Not too much shocked DJ during his time living in the beat-to-shit group home in the ass-end of Tucson, Arizona, but the sound of helpless whimpering caught him off guard. When he barged into the second-floor bedroom, the four idiots turned, their eyes wary.
“What the hell is going on?” At six-foot-one, DJ easily pushed aside the leering morons surrounding a dark-haired beauty huddling on the floor, shirt ripped, hair tangled.
“Why don’t you mind your own damn business,” Jimmy, the stupidest one of the group, blustered.
Normally, DJ ignored the bullshit. After seventeen years in the system, he’d seen and heard it all and was just counting the days till he could age out of this dump. He spent as little time as possible at the home, and when he was there, he usually kept his distance from each one of them. Six guys and four girls—ten kids total, all destined for disaster—himself included.
DJ grabbed Jimmy by the neck of his grubby t-shirt. “Did you do this?” DJ nodded to the girl clutching her tattered clothes.
“We were just having some fun,” Jimmy mumbled.
“She wanted us to do it,” Jimmy’s pimply-faced friend added. “She was liking it.”
DJ curled his lip. “Doesn’t look like she’s having fun to me.”
“She struts around here acting like she’s better than everybody,” Jimmy countered. “Just trying to show this bitch how things work.”
Jimmy put all the new girls through “his version” of an initiation, and the sick fuck got off on it. Most of the other girls were tough enough to hold their own, but this innocent with the wide ebony eyes was way out of her league.
“Leave her alone,” DJ warned.
“What the fuck do you care? She ain’t nothing to you.” Jimmy tried to break out of DJ’s grip.
Jimmy had a point. DJ had never seen her before this minute. He didn’t know what wicked twist of fate dropped her in this shithole, but she clearly didn’t belong here.
“I ever see you touch her again, I’ll fuckin’ kill you in your sleep,” DJ spat out the harsh words as a threat, but the pounding of his pulse and the fierce anger bubbling in his gut surprised him. He’d made it a firm rule to stay detached and away from the drama that haunted this rat-trap. The adults who were supposed to be supervising the kids were either preaching how the world was about to end or buying sex toys off some porno channel. In short, the animals in this zoo roamed free.
The moron’s eyes bugged out, and DJ gave him an extra shake for good measure. Jimmy’s buddies were already inching their way toward the door when DJ shoved him in the same direction as the others.
He turned to the girl and extended his hand, but she hesitated. “I’m not gonna hurt you.”
She grabbed on to DJ, her slender fingers firm inside his large palm. Her chest rose and fell with choppy breaths, and as she struggled to pull the torn blouse over her breasts, her cheeks reddened against her tawny skin.
“You don’t have to be embarrassed; I ain’t looking.” A shitty lie because he couldn’t help but notice how the soft curls of her midnight black hair fell over her rounded breasts.
“Thank you for helping me.” Her soft voice made his chest ache. It would’ve been much better for her if she was some hardass chick telling him to fuck off.
“Those guys are assholes. You gotta stay far away from them. Stick with the other girls.”
“I don’t think the other girls like me very much either.”
Probably true. “They’re jealous.” The three other females in the house had bad skin and stringy hair. “You don’t look like you belong here.” It scared DJ how those thoughts popped out of his mouth, but her innocence floored him. She was like a beautiful flower in the middle of the Mojave Desert—unexpected, out of place, and sure to die.
“I’m Zelda.” She held out her delicate hand as though they were meeting at some society ball, not this group home where she almost got raped by lunatics.
“Dwayne.” Where the hell did that come from? He never divulged his real name. “But everybody calls me DJ.”
“Neither do you.”
“What?”
“You don’t look like you belong here either.” Zelda’s gaze roamed over him. “You’re nothing like the others. You’re good.”
That floored DJ since his caseworker threw him in here as a last resort after he knocked his previous foster-father unconscious for trying to touch his dick while he was sleeping. No fuckin’ way was that happening.
“Nah.” DJ plastered a smirk on his face to hide his embarrassment. “I’m just not a psycho who beats up on women.”
“Today, you’re my hero.” She squeezed his hand, and his chest constricted.
Zelda’s soft voice and the word “hero” made him envision the fairytale stories that never came true.
“Just stay away from those guys.”
It was a stupid warning because they roamed the house like panthers in the jungle, and with limited supervision, what happened to her before was bound to happen again.
“I’m not worried as long as you’re here.”
