Chapter 9
Sam’s POV
“Come here you f*cker!” Mateo gets me in a head lock for a second before I wiggle free and take off
running toward the truck. We all just ride together and get ready at the packhouse before school.
Even though we are all neighbors, we’ve been doing it so long now that it’s just a habit. We all joke
with Luna Ava about building an extension onto the twins’ floor and just letting us all move in since
we spend so much time there anyway.
I noticed that Sierra stuck to Skylar like glue all day today, even when they didn’t have classes
together. I also realized that Skylar took a bunch of classes with us even though she is a year
younger than we are in school. How I did not notice she was there before baffles me.
“How long has Sky been taking advanced classes?” I asked Mateo as we walked into the
lunchroom. It was really hard to just walk across the room without being flagged down or stopped by
people. Most of these kids just wanted something from us. It’s kind of annoying to have people
follow you everywhere just because of the family and rank you were born into. A lot of kids think that
if they hang out with us that makes them better than others, so the five of us pretty much keep to
ourselves here at school, it seems to be the only safe option. As we got older we noticed that
people would eavesdrop on conversations and then start rumors. Girls would lie about being with
us. It was kind of scary really. So we can’t really be ourselves here.
“Umm, not sure, why?”
“She’s in like half our classes and I didn’t even notice until today. We’ve been in school for a week,
how did I miss that?”
“Seriously? I didn’t know she was in classes with us. Which ones?”
“Umm, all the standards I think. She’s not in Leadership or Battle Strategies, but once I noticed her
in English and Math with Sierra, I kinda noticed her everywhere. It was a little scary.”
“Please tell me you have not switched your focus to my sister? I don’t think I could handle that.
She’s too innocent for any of that.” He groans at me.
“Umm, no.” I say pointedly. “But I will keep telling you how hot she is, because she is hot. She does
a good job of hiding it though.”
Mateo groans as we grab our lunches and head out to a table at the back of the outdoor patio. It’s
still pretty nice out so we soak up as much outdoor time as we can.
“What’s your plan for Sierra? Clock’s ticking, bro. Bonfire’s tonight.” Dakota laughs as he shoves a
forkful of food into his mouth.
“Don’t you worry about me, I have the situation handled. What you need to worry about is how none
of us noticed Sky is in most of our classes and not even her big, overprotective brother knew that
until today.”
We spent the rest of lunch trying to figure out not noticing Sky. I tried to get her attention in Science
and in History, but she either really liked her notebook or was actively avoiding us. I was hoping to
get Sierra in on the action since they seem to be friendly, but I have to find another tactic until I can
figure Sky out.
As luck would have it, Skylar and Sierra were talking to the three people we dislike most in this
whole school. All five of us groan, but this might be the last chance I get to invite Sierra so I suck it
up and head in their direction. At least the guys came to back me up with the psycho leeches.
“Hey guys!” Of course Kaley sees us first. I think that girl might have tracking devices on us. We
each sigh out a groan as we approach them.