we discover that the van is empty. Not even Stacks sits in his usual spot behind the wheel.

“Hey, maybe we’ll actually have the best seat in the van this time,” I say as I help her inside.

I climb in behind her and leave the door open to stave off the heat as we take the middle seat instead of the very back. Someone else can sit on someone else’s lap this time. Then again, I don’t mind having her on my lap. Just thinking about the last time . . .

I glance around and make sure no one is coming before I push her back and climb over her. She looks up at me and bites her lip. I think we’re both riding a bit of a high after that sale.

I ease her hair away from her face and kiss the bruise on her head. “I really want to fuck you, pup.” I grab her hand and put it on the front of my jeans. “And I can. Right now.”

“What do you mean, you can right now?”

“I can’t always get hard. Trauma is a bitch.” I trail kisses down her neck, but flashes of that exact trauma come to the front of my mind. My stepfather’s touch drags across my skin, and my erection falls. I’m limp again. “And sometimes I can’t fucking stay hard,” I say with a sigh. I throw myself into the seat and try to beat back my absolute embarrassment.

“Hey,” she says as she sits up on her knees. Her hands go to either side of my face and make me look at her. “Don’t feel bad. People hurt you.”

“It’s just not fair to you. Because what I need and what you need are probably very different things.”

“What do you mean?”