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The Heathens

Ace Atkins
Chapters (33)
  1. ALSO BY ACE ATKINS
  2. Dedication
  3. Epigraph
  4. ONE
  5. TWO
  6. THREE
  7. FOUR
  8. FIVE
  9. SIX
  10. SEVEN
  11. EIGHT
  12. NINE
  13. TEN
  14. ELEVEN
  15. TWELVE
  16. THIRTEEN
  17. FOURTEEN
  18. FIFTEEN
  19. SIXTEEN
  20. SEVENTEEN
  21. EIGHTEEN
  22. NINETEEN
  23. TWENTY
  24. TWENTY-ONE
  25. TWENTY-TWO
  26. TWENTY-THREE
  27. TWENTY-FOUR
  28. TWENTY-FIVE
  29. TWENTY-SIX
  30. TWENTY-SEVEN
  31. TWENTY-EIGHT
  32. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
  33. What’s next onyour reading list?

ALSO BY ACE ATKINS

QUINN COLSON NOVELS

The Ranger

The Lost Ones

The Broken Places

The Forsaken

The Redeemers

The Innocents

The Fallen

The Sinners

The Shameless

The Revelators

ROBERT B. PARKER’S SPENSER NOVELS

Robert B. Parker’s Lullaby

Robert B. Parker’s Wonderland

Robert B. Parker’s Cheap Shot

Robert B. Parker’s Kickback

Robert B. Parker’s Slow Burn

Robert B. Parker’s Little White Lies

Robert B. Parker’s Old Black Magic

Robert B. Parker’s Angel Eyes

Robert B. Parker’s Someone to Watch Over Me

NICK TRAVERS NOVELS

Crossroad Blues

Leavin’ Trunk Blues

Dark End of the Street

Dirty South

TRUE CRIME NOVELS

White Shadow

Wicked City

Devil’s Garden

Infamous

Dedication

For Angela

Sweet Child O’ Mine

Epigraph

When grown people speak of the innocence of children, they don’t really know what they mean. Pressed, they will go a step further and say, Well, ignorance then. The child is neither.

—William Faulkner, The Reivers

When we march, we keep moving till dark, so as to give the enemy the least possible chance at us.

—Rogers’ Rangers Standing Orders No. 8

ONE

Tanya Jane Byrd, known to her friends as TJ, never gave a damn about being famous. But here she was, four days on the run from Tibbehah County, Mississippi, with that girl Chastity passing along the burner phone to show they now had more than a hundred thousand followers on Instagram. They only had six posts, the newest one from just two hours ago after TJ cut her hair boy short, dyed it black as a raven’s wing, and made her ultimatum to that cowardly son of a bitch Chester Pratt. She called him out for not only her mother’s murder but the money she and her little brother John Wesley were owed.

On the forty-five-second clip shot outside the Tri-State Motel in Texarkana, she held up her fist on the diving board to an empty pool and said, “Fair is fair,” remembering the line from one of her mother’s old VHS tapes in the trailer.

“What do you think?” Chastity asked.

“I think I better drop that phone into the nearest creek.”

TJ saying crik as she had her whole life, never caring about talking proper or right. To hell with how other people said it. At seventeen years old, TJ had no intention of being no different than she’d always been. Famous leader of the Byrd Gang or not. Five feet tall, skin as white as a china plate, and eyes that folks said reminded them of a Siberian husky.

“When we gonna eat?” John Wesley asked. Her nine-year-old brother lying on the other twin bed, kicking his legs back and forth while watching a show about street racers in Memphis. The host some middle-aged douchebag in sunglasses and a tight tank top to show off his big belly and sleeve tattoos.