The tightness in DJ’s chest grew to an ache, making it impossible to speak, as the hopefulness in Zelda’s eyes crushed him. He wanted to shake her to reality, scream at her to toughen the fuck up and learn to defend herself, but anything he uttered would come out wrong and scare her.
Her smile widened like he was her savior and that floored him too. Sure, DJ wasn’t the kind of asshole who would do nasty shit to a girl and laugh while she screamed, but he was nobody’s hero either. He’d jacked his share of cars, stole anything that wasn’t nailed down, and had his own corner making a fair profit selling weed. Right now, he just wanted to escape Zelda’s expectations and the warmth of her hand in his.
He pulled away without another word, jogged down the stairs, and bolted through the front door onto the cracked, weed-infested, cement walkway. DJ sucked in a few deep breaths, his back rigid and his hands fisted tight, not quite sure why someone he barely knew had him so rattled or why this stranger stirred up sensations he didn’t even know existed.
He guessed Zelda to be no more than fifteen, although the way she talked so proper made her seem older. He bolted through the rickety iron gate and trudged up the sidewalk, passing the other sagging, dilapidated houses in this forsaken neighborhood.
He checked the time on his Rolex knockoff and picked up the pace. The scuffle with those assholes at the group home put him behind schedule. DJ raked in most of his cash on the weekends, and he had big plans of breaking free on his eighteenth birthday. In exactly six days and twelve and a half hours, he’d be on his own. No more caseworkers riding his ass; no more foster-fathers’ fists; no more foster-mothers’ grabby hands. No more punks trying to steal his shit. Nope, in less than a week, he’d be on his own. Blessed freedom.
His mind skittered to the sweet thing he’d just left with the pitch-black hair and even darker eyes. Zelda, what a crazy name, but it suited her—different and exotic. Everything about her screamed class, no swearing and cussing, no fronting or bragging, like she’d gone to one of those fancy schools where they taught her to talk right.
She sure was the best thing DJ had ever seen in one of these dumps, and he couldn’t help but wonder how a girl like her ended up free-falling. It didn’t make sense, but he didn’t have time for any diversions or interruptions in his plan. He wasn’t anybody’s savior, and he had to believe she’d end up figuring it out for herself. One thing about survival, it usually kicked in when least expected or when one’s life depended on it.
He pushed through the plate-glass door of the bodega, and the smell of cigarettes surrounded him as an overworked air-conditioner churned in the background. The narrow aisles were packed with everything from condoms to diapers, practically screaming, “if you don’t use one, you’ll surely need the other.”
“Hey, DJ,” Charleen called after him from behind the raised counter as she operated the cash register. Her voice mixed a squeaky door with a fire alarm—harsh and brittle like her bleached-out hair. Charleen squared her shoulders, sending her tits almost over the skin-tight tank top. “Let’s you and me hang out later.”
DJ nodded in her direction but kept his distance. Yesterday, one of the other guys told him she had a case of the crabs, so putting his dick or any part of him near her was a hard no. She moved around the counter and tried to follow him, but he picked up his pace. Who the fuck knew how far those little critters could jump? He pushed through the wall of hanging beads and let out a sigh of relief, knowing Axe only allowed his best earners into his private office, and Charleen didn’t qualify.
“Where the fuck you been?” Axe ground out.
“Had some shit to deal with.” Helping his dark-eyed angel was worth every ounce of Axe’s fuck-you attitude.
“Maybe you don’t wanna move up if you can’t get to a meet on time?” Axe challenged.
The other guys glared at him from the round splintered table Axe used for meetings. Half of them were scared of Axe, and rightfully so because he was a vengeful motherfucker. The other half were too stoned to notice, which was why he liked to work his corner alone.
“Sit down and pay attention.” Axe jerked his head to the empty chair, and DJ sat.
He wanted to say, “Just give me the damn product so I can get outta here and make some money,” but talking back never played well with Axe.
“I got a sweet deal set up for a pawn shop over on South Sixth. Old guy runs the place alone, and he’s got a huge stash of guns and all kinds of good shit. Smash and grab, in and out. Easy.” Axe leaned in, making eye contact with Lenny and DJ. “I want my two top earners on it.”
The other guys bitched and moaned about not getting a shot at a hot job, but Axe shut them down with a deadly glare and a “shut the fuck up.” Then he gripped DJ’s shoulder. “The best jobs go to the guys I can trust ’cause loyalty is everything.”
Sweet. With extra cash in his pocket, maybe DJ could move up his plan of freedom and beat it out of Arizona sooner rather than later.
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