Read Online Crab Town by Iii Carlton Mellick - Free Book Online Page A

a balloon. They called themselves the House of Cards and wore gas masks. I can’t tell what they looked like beneath the masks, but I can give you their builds and hair color.”
    “That won’t be necessary,” Little Sister told him. “Just go home, get out of the street. You’re not safe here.”
    The man agreed and took off running.
    Little Sister tossed her police hat and went for the bikes in the alley. She raised their sails and pointed them into the wind. When she heard the police whistles, she wasn’t sure what to do. Jack had told her not to enter the bank if she heard gun shots. She was instructed to wait three minutes and if they didn’t come out, she was supposed to get out of there on her own.
    She waited three minutes, then got on her bike. The police whistles were getting closer. She couldn’t be seen in her fake uniform.
    When her colleagues left the bank, she could tell the job went wrong. Horribly wrong. Two of them were wounded and Jack was nowhere to be seen.

    “Where is he?” Little Sister asks as they come into the alley.
    “Jack’s dead,” says Doomsday, helping Nine onto the back of Sailboat’s bike.
    “What?” Little Sister giggles nervously at the thought. “He can’t be…”
    “He’s fucking dead!” Sailboat yells at her.
    Little Sister flinches at his words.

    They see Johnny Balloon running past the alley, with gunshots trailing behind him. The cops have arrived on the scene and have already opened fire on the first guy they see carrying a gun. Bullets whiz past his head. He screams in a panic, knowing that he’ll pop at the slightest graze.
    “We’ve got to save him,” says Miss Doomsday.
    “Leave him,” says Sailboat. “We’ll be able to get away as he draws the fire.”
    “I’m going for him,” Doomsday says.
    “But you don’t even know him.”
    “Let’s split up. Meet back in Crab Town, in the square.”
    “You can’t be serious. He’s a fucking balloon!”
    As she dismisses him and peddles out into the street, Sailboat kicks the wall. Going after her would be stupid, especially with Nine to look after. The Nine of Hearts is sitting on the bike, shivering from the loss of blood. He can’t worry about Doomsday right now. He has to get Nine back to Crab Town, to the doctor, the Queen of Spades.
    As Sailboat gets on the back of the bike with Nine, Little Sister passes him, peddling into the street after Miss Doomsday.
    “Where are you going?” he yells.
    “She needs me.” Little Sister doesn’t look back. “I’m the Two of Diamonds. Escaping from the police is my department.”
    The big guy doesn’t argue. He looks down at Nine and peddles off, in the other direction.
    When Little Sister enters the street, the cops stop firing. They see a teenager in a police uniform and think she’s on their side for a brief moment, until she rides up next to Miss Doomsday with a matching bike.

    Little Sister was the leader of one of Crab Town’s most violent street gangs, The King Crabs . Being a kid in Crab Town with dead parents you have pretty much only one option if you want to survive: you join a gang. And once you’re in a gang, it’s kill or be killed.
    The King Crabs were a bicycle gang that claimed about forty percent of Crab Town, including the House of Cards’ area of operation. Now that gas-powered vehicles are as rare as clean water, most people use either pedal-powered or sail-powered transportation. The King Crabs use both. They created sail-bikes, which are kind of like a combination of sailboard and BMX bike. Little Sister was building them since she could walk and by the time she was old enough to crack a shitter’s head open with a brick, she had a gang of street warriors riding her sail-bikes and taking her commands.
    On their sail-bikes, the King Crabs are the fastest people on the road. Not even the cops in their giant street boats can catch them. They ride onto their enemy turf with spears and axes, slicing through them and sailing