Chapter 0009

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.