Free Over My Head (Wildlings) by Charles de Lint Page B

trust any of them.
    "We both know what Auntie Min wants from me," I say.
    "Poster boy," Des says with a smile in his voice.
    I pretend I didn't hear him.
    We wander out of Erik's neighbourhood and cross Ocean Avenue. There we turn south and head to where the pier juts out into the ocean. Our houses are just a few blocks past it. We're in no hurry and we've done this before, but usually Marina's with us as we take a late-night ramble through town. We all like it, but I think she likes it the best. The dark empty streets, the sound of the waves carrying farther than they ever do in the day.
    I can't wait for her to not be grounded anymore. Not that it would make any difference for this kind of thing, but just seeing her at school's not enough. We need some normal time to get things back on track. We don't get to play music, we don't get to hang out or have movie marathons where Des pulls out all his old horror and kung fu movies. Nothing's the same and I miss her—how we used to be.
    I hunch my shoulders and keep on walking. We're almost at the parking lot when I first hear the rumble of an engine. I've heard that particular engine before. Everybody in Santa Feliz knows the sound of Trucho Salazar's red and yellow '48 Hudson with its flamed paint job and pimped exhaust. People stopped complaining about it a long time ago because Trucho is Fat Boy Zaragoza's lieutenant, and Fat Boy runs the Riverside Kings. People who talk out of turn about them tend to have bad things happen.
    They don't usually cause trouble on this side of the Pacific Coast Highway, but that doesn't stop them from cruising through. I think they do it to piss off the Ocean Avers. Some of the younger Kings—the ones that can be bothered—even attend Sunny Hill High.
    Des doesn't hear the car yet. We could take off, but we're out in the open and he can't run like I can. They'd spot him. Maybe they'd do nothing, but you never know with the gangs—and that includes the Ocean Avers as well as the Kings.
    There's no way I'd leave him behind.
    "Just look at the ground," I tell him. "Keep walking and don't look around."
    "Why?" he asks, but then he hears it, too. "Oh, dude. We are so screwed."
    "They'll probably just drive by."
    Except they don't. A moment later, the Hudson pulls up beside us.
    "Hey, putos ," a voice calls from the car. "How come you're not holding hands?"
    Crap.
    Des turns to me. "Dude, tell me you're not going to let them beat us up."

    Chaingang

    Here's how I roll: I run into a problem, I deal with it. End of story. So this crap with the dude who killed Lenny is really getting under my skin.
    Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if I didn't come back from my ride to find J-Dog with his panties in such a twist. As soon as I see the state he's worked himself into, I realize I shouldn't have even tried going to school. I should have stayed at the clubhouse to ride herd on him because now he's had the whole day to fix his hate on the Riverside Kings for killing Lenny.
    Now, if the RKs really had anything to do with it, I'd be the first to saddle up and lay some hurt down in the barrio. But I know for a fact they didn't. Trouble is, I can't explain how I know. J-Dog doesn't know I'm a Wildling—none of the gang does—and I can't talk about the psycho killer without something bad happening to Grandma or Marina. What I do know is that an all-out war with the Kings isn't going to solve anything. The only thing a war will do is make my job that much harder.
    After a couple of hours of intense arguing, I finally manage to talk him out of retaliating, or at least convince him to wait for a bit to see how it plays out. Hopefully that will buy me enough time to sort out this kill-Josh shit.
    It's almost sundown and I step outside to watch the last rays leak from the sky on the horizon. There's a good breeze coming from the hills behind me. I'm thinking of texting Marina when I hear the front door of the main ranch house bang open and there's J-Dog with a sawed-off