Animal Kingdom Read Free Page B

around its textured grip, was something more than a new experience: it was an epiphany.
    â€˜Is this thing loaded?’ he asked.
    Craig looked at him, like What do you expect?
    What was he supposed to do with it? What had Craig handed it to him for? But Craig wasn’t answering any questions as he shot along the Parade, weaving in and out of the traffic after the other car. And there was no question he meant to end it on his own terms.
    Chasing the hoons through the back streets, Craig was obviously enjoying himself. There was nothing like the thrill of the chase to get the blood pumping.
    And so were the two Lebs. Hanging a left, taking a right. Everyone wants to be a gangster. Chucking a handbrake turn like they’d seen in Tokyo Drift , ducking and weaving as they raced ahead of them, doing burnouts and wheelies, tear-arsing around corners—this was the most fun anyone had had for quite a while.
    With Craig tailgating them the whole way and J hanging on for dear life.
    They’d brake and Craig would swerve; Craig’d started overtaking and they’d do a U-ey. Great fun all round.
    And all with deadly serious intent. The boys had picked the wrong nose to pull, and Craig was going to stick something long and hard right up them and then squeeze the trigger.
    J still didn’t know what his role was going to be. Getting in the car for a ride with your uncle and winding up an accessory to murder wasn’t exactly his idea of a fun family day out, but maybe it wasn’t murder Craig was thinking of. Maybe it was something worse. Things were moving a bit too fast for him to really suss how mad it was all going to get. Still, seeing where it had started, and given the nature of his family, J was definitely apprehensive.
    Cornering the Lebs in a dead-end street with a narrow, dirty lane the only way out, Craig saw the Jap bomb they were driving slow to a halt in front of him, and, putting on his own brakes, waited to see what would happen next.
    And then the real fun began.
    The short-fused git who had started it all hopped out, roaring like King Kong on heat. ‘Come on, come outside! I’ll deck you, mate!’ he bellowed, thumping his chest. ‘Come outside!’
    â€˜Go get him, tiger,’ Craig said.
    â€˜And do what?’ J asked nervously.
    â€˜Let him know who’s the real king,’ Craig answered as the guy stomped around, revving himself up and calling ‘Come on, idiot! Come outside!’
    You could see this was what the Leb had been looking for. After a week of shit or his girlfriend dumping him or something, he was just looking to get his rocks off and let it rip back-street style. He had no idea who he was dealing with and how out of his league he was.
    Struggling with his door, J clambered out, still uncertain what he was going to do, and looking like what he was: a pale, frightened schoolboy. The Leb guy was going to eat him; he was going to pulverise him. But, raising the gun, J pointed it straight at him.
    Wasn’t that a game-changer!
    Throwing his hands up, Big Mouth started to back off fast. ‘Hey, hey, hey—hey, brother,’ the guy said, ‘just relax, man,’ like he was a UN peacekeeper. ‘I just wanted to have a chat to him.’
    But J wasn’t anyone’s brother, and certainly not this idiot’s. He was the man with the gun, and, while it might have been shaking in his hand, it was still his finger on the trigger, and his eye looking down the barrel.
    Craig was loving it, chuckling as the Leb shat bricks.
    The driver had already made himself scarce, like the good friend he was, and was swinging the car around to take off as fast as his two-stroke shit-box could manage, when the Leb noticed him running and, turning tail himself, squawked, ‘Fuck this, man,’ and jumped in. Slamming into the laneway, they were so anxious to get away that they scraped both sides of their car as they barrelled through the