The Loners by Lex Thomas

Author:Lex Thomas [Thomas, Lex]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: cookie429, Kat, Extratorrents
ISBN: 978-1-60684-330-7
Publisher: EgmontUSA
Published: 2012-07-09T14:00:00+00:00

18

DAVID’S MACHETE CLAPPED AGAINST HIS back with every step. He’d fashioned a sheath for it out of thick, folded cardboard and fastened it to his back with string. He looked over the chaos of the market, at all the flapping mouths, the bared teeth, and the grabbing hands. He didn’t want to be here long. Get in, get out. Thirty Loners stood behind him carrying goods for trade; the rest he’d sent back to the Stairs with the food they’d need until the next drop came.

“Ritchie, take Nelson and your team to the Sluts. Try to get the bulk of supplies from them. Toilet paper, soap, the usual. Everybody else, make your free trades, but stick close to each other.”

“Loners!” somebody shouted over the crowd. David didn’t have to look up to know who it was: Bobby Corning, the Freaks’ leader, who now insisted on being called Jackal. He painted his face white. He thought it made him look undead. David couldn’t bring himself to call Bobby Jackal. Before he’d decided to reinvent himself as a satanic singer-songwriter, Bobby had spent his freshman year in pastel polo shirts. That was hard to forget.

“You picked a good day to die!” Bobby said as he cut through the market with a swarm of Freaks behind him. Other gangs stopped what they were doing to watch.

“That’s your big line?” David said with a grin that covered up the anxiety churning his insides. “I hope you didn’t spend all day on it.”

Bobby’s face soured. “No, I just came up with it right now!” he said. He flipped his blue bangs out of his eyes with his sharpened black nails.

David relaxed a little. He already had the upper hand.

“You owe us a TV, bitch!” Bobby said. He got in David’s face.

Will lunged for Bobby. David barely caught him by the waist of his pants. He yanked Will back beside him.

“You want that TV? You come and get it! Bring all your poser friends!” Will said, trying to fight David off in the same breath. David motioned for Gonzalo to intercede. Gonzalo wasted no time picking Will up and walking him away to the back of the group. But he still got one last jab in. “They can watch me beat your face in, toilethead!”

“It’s Jackal!” Bobby shouted after Will, spit flying from his mouth. He turned sharply to David. “Who the hell are you, huh? The Loners? You’re not a gang, you’re nobodies.”

The Freaks creaked forward in their shoes, waiting for Bobby to say the word. Grab your machete, Bobby’s eyes seemed to say. David had only thirty people with him; the rest were on the other side of the school by now. That’s why Bobby had picked the market instead of the quad to face off. Bobby had at least sixty Freaks with him now. The Loners would lose.

“Just take it easy, Jackal,” David said.

“Stay outta the drops, Loner. You’re messing with our livelihood,” Bobby said, getting louder so other gangs could hear. “You’re

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