be hiding away from it. Withdrawing, not mixing and talking with the other boys. And shit . . . the boys, even though they were mostly younger, they were a laugh. It reminded him of the camaraderie he, Jay, and the other younger boys had enjoyed back home. Only it was even better; the booze . . . the smokes.
Oh, God, the music. It was a thousand miles away from singing along to an out-of-tune acoustic guitar; singing ‘kumbaya’ with the other children on the rigs - the height of an evening’s entertainment.
Nathan didn’t get it. Didn’t understand what the hell was up with Jacob. The boys here may be a year or two younger than them but they had all the same interests . . . games and stuff. Shit, some of them even had Yu-Gi-Oh decks that Jacob could have traded with. And them being that little bit older and having come from some other place, the boys sort of looked up to them as wise and worldly travellers.
Like celebrities.
He just didn’t get it. The pair of them were praetorians now. The elite. Getting every perk available. It just didn’t get any better than that. And if what Snoop had been telling him earlier last night was true, that he was thinking of making them both his second-in-commands, then for fuck’s sake what the hell did Jake have to sulk about?
Nathan wanted to shake Jacob by the shoulders and tell him to snap out of whatever had got into him. After wishing for something like this for so long, he wanted to remind his oldest friend that this was it.
And not to bloody well go and ruin it.
Sinking back into a head-pounding half sleep, he resolved to pull Jacob aside today, somewhere quiet, and warn him that if he kept this sulking up the other boys were going to notice it, maybe even start playing on it. And before long they’d be taking the piss out of him. There was no way Snoop could afford to let Jacob continue being a second-in-command if, behind his back, the rank and file were all razzing him.
‘He’s what?’
‘Dead.’
Maxwell stared at Snoop. ‘Dead?’ His tone of voice demanded further explanation. Immediately.
‘It looks like they had a fight, Chief. Had a fight over one of the girls. There was a new girl Dizz-ee was breaking in.’
‘New girl?’
‘I didn’t recognise her, but then she was beat up quite bad. I suppose the white kid, Jacob, took a liking to her and Dizz got jealous.’
Maxwell shook his head angrily. ‘You were meant to look after the pair of them.’
Snoop shuffled uncomfortably. ‘I was. I was taking care of Nathan and . . .’
‘And what? You decided to put that stupid moron Dizz-ee in charge of Jacob?’
Snoop could only nod.
‘What the fuck were you thinking?’
He could have been honest; could have told Maxwell that he was up for a laugh last night and that Nathan seemed a whole lot more the party type than Jacob did. So, he delegated the boring one of the two to that fuckhead, Dizz-ee. But the old man would probably throw a hissy fit if he did.
Instead he lowered his gaze to the floor. ‘Okay, I messed up.’
‘Jesus Christ, not fucking half! Of the two of them,’ said Maxwell softening his voice. ‘Of the two of them, Jacob Sutherland was the one who could have given us the most leverage.’
‘I know that, Chief,’ Snoop mumbled.
Alan Maxwell ground his teeth with irritation. ‘Well, it’s done now. No point crying over spilled milk. Here’s what you’re going to have to do. Tell the other lad . . . Nathan . . . tell him that Dizz-ee got a little too out of his head and for some reason took a disliking to his friend. I’m sure you can come up with some plausible reason. Maybe he found out somehow that I wanted to make these two new lads second-in-commands and he didn’t like the idea.’
Snoop nodded.
‘You tell Nathan you found out what happened. In your anger you went down there and killed that moron, Dizz-ee. Understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Hopefully Nathan will be grateful to you for that.’
Snoop nodded.
‘Help yourself to a joint and a bottle of booze. You go and bond with him, commiserate with him, get pissed together and tell him you’re really cut up about what happened. Tell him he’s in our family now and we look after each other. Got it?’
‘A’ight, Chief.’
‘Now, what about the girl?’
‘The girl?’
‘Yes, the one they were fighting over.’
‘Oh,