Dirt

Strawberry

Andy looked paler than I'd ever seen him before and before I could ask difference we all turned to the sounds of gun shots fired in the distance.

Too far to be our territory, but certainly close enough to know it was Rue territory -a neighboring gang that we were friendly with.

They'd even lost some of their own siding in our rumbles on our turf.

Which meant we owed them.

We all sprinted towards the direction we heard the shots come from, even Handsome and Joey who spent more than half their summer on the life guard deck scoping out the honey dips an trying to look cool, dashed off.

We weren't the first to the scene of the crime

Juan was already there as well as Irvan and Cynthia who must have been close by. Dale a mean looking slick was hunched over a brick and body in which were both covered in blood -neither boys were breathing both were lifeless

Though the battered face I could vaguely tell that the other body was Bernard's, a Rue, a soft fellow and fairly too young to be dead like this.

Bernard was also Irvan's best friend, they were both tuff Mexicans, cunning and funny, both ran away from home and ended up here, both dealt with abusive parents and overall struggled in life.

They had been halves to each others whole, and now one was dead.

I looked around, only mourning Rues and sober Dirts remained -no other gang around, this must have been a hit and run I thought.

Bastards.

I walked over to Grey Channing a rough and tough enough looking kid, 20, built, hardend into nothing, and quiet a colorful mouth on him.

He's about as average as they come, blonde hair, blue eyes, and bout as mean as a rattle snake. He's been Rues leader 12 years now -ever since the gang was only a group of tanned fair skinned boys who used to cause trouble by the pool house- every one in that group grew up together -even Bernard came just in time be considered family by now- and known each other real well their whole lives most had shitty backgrounds but who didn't?

Grey had already lost two on our turf in front of his own eyes and it tore him up mighty like a pity. You'd think that's what hardened him

but it wasn't

Some thing else hardened him, some thing else we didn't know about -but that was only icing to the cake and this , this right here -well it's only the candles.

His eyes reserved a bit of room for rage and mourn.

This right here was the last straw, he was coming for the Slicks and coming for blood.