Dead Ends by Erin Jade Lange Read Free Book Online

I’ll help you find your dad, all right?”
    I had no idea what kind of a mess I might be getting myself into, but it didn’t look like I had much choice. Something told me the warden just wouldn’t buy it if I told him the friendly new kid with Down syndrome was blackmailing me.
    â€œAwesome,” Billy said. “And I’ll help you find yours.”
    â€œThat’s okay, I don’t want—”
    But Billy was already pounding down the sidewalk, babbling on about when we should get started and how long it might take.
    Two turns later, at the end of our street, he finally became aware of me again.
    â€œI need another favor.”
    The kid had nerve.
    â€œYou have to teach me to fight.” Billy pulled himself up straight and pounded a fist into a palm the way he’d seen me do earlier.
    I started to laugh, but the intense look in his eyes cut me off. “Oh, you’re serious.”
    â€œ
Dead
serious.”
    I half smiled. That line sounded like something Billy had heard a tough guy say on TV. “Yeah, I’m pretty sure teaching you to fight is the
opposite
of what Mr. Bell wants,” I said.
    â€œSo you won’t do it?” Billy narrowed his eyes at me.
    My half smile opened all the way, imagining what the warden would think if he knew he’d just traded in my detentions for fighting lessons.
    I gave Billy’s shoulder a soft slug. “That’s exactly why I
will
do it.”

Chapter 8
    Billy may have been a berserker—whatever that meant—but he’d obviously never thrown a real punch. Only a few days after promising the kid I’d teach him to fight, I already regretted it. It would have been easier to take my chances with the warden than hang my Twain High career on Billy’s demands.
    I thought we’d cleared the toughest hurdle just convincing Billy’s mom to let him leave our street. I had waited on the sidewalk while Billy promised her we were just going to “hang out” and that we wouldn’t go far. But Mrs. Drum hadn’t appeared to be listening. She was a frazzled-looking woman with suspicious eyes, and she’d stood in the doorway, staring right past Billy down to me. It was obvious she thought “hang out” meant do drugs and that anywhere beyond our street was too far. But Billy had begged, and she’d finally relented, making him promise to be home by dark.
    I pressed my fingers over my eyelids and leaned back against the splintering wooden post of a swing set. “I don’t know what to tell you, dude. It’s not that hard to hold a fist.”
    â€œIt is for me.”
    I opened my eyes and saw Billy sitting on the end of a faded yellow plastic slide. The park with the beat-up, old playground covered in gang symbols and rust was the best place we’d found to get a little privacy. It was too much of a crap heap to draw any kids during the day, and the thugs who used it as a meeting place for drug deals or a canvas for spray paint never showed up until after dark.
    Billy looked at his hands, splaying the fingers and forcing them to stay straight. When he rested his hands, those fingers curved in slightly. He could make a thick fist, but he had a hard time holding on to it. Every time he landed a punch, his fingers went slack, and so far he’d hurt his own hands more than he’d hurt me.
    I pushed off the pole and stood up straight, shaking off my frustration.
    â€œOkay, one more. This time hit me here.” I pointed at my stomach. “It’s soft. It won’t hurt.”
    Billy shook his head. “You’re not teaching me right.”
    â€œI’m not—what?” I flinched. “Screw you, Billy D.! I’m doing you a favor. And I don’t do—”
    â€œI know,” Billy interrupted. “You don’t do favors.”
    I snapped my jaw closed.
    â€œYou should show me how to hit harder or—”
    â€œIt’s not just