The Orphans (Book 4): White Lie by Mike Evans Read Free Book Online

“I’m not apologizing to him, why are you so hard up on him?”
    “Just think of this, how many of the Turned have you taken out? Do you remember the day you were one of the ones hiding on the bus and he was one of the ones that made sure you didn’t die? He helped save you, and this is how you are repaying that, this is the respect that you show him?”
    Charlie laughed and said, “But he’s slow dude, besides you guys with the guns did all of the shooting that day. I mean, I know he bashed one of their heads in and all but I mean there isn’t anything more than that. It was you and Shaun like always that was in charge.”
    Greg let go of Chris and put a foot behind Charlie then gripped his chest and pushed backwards, sending him off balance and slamming him down onto the table. Everyone in the cafeteria stopped eating to see what was happening and saw the rare display of aggression as Greg had fire in his eyes.
    When the boy tried to get back up, immediately he was rewarded with a punch to the face. Greg lifted and slammed him into the table again.
    Greg looked up and saw both Charlie and Chris’ dads coming towards him and their sons. Clary stood up the second that he heard the first slam on the table and Aslin wasn’t far behind. Clary stood between the two father’s paths and said, “You leave them alone.”
    Charlie’s dad said, “That’s my son, you better get out of my way now or-”
    Clary, who was unintimidated, took a step further to make his point. “He isn’t going to kill them so don’t worry, but if he’s doing this then they did something and they deserve it. Your kid needs to learn about being part of a team and being respectful.”
    When Chris’ dad tried pushing past, Clary said, “I swear you really need to stop right there. Like I said, there’s something that we don’t know that is going on and I feel that Greg probably knows what he is doing. He doesn’t fly off the handle on a regular basis.”
    When the two dads looked like they were both ready to protest they stopped immediately when they saw Joey turning around off of the bench seat and wiping tears from his eyes. Charlie’s dad said, “Oh great they must have been making fun of the ret-”
    Aslin, now already sitting on edge, gripped him and he stopped what he was saying and said, “The special needs kid, sorry old habits are hard to break.”
    Aslin said, “Just remember he’s contributed more around here than any of you put together. There’s two sides to the fence here, literally. If you and your kids are going to start trouble and you aren’t going to be useful around here, it’s going to be a bad time of the year during winter to be out and on your own.”
    “You’d throw us out during the middle of winter in Iowa? I mean there’s a lot of them and I don’t know what to do with them.”
    Aslin said, “Well then make yourselves useful and try to be a little more sympathetic to other people’s needs. There are training classes and plenty of things that could be done. Freeloading isn’t going to be a long term thing. I can promise you this.”
    The two dads both nodded slowly and watched the rest of the scene taking place.
     
    *****
     
    Greg saw that the dads were intercepted then noticed that Chris went to walk forward and attempted to grip his shoulder. Chris was rewarded with Greg’s elbow to his gut. Joey turned around, saw this and wiped off his tears with his sleeve. Chris dropped to the ground on a knee and Charlie lay back on the table breathing heavy. Greg gave him his full attention when Chris was guaranteed to not get back up immediately. Charlie said, “I’m sorry, Greg, I'm sorry!”
    Greg grabbed him, lifting him off of the table. “You don’t apologize to me.”
    When Charlie looked confused, Greg pulled him off of the table and dropped him down to the floor by Chris. Greg screamed, “You apologize to Joey. He doesn’t deserve any of this shit, especially from the two of you. You two